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Fixed Bayonets

Screening: Monday 23 July, 6:30pm

Fixed Bayonets (Samuel Fuller, USA 1951)

Fixed Bayonets was recently proclaimed "one of the greatest war films ever" (Fred Camper, The Chicago Reader). After the great success of The Steel Helmet, Darryl Zanuck hired Fuller to make pictures for Twentieth Century-Fox. Returning to the arena of the Korean War with a larger budget, Fuller narrowed his focus in this intensely controlled portrait of a platoon in a snowbound cave, surrounded by enemy soldiers and landmines, and led by conflicting commanders: the obdurate Sergeant Rock and the diffident Corporal Denno who becomes a hero despite himself. (Watch for the bizarre Athlete’s Foot sequence, in which the fate of the two contrasting leaders is announced as the soldiers massage each other's bare feet.)

With the bigger budget, Fuller achieved visual flourishes he had only dreamed of, including elaborate crane shots, long takes, and circular pans. And the often grotesque humour with which he depicts the claustrophobic setting established the tone for his subsequent films. (The on-set stories regarding Fixed Bayonets are among the best in Fulleriana, high among them the accidental hiring of dozens of gay dancers from a musical to play exhausted soldiers.)

"Immense emotional power… Masterpiece" (Camper). Written by Fuller, based on the novel by John Brophy, Photographed by Lucien Ballard. With Richard Basehart, Gene Evans, Michael O’Shea, Richard Hylton.

(16mm, B&W, 92 mins, PG)

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