101 of 103 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Story of G.I. Joe, April 4, 2000
I have been watching "War Films" for nearly fifty years. This has been my favorite war film of all-time. It was filmed in black and white. It does not have the special effects of "Saving Private Ryan",but being made in 1945, it has the look and timeliness of the "real thing" without the Spielberg touch. 150 men in this movie were actual combat veterans which lends a lot of credence the movements and actions of these soldiers. This was the first and only time, that Robert Mitchum was nominated for an Academy Award. He was OUTSTANDING as Capt. Walker. Burgess Meredith is so great as Ernie Pyle, that Ernie Pyle could not have played himself any better!
This movie will let you know about the comraderie of combat citizen soldiers. Their personal anguish. Their sacrifice and courage.
A VERY REAL LOOK AT WAR!
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54 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the story of g.i. joe, April 17, 2000
I saw this movie many years ago and always considered it the best war movie ever produced. The stars were outstanding. Ernie Pyle could not have have played himself better than Burgess Meredeth and Robert Mitchum has never been better in portraying the lt. loved by all his men. The characters were everyday men who had a job to do and never considered themselves heros. I could never understand wythis movie was never reproduced on video or why it has never been shown on tv in over 40 yrs. This movie falls in the same class as "Saving Private Ryan" and "A Walk in the Sun"
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of Three Best WWII Films., November 10, 2000
This review is from: The Story of G.I. Joe (DVD)
I grew up during World War II. My dad, a combat engineer, was overseas for three years, so the war made an indelible impact on me that lasts to this day. I remember sitting in the local movie house watching the news reels and wondering whether my father was there,was all right or would even come home again. I had friends whose fathers were not.
He did, thank God, but the experience made me very critical of the typical John Wayne type Technicolor epics that glorified war and had almost supernatural heros and heroics. Those old black and white news reels, shot by combat photographers, showed the real face of war, its mindless viciousness, the numbing stress it placed upon its young combatants and the pathos of death and dismemberment at its most violent.
I believe only three films about WWII caught this realism. 1. Battleground, 2. Twelve O'Clock High. and 3. The Story of G.I. Joe. If there were equally good films made about the Pacific theatre, I don't remember them, but the three above films I think will stand the test of time because of their powerful realism.
The Story of G.I. Joe is about the 'forgotten war', the Italian campaign where the American and British forces had to slug their way inch by inch up the peninsula against well-prepared and led German forces who often fought to the last man. But the attention of America was focused on the Pacific and later, after D-Day, the northern European campaigns.
Ernie Pyle, who is brilliantly portrayed by Burgess Meredith in this film, was the only reason that folks back home, who had fathers and sons in Italy, could find out a little, anything, about this forgotten war. He understood the American G.I. better than any writer that ever lived. My father said it was because he was up front, both physically and spiritually, with the grunts.
Robert Mitchum, who I always believed was a vastly underrated actor, stuns the viewer in his sensitive role as a young officer who grows weary and finally fatalistic regarding the death of the men he leads. He knows it is only a matter of time for them all. His deeply moving performance alone makes this a movie to see. Tragedy at its best.
I watched my father twice try to make it through this movie. He couldn't. He said it was just too real for him. That's a review better than anything I can write.
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