Sniper's Ridge

"Sniper's Ridge" was at the peak of something that was happening to war movies in the 1950s.

Although some of the tactics are ridiculous, the equipment and sets look realistic enough in this small-scale film. However it's the idea behind it that counts.

The opening sequence has a platoon of American soldiers totally monstered by North Korean troops. Everyone hides, including the sergeant. The only effective soldier in the outfit saves them by pretty much performing his duty. The company commander, whose cowardice is exposed by a new arrival, petulantly orders his reluctant soldiers to attack hours before the ceasefire.

Hardly a recruitment film.

These days we are used to cynical portrayals of the military often still as a backlash against the Vietnam War. However, 1961s "Sniper's Ridge" already showed the changing attitudes towards service and even patriotism.

Movies exaggerate and distort for the sake of drama or even an agenda, but whether or not they reflect the truth, they do create a perception.

Maybe Korea coming so close to the end of WW2 caused this shift. Earlier movies celebrated the allied victory and bravery of the military during the war. However Korea caught everyone napping. America dug deep, reservists called up and draftees filling out the ranks, but the "police action" was different to the effort in WW2. Movies of the 50s reflected this. Although some movies were still about WW2, many took on a cynical edge.

The cowardly captain in "Sniper's Ridge" had cinematic company. Look at Captain Cooney in "Attack" and Captain "Waco" Grimes in "Between Heaven and Hell", both in 1956. Then there was "The Bridges at Toko-Ri"; Navy fliers in Korea asking, "Why am I here"?

The guys in the Hollywood military weren't just following orders anymore they were questioning everything. And it was happening in the movies of other countries as well.

"Pork Chop Hill", made in 1959, but based on fact, showed American soldiers well led by competent officers. Still the overall disillusionment with the Korean conflict comes through, and some of the soldiers definitely represented the social issues of the 50s.

The baby boomers that went to Vietnam were brought up on those movies, which helped shape attitudes. Anyone viewing "Sniper's Ridge" in that context would have guessed that Vietnam would be even more problematic.

As the Korean War is down to its last days before the armistice, a captain orders his men on a meaningless and dangerous night time mission. Since the men and the captain all know that the war is going to be over, the mission assignment causes a lot of friction which is displayed in several dramatic confrontations between the members of the platoon and the captain. Shot outdoors in what looks very much like a Southern California canyon, with quite a bit of shouting, and a no-name cast with and a low-budget production, AND an at times questionable script, this film could easily be turned off by a viewer with short patience. This person will, however, miss the final half hour or so, a very solid ending which features a tense situation with a land mine. In the panoply of tough and relentless Korean War movies, this one ranks up there with the other tough and low budget but better known ones.

Saying that Sniper's Ridge is just a poor man's version of Pork Chop Hill is not to denigrate this film, but merely to point out it's a B film. Sniper's Ridge is the kind of B film that used to fill out the bottom part of a double feature back in the day when they had double features. The sixties was the last decade that happened in.

The two most prominent names in this film are Jack Ging and Stanley Clements a pair of soldiers who are sweating out the final hours before the cease fire is to take effect in Korea. Both give good believable performances as do the rest of the cast. No mock Hollywood heroics here, these are men just trying to stay alive and get home.

If this is ever shown again on television try to catch it.

For the most part this low budget war drama is nothing more than routine. The story of a Corporal that has more guts than brains and more guts than his superiors. If anything is above average here, it is the performance turned in by Ging. It seems Hollywood noticed the appeal of low budget war pictures and a flood of them hit theaters in the late Fifties and early Sixties. TV followed with action series such as "Combat." The genre provided a testing ground for new talent, at a low dollar out-put, and occasionally one would hit the mark.

An unrelentingly grim and emotional Korean War drama, Sniper's Ridge is a tidy piece of work, well-directed by John Bushelman, it gives a nice sense of how confining war can be; accustomed as moviegoers are to vast beaches and endless jungles, this film paints a more accurate portrait of war, as small, remote and cramped, with men scurrying in and out of ditches and bunkers like rats.

The film is as much as character study as anything else, as it follows the unraveling of an heroic, reluctant and homesick soldier on the last day of the war. There are also parallel stories concerning, among others, a vindictive officer, a compassionate career dog-face, and a sergeant who has lost his nerve. The sergeant is the most interesting and tragic of the bunch, as he was once a genuine hero, for reasons he didn't understand, and is now afraid of being killed, and again doesn't comprehend what's going on. For all this, he remains highly likeable and sympathetic throughout the course of the film.

Jack Ging, as the reluctant hero, is excellent, breathing life into what in lesser hands might have been a thoroughly obnoxious if at times admirable character. Stanley Clements is superb and wholly believable as a two-fisted tough guy. As the sergeant, Douglas Henderson is magnificent, as he plays, with great dignity, a man haunted by ambivalance and fear, yet in whom we sense a fine if wounded individual.