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Although he’s known primarily for his westerns and noirs, director Anthony Mann tried his hand at a number of genres, including war films. Perhaps the best of his rare combat movies, 1957’s Men in War, lacks the grandeur of war epics from the same period, but more than makes up for that with a psychological complexity that’s startling for its time. What starts off as a story of survival quickly turns into a tense two-header that interrogates the very nature of warfare, examining the traumatic effects of combat on the men who are forced to engage in it.
‘Men in War’ Is a Small-Scale War Epic
Set over the course of one day during the Korean War, Men in War stars Robert Ryan as Lieutenant Benson, leader of a platoon that’s been stranded behind enemy lines. As they try to make their way back to an American encampment, Benson spots a jeep driven by Staff Sergeant Joseph “Montana” Willomet (Aldo Ray). Montana is transporting his Colonel (Robert Keith), who’s so shell-shocked that he’s been rendered mute. Benson wants to use the jeep to help get his platoon to safety, while Montana wants to get his Colonel to a doctor, so the two join forces. Benson becomes increasingly wary as the trigger-happy Montana continuously shoots North Korean soldiers without discretion. Things come to a head when Benson and his men launch an attack which Montana refuses to participate in, until his Colonel shames him into doing so.
The screenplay for Men in War, which was adapted from Van Van Praag‘s novel Combat, is credited to Philip Yordan, an Oscar winner for the Western Broken Lance. Contemporary sources allege that Yordan was actually acting as a front for The Asphalt Jungle scribe Ben Maddow, who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era (no WGA credit has been restored as of this date). Like Samuel Fuller‘s 1951 Korean War drama The Steel Helmet, it was produced on a low budget and shot in Los Angeles County, with Malibu Canyon and the hills of Thousand Oaks subbing in for eastern Asia. Production was further hindered by the Pentagon, which refused to participate because they found the film to be an affront to “the dignity of commissioned and non-commissioned officers.”
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Mann, whose noirs Raw Deal and T-Men were noted for cameraman John Alton‘s striking black-and-white cinematography, makes the most of the film’s limitations by showing the immensity of the landscape the soldiers must traverse. He mines suspense from the enemy remaining largely unseen within the hills and treetops, as the soldiers try to figure out where the sniper bullets are coming from and when the next bomb will explode. One of the film’s best sequences takes place in a jungle littered with land mines, with Benson and Montana slowly leading the way through perilous terrain.
‘Men in War’ Examines the Trauma of Combat
One can only imagine what the Pentagon found so offensive about Men in War, considering it shows a great deal of reverence to the fallen soldiers at its center. Perhaps it was the portrayal of a US military Colonel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, an acknowledgment of the long-term psychological effects of warfare. It’s more than likely they were angered by the character of Montana, who shoots first and asks questions later. This puts him in line with the characters Jimmy Stewart played in some of Mann’s best westerns — Winchester ’73, The Naked Spur, and The Man from Laramie to name a few — which subverted heroic archetypes to explore something much darker.
When a sniper attacks the platoon, Benson wants the man taken alive for questioning, but Montana kills him, suspecting he has a gun hidden under his hat. Montana is proven right in that instance, but he continues to fire upon soldiers at will, and eventually guns down a trio of North Koreans posing as Americans. Montana has been so scarred by combat that he can’t trust any Koreans, whereas Benson suddenly sees their humanity when he finds one of the murdered soldiers carrying a family photo that resembles the one he keeps in his pocket. It goes to show that PTSD comes in many different forms, and the only way to prevent it is to no longer see our fellow man as our enemy.
Men in War is currently available to stream on Roku in the U.S.

Men in War
- Release Date
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January 25, 1957
- Runtime
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102 Minutes
- Director
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Anthony Mann
- Writers
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Van Van Praag, Philip Yordan, Ben Maddow
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