Hell Is for Heroes (film)
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| Hell Is for Heroes | |
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| Directed by | Don Siegel |
| Produced by | Henry Blanke |
| Written by | Richard Carr & Robert Pirosh |
| Starring | Steve McQueen Bobby Darin Fess Parker James Coburn Bob Newhart Nick Adams |
| Music by | Leonard Rosenman |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1962 |
| Running time | 90 m |
| IMDb profile | |
Hell Is for Heroes is a 1962 World War II film directed by Don Siegel and starring Steve McQueen. Told through a squad of American soldiers, the movie focuses on the breach of the Siegfried Line in 1944.
[edit] Plot summary
This gritty 1962 World War II drama, directed by Don Siegel and filmed in black-and-white, brought a stark realism and anti-war sentiment that had rarely been seen in WWII films up to that time. The screenplay by Robert Pirosh and Richard Carr has a basic premise: a platoon of American GI’s must hold off an entire German company for approximately 48 hours along the Siegfried Line in the Fall of 1944 until reinforcements reach them. They will pool together every bit of knowledge and experience each man has to at least survive until help arrives.
The film begins when the squad leader, Sergeant Larkin (Harry Guardino), and the remainder of his men are getting ready to take a long deserved R&R after being on the front-line for several weeks with the thought they might actually be going home.
During an interlude at a church and later at a tavern, the senior NCO Sergeant Pike (Fess Parker) happens along a former fellow sergeant, now Private, John Reese (Steve McQueen). Reese is the quintessential loner. A tough guy made even tougher by the hardening of combat he’s seen since entering the war. McQueen as Reese is not only anti-establishment and ill-mannered, he is downright depressed and anti-social, managing to alienate himself from almost everyone in the squad right from the beginning. The company commander, Captain Loomis (Joseph Hoover), comments about the fact Reese only goes crazy when there is no fighting, but as Pike comments he is a good soldier in combat.
Just as the men assemble to get what they think will be their passes for a well-earned break, Sergeant Pike inform the men that they will be going back on the line. After much complaining and disappointment, the men pack their gear and get ready to move out. The remaining members of 2nd Squad include the somewhat stereotypical con-man/thief Corby (Bobby Darin), the mechanic-who-can-fix-or-rig-anything Henshaw (James Coburn), the easy-going, somewhat-naive kid Cumberly (Bill Mullikin), the foreigner-without-a-home, Polish refugee Homer (Nick Adams), and the man-with-a-wife-and-kids-back-home Kolinsky (Mike Kellin).
After the squad arrives at their appointed posts and dig in, it takes only until the next morning until they realize they are spread so thin that any encroachment by the Germans will quickly reveal how weak the American defenses are at that point, and the entire area will be bombed and overrun in short order. The men begin to put their battle-tested experience to use to try and make the best of things until reinforcements arrive. One stroke of good luck is the sudden and mistaken arrival of an Army Company clerk, Driscoll, played by Bob Newhart in his first film role. Larkin quickly puts Driscoll’s now confiscated jeep to use by having Henshaw rig it to backfire and sound like a tank. Driscoll himself is soon put to use by creating false radio messages that are known to be overheard by the Germans via a microphone left in an abandoned pillbox that serves as the squad’s base-of-operations on their side of the line.
During a German scouting incursion that causes the death of Cumberly, Reese manages to kill three German soldiers in close combat (two with his M3 Grease Gun and one brutally with a butcher knife). Reese, so wound up he can barely stand still, recommends hitting the German pillbox on the other side of a field filled with mines and barbed wire to let them think the American forces are at normal strength. Larkin decides to try and find some help and see about a change in orders from Pike to hit the German pillbox. Larkin soon dies from an artillery explosion on their position. Attempts at making an attack on the German pillbox cause the deaths of Henshaw and Kolinsky, the former going up literally in flames as his flamethrower tanks explode, and the latter in a very jarring, unforgettable scene after being hit by shrapnel through the back and abdomen, dying while screaming for his comrades to not let his wife and kids know what it was really like.
The reinforcements do arrive soon thereafter, along with Sergeant Pike and Captain Loomis, who berates Reese and decides to only withhold a court-martial so the insubordinate private who instigated the attack can be at the front of the American assault at dawn.
The final scene is one played to great effectiveness despite the limitations of budget and special effects of the day. In the American attack of the German line, all hell really seems to break loose as the Germans are also in force and dug in. The pillbox that had drawn so much attention is still raining firepower onto the advancing Americans. Reese, in a final act of heroism, manages to spot a satchel charge left by his group the night before on their botched mission and ultimately makes sure it detonates within the pillbox despite having been fatally shot in the chest. The final camera shot is of the advancing Americans overrunning the Germans, the battlefield littered with dead from both sides and flames licking out from the pillbox.
[edit] Cast
- Steve McQueen as Reese
- Bobby Darin as Private Corby
- Fess Parker as Sergeant Pike
- Harry Guardino as Sergeant Larkin
- James Coburn as Corporal Henshaw
- Bob Newhart as Private Driscoll
- Mike Kellin as Private Kolinsky
- Joseph Hoover as Captain Loomis
- Bill Mullikin as Private Cumberly
- L.Q. Jones as Supply Sergeant Frazer
- Michele Montau as Monique Ouidel
- Don Haggerty as Captain Mace
- Nick Adams as Homer
- Chuck Hicks as a Soldier (uncredited)
- Robert Phillips as the Jeep driver (uncredited)
[edit] Background
- Writer Robert Pirosh gained quite a name for himself after writing the script for the 1949 film Battleground, about the American 101st airborne paratroopers’ defending of Bastogne, and soon thereafter created the WWII TV series Combat!.
- James Coburn also appeared with Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven and another WWII adventure film, The Great Escape.
- In the last battle scene of the film, Steve McQueen can be seen firing the M3 Grease Gun and experiencing multiple failures to fire. These malfunctions were due to problems with the blanks used in the gun.
- Bob Newhart manages to recreate his famous telephone conversation skit from his stand-up routine by pretending he is communicating with all sorts of Army personnel in hopes the Germans will think the area the platoon is in is being supported and protected by more than a few good men.
- Several of the guest characters in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Siege of AR-558" are named after characters and actors from this film. These include Patrick Kilpatrick's character Reese, Annette Helde's character Larkin and Bill Mumy's character Kellin (named after the actor Mike Kellin). Other unseen characters to be named after characters from the film include Captain Loomis and Commander Parker.
- The unit shoulder patch worn in the film was of the 95th Division, an actual infantry division that fought in the European Theater during World War II. Today, the 95th Division is a U.S. Army Reserve unit headquartered in Midwest City, Oklahoma (a suburb of Oklahoma City).
- Many of the cast were angry over the studio's stingy budget restrictions which resulted in phony looking props, malfunctioning firearms, and the same German having to be killed three or four times. McQueen was reportedly furious with his agent for having induced him to sign onto the film and not securing the fee that he had been promised up front and for passing on another movie that McQueen wanted. Thus, his angry, detached "loner" look may not have been entirely from his method acting.
- Parker, Coburn, and others in the cast were doing other projects during the making of the film and would repeatedly show up in the nick of time and do their lines without makeup and little or no rehearsal.
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