The Red Badge of Courage
Directed by John Huston
Written by John Huston and adapted by Albert Band from the novel by Stephen Crane
1951/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country’s business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to hear the voices, while other men would remain stolid and deaf. — Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage[/box]
This adaptation of the classic novel is the simple story of a raw young soldier’s coming of age. We follow the soldier and his comrades as they move from wingeing unsure recruits to fighting men.
Young Henry Fleming (Audie Murphy) sets out with dreams of glory only to find himself paralyzed by fear when he sees real combat. After his brief desertion, he returns to the regiment and tries to cover up his flight. Gradually he finds that he was not alone in his fears. The regiment is once again tested and Henry and his fellows rise to the occasion.
John Huston got some real life experience in combat during World War II. It shows here in the convincing footage of the chaos of combat. The cinematography looks like something out of an old Matthew Brady photograph. The dialogue has an old-timey ring perfect to this story. Despite its butchering at the hands of studio executives, I thought this was excellent. Recommended.
According to the IMDb trivia, “John Huston considered this his best film. After a power struggle at the top of MGM management, the film was cut from a 2 hour epic to the 69 minute version released to theaters. It was never released as a A-list movie but was shown as a 2nd feature B-list movie. Both Houston and star Audie Murphy tried unsuccessfully to purchase the film so that it could be re-edited to its original length. The studio claiming that the cut footage was destroyed. Unless there is an undiscovered copy of the uncut version, this movie will never be viewed as John Huston intended.”
Trailer
Joe Dante talks about the film – Trailers from Hell – Dante’s comments made me order Picture, Lillian Ross’s book about the making of the film
