Review of The Big Red One (1980) by Brian B — 19 May 2009

Samuel Fuller drew on his World War II combat experiences for his dream project. Fuller gets the most from his limited budget. He stages the assault on Omaha Beach with economy. A soldier's arm has been torn off, and sticks in the sand, a wrist-watch still in place. From time to time, Fuller cuts back to the watch; we can see how much time has passed by the amount of blood in the water.

The movie is episodic but war is episodic. Fuller said he couldn't stand war pictures that had a story arc where everything led up to a big scene. In the real war, you lived in the present. There was no connection between what happened to you last week and what was happening today, because you had no direction over your life and neither did anyone else.

Lee Marvin dominates the picture not with heroics and propaganda but with competence, realism, and a certain tender sadness. There's a scene where a soldier is shot in the groin, and the sergeant finds something in the mud and tosses it away: "That was just one of your balls, Smitty. That's why they give you two.".