The Steel Helmet

In the Korean War, the prisoner of war Sergeant Zack (Gene Evans) and only survivor of his company is released by the South-Korean boy Short Round (William Chun). The walk together trying to reach the American lines, and they stumble with other survivors, forming a ragtag platoon.

When they reach a Buddhist temple, they learn that it is abandoned and they camp there, transforming it in an observation outpost. When they realize that they are under siege of the communist army, they have to battle to survive.

"The Steel Helmet" is a simple, scathing and extremely realistic film by Samuel Fuller. The behavior of the soldiers and the battle scenes battle scenes are extremely realistic. But the stronger part is the sharp critic to the racism in America, through the dialog of the North Korean POW and the Afro-American soldier first and the Asian descendant soldier later. As an effect of the McCarthyism, Samuel Fuller had problems with the FBI because of these scenes. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Capacete de Aço" ("Steel Helmet")

What could have been a flimsy, disposable b-movie in the hands of other, less competent directors, becomes an evocative war tale of grit, fear, loss and redemption in the hands of Sam Fuller. There's no abstract sophistication or sentimental pap though: this is raw and true film-making, unpretentious and stripped of all fat. Director Sam Fuller is a unique beast in the American underground: having worked both as a crime report for NYC newspapers before he enlisted as a soldier in WWII, it comes natural then that the Steel Helmet has the urgency and power of both of his pre-directorial careers. A reporter's sense of story and characters above all and the firsthand experience of a war veteran. True to itself, simple but never simplistic, with respect to the subject matter and without any flag waving, The Steel Helmet is better than it had any right to be. It is still a low-profile (in terms of stars and publicity or lack thereof) b-movie but shot with a conviction and passion few a-list movies can muster.

While maybe not the greatest of all war pictures, STEEL HELMET is the first film I remember seeing on TV as a kid! I don't know what year, or how old I was, but we didn't yet have a TV set, we were visiting a relative's house, who had one, and as the adults were in the main room playing cards and drinking, I lay on the sofa (still captivated by this new invention, imagine: Movies right in your house!,) watched Steel Helmet all the way through! Normally, as little kid, I would've fallen asleep, but for some strange reason, this film mesmerized me and captured my attention so well, I remembered it all through the years, and it became available on VHS, I snatched up a copy right away! Still Have it, and I'm looking to find a DVD version as well! Wow! What a memory! This would have been about '52 or '53 or '54!

This movie feels a little dated but still powerful. Very evolved for a war movie of its time. Characters seem very real: the movie avoids stereotypes typical to war pictures. I thought the supporting characters were the strongest part of the movie. Manages to operate almost entirely independently of plot, focussing on character and situation instead. The very first scene is particularly arresting, and the abrupt beginning and partial ending are very effective at making the film feel real.

Samuel Fuller was a film maker who lived up to the word " auteur " . He started off in Hollywood in the mid 1930s by writing original screenplays of his own and doctoring/polishing other peoples screenplays . Already established in Hollywood when America entered the second world war in 1941 Fuller enlisted in the infantry , a rather noble effort on his part all things considered and saw front line action where he was decorated for bravery . This experience served Fuller well and he's best known for the war films he directed . You could claim that nearly all his movies were nothing more than second feature B movies and while there's a lot of truth to this his skills ensured that his films seemed much more than mere B movies . Ironically enough his one big studio picture THE BIG RED ONE is one of his weakest

THE STEEL HELMET is the film that established Fuller as a director . It was the first film produced on the Korean war . One thing that is problematic about the Koran war is trying to make a film that is unique to that conflict and one that couldn't have easily have taken place in the second world war . The British film A HILL IN Korea ( A film that gave Michael Caine his screen debut ) suffered from this but THE STEEL HELMET doesn't . Despite the later debacle of Vietnam one thing military historians universally agree upon is that the worst military performance of the 20th Century of the American military was the early stages of the Korean War that saw the longest military retreat of American forces which happened on the Korean peninsula in the Summer of 1950 . This film tells of that retreat

One criticism about war films of any era is that they're jingoistic flag wavers where Uncle Sam kills lots of enemy soldiers with hardly a single American suffering a scratch . Not so in THE STEEL HELMET where the film starts of in a down beat way with a lone American survivor waking up surrounded by the bodies of his dead comrades and finding that things might just be about to get worse and the story develops in the same gloomy manner and makes the cogent point that in this conflict not all the combatants wear a uniform . It also makes a point about the absurdity of war with little touches that while it's okay to drop bombs and kill people Holy shrines are untouchable . It also shows American servicemen in a rather unheroic light and considering this was produced when America was fighting a war with a very uncertain outcome this alone elevated THE STEEL HELMET to mini-masterpiece status