Leofwine_draca FIXED BAYONETS! is an American-made Korean war movie about a platoon of soldiers who agree to fight a desperate rearguard action to hold off enemy troops to allow the rest of the army to depart from the area. The majority of the running time sees said platoon holed up in an icy cave and struggling to cope with everything the enemy throws at them.This is a simply-plotted film without much in the way of characterisation, although the action scenes are well handled and emphasis suspense over effects, which is always good. Richard Basehart plays the sweating corporal who discovers himself inching nearer and nearer to command as each of his superiors is killed in turn by the fighting. It's this internal conflict which propels the story but I did find it largely stretched out and uninteresting. The camaraderie and dialogue scenes are well handled however and the humour is a welcome asset. Watch out for James Dean in a cameo role.

robert-temple-1 Samuel Fuller had fought in the Second World War and put his field experience to good use in directing this low budget film set in Korea during the Korean War. The story is simple. A major general in charge of an American division is forced to order a tactical retreat of his division across the only existing bridge over a major river, which he will then blow up behind him. In order to avoid the enemy massacring his 15,000 troops as they slowly make their way across that choke-point, the general decides to leave a small platoon of 48 soldiers behind, commanded only by a lieutenant, to make a lot of noise and fire a lot of weapons so that the enemy will not know for some time that the division has pulled out. This platoon, known as a 'rear guard', will thus buy time for the division, and then they can follow after a certain number of days, if they can. The action is set in the snow-covered and freezing mountain environment of that terrible war. (A friend who fought in it told me the worst thing was the cold, far worse than the fighting.) The action of the film is thus circumscribed within this narrow story, in a small mountain pass where 48 men face an entire enemy division complete with artillery. Richard Basehart plays a corporal who, as fourth in line of command, ends up becoming the commander of the platoon when the three men outranking him are all killed. He has an inner struggle about responsibility, and that part of the film is a psychological profile of a man who fears command and also cannot bring himself to fire a gun at another human being. So Fuller is driving home some important truths about what war really involves, namely killing people (a point often forgotten by politicians in their bubbles!) There is a tense scene where Basehart has to walk into a minefield to rescue someone, trying to feel gently through the snow with his boots where the mines might be. (The medic who had proceeded him in this effort had already been blown up by a mine.) I had a friend named Michael Scott who during the Second World War went into a minefield to save his friend Carlos Blacker, and lost an eye, so I have heard some first-hand accounts of this tricky subject. Early on in the film, when the enemy are firing artillery at the platoon, they blast away at a cliff and a rock-fall reveals a handy cave, in which the platoon is able to shelter from the cannon fire. I winced as I saw the soldiers knocking the stalagtites down inside the cave, despite one of the soldiers saying it had taken 2000 years for them to form. I know it was only a set, but the idea of damaged stalagtites offends my geological sense of the proprieties. This film was 'suggested by' a novel by the British author John Brophy. Brophy was from Liverpool, who also wrote a novel and screenplay for the film entitled WATERFRONT (1950), which tells a tragic tale of the Liverpool slums, from which Brophy presumably came himself. There is some good acting and a lot of grit in this simple war film, which concentrates on this small body of men and their struggle against the odds. The film has been restored and included in the 'Maters of Cinema' series on Blu-Ray, as part of the current revival of the films of Samuel Fuller, whose PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953) is probably his best known film. I need hardly point out that 'fixed bayonets' refers to the time when close combat is at hand, and soldiers have to fix bayonets to the ends of their rifles to defend themselves against the enemy, as firing is no longer possible because the enemy is only a few feet away. Bayonet fighting is probably every soldier's worst nightmare, and it is not much different from what warfare was like a thousand years ago, i.e., two men struggling against each other to the death with only sharp blades to decide who lives and who dies. Makes you want to join the army, doesn't it?

gordonl56 FIXED BAYONETS – 1951 This is not an antiseptic flag waving propaganda war film. It is a brutal, hard hitting piece about fear, and courage, among men who know they could die at any moment. Director Sam Fuller pulls no punches in this Korean War film from 1951.The US, UN and South Korean forces had pushed the North Korean Army back almost to the border with China. They were then caught off guard when Chinese Red Army forces attacked them. This soon forced a massive retreat along the whole front.This film is about a small group of American soldiers left behind to man a rear guard post. They need to make the Chinese believe that they are facing a much larger unit. The US unit needs to delay the Chinese for 48 hours to allow their own troops a chance to fall back and regroup.They chose a narrow pass through the mountains to base their defence on. They mine the approaches and set up a series of machine gun posts. Whenever the Chinese probe the defences, the American hit back hard and heavy, keeping the Chinese guessing as to the US unit strength.This tactic can only work for so long, as there are only 50 or so soldiers. First the LT. in charge, Craig Hill, is killed, then, the two senior sergeants, Michael O'Shea and Gene Evans bite the bullet. Command of the survivors, falls to Richard Basehart. Basehart is a former officer candidate who has a fear of giving orders.Forced to step up and take charge, Basehart fights his personal demons and does just that. He holds the post for as long as he can, then leads the survivors back to meet with the rest of the division.Except for a couple of scenes, the whole production was filmed on a sound stage. This does not distract from the film at all, there are plenty of well-staged battle sequences etc throughout the film. The action is down and dirty, with all looking like they have been put through a wringer. This is a gritty, well-made war film.The director, Sam Fuller also scored big a little earlier with another Korean War film, THE STEEL HELMET. Both these are well worth a look for war film buffs.

Michael O'Keefe Veteran filmmaker Samuel Fuller writes and directs this war drama about conscience and survival. It is kill or be killed. Richard Basehart plays Corporal Denno, who is intellectual and refined hiding his fear of assuming responsibility as he is part of platoon forming a rear guard against the enemy while the rest of the regiment retreats to regroup. Denno feels he is in a near-perilous situation as he watches three superiors get picked off one by one. Physically Denno is a good soldier; but mentally he fears taking command and being responsible for the men who serve under him.FIXED BAYONETS! was filmed and released during the Korean War Kudos to cinematographers, art directors and set designers for making a Fox Studio sound stage look like mountainous and snowy Korea. The cast also includes: Michael O'Shea, Gene Evans, Craig Hill, John Douchette, Henry Kulky and Glenn Corbett.