Customer Reviews

What Price Glory [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The movie focuses on a Marine rifle company resting and training behind the front in WW One France. Cagney and Daly turn in fine performances as the Company Commander and his 1st Sgt, respectively. They are both career Marines of long service and have developed a professional respect for each other rivaled only by their personal dislike. They both vie for the affections of the inkeeper's daughter with predictable results. The integration of fresh-faced replacements with the battleworn veteran Marines brings some lighthearted moments. The tone is more serious in the few short battle scenes and the ending where Quirt leaves Charmaine to rejoin the company moving out for the next push is one easily related by any Marine viewer. It is a remake of an earlier silent film and I regret I have been unable to obtain a copy of the original as I am sure it is excellent. However, I feel Mr. Maltin in his review above dismisses it without even viewing it. The review and synopsis don't even get the right war, referring to WW2, and seem to not realize they players are Marines. It may indeed not measure up to the silent original, but this is an entertaining movie in it's own right.

Taking place in World War I is the James Cagney-Dan Dailey drama "What Price Glory" made in 1952 by the legendary director John Ford. Essentially the movie is a classic love triangle story set against the backdrop of the ravaged French countryside of 1918. Cagney plays the part of Capt. Flagg, a commander in charge of a ragtag group of conscripts who must rely on the brash and disrespectful Sgt. Quirt to whip them into shape. Trouble brews though when Flagg and Quirt both fall for the same girl. The movie is a triumph for all concerned both in strong performances from the actors (including a young Robert Wagner) and a technical masterpiece from the crew. The same cannot be honestly said for the DVD. Although the picture and sound are both acceptable the quality of the overall print shows some wear and there are noticeable fluctuations in the color balance. Still for such a low price it is a title that is easy to recommend.

1952 movie directed by John Ford starring James Cagney as Captain Flag, a 'tough-as-nails' Marine company commander in World War One. Just after returning from the front line trenches to rest and refit his company, he receives a new top sergeant, Sergeant Quirt played by Dan Dailey, to get his new replacements ready for the next tour on the lines. Sergeant Quirt is probably the best in the Marines, but he's also a wild rival to Captain Flag and they soon show their stuff after Quirk's arrival with a quick fistfight in Flag's office.

The Marine company is full of senior battle-hardened veterans portrayed in an entertaining manner by numerous actors including William Demarest (Uncle Charlie from "My Three Sons") and Henry Morgan (Colonel Potter from "M.A.S.H."). A youthful Robert Wagner stars as one of the newly assigned juniors who falls in love with a local girl during the company's training period.

John Ford did masterful job rolling in humor, drama and romance. The film is well balanced and portrays the Marines as colorful hard-core types that do more than their share for the war effort, as well as play hard in their off time. There's good action when the company returns to the front and captures some elements of hardship in World War One's trench warfare. It's a romantic and entertaining feature that rivals Ford's other well-known feature "The Quiet Man."

The DVD edition is finally here and it's a nice improvement over previous VHS formats.

The story of a tough Captain and a tough top Sgt in France in 1918 who can't stand each other but both need to get a green batch of marines ready to fight with the hard fighting, hard drinking and hard joking vets of company L.

There are a lot of sub plots here from a young Robert Wagner to a Young Harry Morgan as another Sgt to the rivalry between our two leads for the innkeeper?s daughter.

There isn't much war in this war picture but what there are hits you in the gut, the vets are hard fighters but don't love it and know the score.

Cagney says it best late in the movie "it was ok when you had a bunch of guys who know what they're doing but not when you've got a bunch of kids."

They know it stinks but they do their job.

Another winner from John Ford.

I've watched the first five minutes of this movie three times, and I love it. It's 1918 and a straggling company of mud-splattered American Marines are marching through a bleak, barren and blasted landscape, led by Captain Jimmy Cagney. They approach a small French village. One of the men fall out of line to drink a dipper of water. A tall, neat and clean Marine barks "What company is this?" The weary marine treats him with disdain and answers with sarcasm. The barking soldier, top soldier Dan Dailey, is here as a replacement, with green recruit Robert Wagner in tow. Learning who commands the company Dailey tells Wagner they'll wait until the last minute before joining the company - there's obviously some bad blood between Dailey and Cagney. The men continue marching, nearing the village. We see the pretty - heck, gorgeous - inn-keeper's daughter Corrine Calvet race through the deserted streets of the village to get a place to watch the arriving American troops. A company of nattily dressed French soldiers, with band, stand at attention and the band begins to play a rousing march. Cut to a wide shot of the marching marines. Capt. Cagney picks up his head when he hears the music, his body straightens. Fifty feet from the bridge that separates his men from the welcoming French troop Cagney barks an order and the straggley men fall into line and, well, look sharp. The men pass in review - `Eyes... Right!' - and fall out. The film cuts to a young lieutenant who is glaring at Cagney, his face a study in passionate hatred.

This is the way any and every movie should start. In five short minutes, including the time it takes to run the opening titles in the middle of the sequence, we're introduced to the two major characters, Cagney and Dailey, learn they don't like each other, and, with the insertion of the balefully staring lieutenant, guess Cagney is disliked by more than a few of his men. We're even introduced to the soft leg of the movie's romantic triangle with the insertion of the Calvet character. We meet rookie Robert Wagner, the lead player in the movie's romantic subplot. The troops' march into the village is well-conceived, well-cut, and moving. Before I had a chance to settle down I was emotionally invested in this movie.

Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. Cagney and Dailey, it turns out, have fought together from Antwerp to Zanzibar, both as brothers-in-arms and romantic rivals. They'll spend most of this movie bickering over Calvet. The rivalry is meant to be of the fast paced, screwball variety, but it's too convoluted and contrived - not to mention incredible - to care much about. The film is taken from the Maxwell Anderson stage-play, and for a motion picture it feels strangely stage bound. In movies the camera follows characters, on the stage the actors walk onto a set. An awful lot of the stuff going on here takes place in Cagney's office, or in the inn's bar, or in a field headquarters. And furthermore we're never really introduced to that angry young lieutenant from the first scene, never learn why he hates Cagney so intensely, never learn why WE should have negative feelings about Cagney who seems like a standard issue `love-em-and-leave-em' soldier who'd fallen under the spell of pretty young Calvet. If that angry young lieutenant doesn't get a chance to explain himself he does get to speak the lines in which the play's title is embedded. Cagney's men, rested and brought back up to strength with green recruits - Robert Wagner and others - are back at the front line. They're ordered to capture a German officer for interrogation purposes. Cagney sends out some of the green troops, who don't return. Lieutenant Angry, desperately wounded, writhes on his field sick bed and dares Cagney to capture that German officer himself. It's wordier than that, and a whole lot more serious than the movie prepares us for, and, most importantly, the Lieutenant's rant contains the title of the movie. Heck, we just know Cagney as an aging Lothario, not a mean/vicious/vainglorious/what-have-you commander, and having an overwrought bit player hurl a mouthful of Maxwell Anderson epithets at him is a little much. What price glory, indeed.

What the heck. Reputable sources have it that Ford intended to turn what, I assume, is a Maxwell Anderson anti-war play into a musical. That may not have been such a bad idea. Calvet does sing to the boys in the bar a couple of times, and Wagner gets serenaded by a French girl in a blue beret. The action sequences are bad, the `what price glory' scene is a dud, and generally this one works better when it plays it for comedy rather than drama. WHAT PRICE GLORY isn't an awful movie, especially for those of us who are fans of Cagney and Ford, but it is awfully uneven and static.

A very enjoyable James Cagney movie, very little war, mostly comedy. The film has been very well remastered. Dan Dailey, who was 11 years younger than James Cagney and also an excellent 'song and dance man' plays a brilliant character as a foil to Cagney. Highly recommended.

I happen to love this Marine film...it appealed to my Marine persona throughout the movie...it may have dwelled on the love interests in the Reserve Area at length, but the mud-Marines and their jargon was real and chippy...I thought Jimmy Gleason stole his scenes while on camera like the old pro he always was...the casting was superb...Bob Wagner and Marisa Pavan were perfectly cast as the young star/crossed lovers caught up in events beyond their control...the great John Ford had his stamp all over the hi/jinks that popped up away from the battlefield as well as Marines in battle/combat... Ford's professional acumen shows clearly the Marine camraderie between the enlisted ranks [young an old] was evident to me; rather than, to rip this war film apart, it had the battle/crest of the type of fighting men Marines are in all wars [past or present] with a few light moments in the Reserve Area with all its human entanglements that are sure to surface to the chagrin of Marine Officers...to this [Korean War] combat Marine, "What Price Glory" rates a 5 star rating of a movie....enjoy this DVD...Semper Fidelis....SSGT CHRIS SARNO-USMC FMF

[VHS].

Cagney does his thing in this light comedy-drama set in 1918 at the Front in France. He and Dan Dailey are old warhorses...who take up arms and put them down again throughout, as mental and physical exhaustion take hold on these fighters - perhaps 15 years too old to be in combat - and as a shared romantic interest with a "local" girl, an innkeeper's daughter (fighting her own internal war, as she must decide which soldier she will marry - or will she marry at all), compounds the drama.

The movie is based upon a fairly pedestrian play and strangely, John Ford does not expand the story beyond the confines of a shelter or inn. One wonders if Ford knew he had a tight budget and so freed up Cagney to go completely over the top with Cagneyisms. The man could act. And he lifts a B-movie to a B+, getting all he can get from a good, albeit cliched script.

"What Price Glory" is neither a comedy nor a war film but more of a military spoof about two servicemen, Captain Flagg (James Cagney) and F/Sgt Quirt (Dan Dailey), set in WWI era France. Both men are professionals and respect each other's abilities but they have a long standing love hate relationship going back many years. Now they find themselves together again facing WWI with a company of men who are no more than children or old men. Even the officers are nothing more than "college boys" lacking any real experience. Flagg and Quirt know the sacrifice that must be made but seek to carefully guard the lives of the boys entrusted to them.

Directed by John Ford, his underlying theme is devotion to what is just and of being part of and playing for the team. All through the movie are seen examples of the men making sacrifices of what they want for what they know must be done. Against his desires to get even with Quirt, Flagg knows Quirt's abilities are needed for the greater good and saves him from a forced marriage. Quirt throws two of the weaker soldiers in the brig to save their lives from the front lines. Quirt and Flagg take on a mission on their own to avoid sending others who they know lack experience and finally old and young soldiers join the march to the front even though they are excused.

There are plenty of humorous moments in the movie and the interplay between Cagney and Dailey is classic sitcom but this is not a war film or a story of an historical event. It is simply set in a WWI setting. The movie has conflictions in terms in that the men are supposed to be a company of Marines but always refereed to as soldiers and of being part of the army. The movie stresses that except for Flagg and Quirt this is a "citizen's army" and that the men are not professionals thus posing the larger problem for Flagg and Quirt to not sacrifice them needlessly. Over all this is an entertaining movie as a mix of sitcom with the seriousness of war.

Readers of this review and invited to comment below or by email as listed in my profile.

"What Price Glory" is a World War I lover's triangle set against the ravaged backdrop of French countryside circa, 1918. Drama aside, the film is not what one might expect from the directorial giant likes of John Ford. James Cagney is a bit over the hill to be believable as Capt. Flagg, a stoic commander of a motley troupe of conscripts. Flagg's ill at ease postulating does not bode well with his men, so he turns to disrespectful and disreputable Sgt. Quirt (Dan Dailey) for a little bit of hard knock military strength. But the tensions between Flagg and Quirt are pressed to the breaking point when they both fall for the same girl - stop me if you've heard this one before. Strong performances elevate this film above the tripe that - generally - it is.
THE TRANSFER: Frankly, not up to snuff. Although the overall color scheme has retained much of its original luster, the picture quality is a disappointment. There is an excessive amount of film grain and age related artifacts throughout for a not very smooth visual presentation. Fluctuations in color balancing are - at times - severe and distracting. There is a minor amount of digital grit that further detracts from the image. Black levels are weak. Contrast and shadow delineation is poorly balanced for a very unstable looking presentation. The audio has been cleaned up but remains strident sounding and lacking in bass. EXTRAS: As with the other war films in this batch from Fox, you get nothing to augment your experience. BOTTOM LINE: "What Price Glory" isn't recommended either as a war film, or for its transfer quality. Seek satisfying your thirst for conquest elsewhere.