Review of Battleground (1949) by John S — 17 Dec 2008

Once the unit moves into Bastogne the movie gets pretty good and the look and feel of the movie is very good. The Bastogne sequences in "Band of Brothers" owe a lot to the set design of this movie.

Four things about this movie cost it a ratings star in my book. First, the opening sequence "Somewhere in France, December, 1944" is obviously a very leafy, green southern California. Second, there are too many hokey 1940's movie conventions in terms of acting and screenwriting (yes, it did win an Oscar for screenwriting), the German officer uniforms are amazingly inauthentic and lastly, while the cast look and act like you would expect GIs to, they seem a bit too old or broken down to represent an elite unit like the 101st. They would be far more believable as soldiers in a run of the mill infantry division.