Reeling Backward: "Executive Suite" (1954)

While a fairly typical Golden Age drama in a lot of ways, "Executive Suite" diverged from other Hollywood dramas of the day.

Most notably, it was set inside the top leadership of a national furniture company and focuses on a struggle for power when the enigmatic president suddenly drops dead. That's it. There is no spy intrigue, no murders, not very much sex (or the implication thereof, this still being 1954).

Nope, it's a business story set in a business world.

Hollywood has never liked business settings, then or now. Since few writers or directors came up in the business world, they struggle to find something interesting to tell a story about in a common office setting. Even when creative stories are set at work, they tend to focus on the personalities rather than the actual job, like the TV series "The Office."

Try to think of some modern films that are entirely set in the quotidian workplace, and you'll be hard pressed to name many, especially those that aren't "sexed up" with murdery-mystery elements. "Working Girl," "Glengarry Glen Ross," "9 to 5" and "Michael Clayton" are the only ones I can come up with off the top of my head.

Director Robert Wise also made the interesting choice not to use any musical score or soundtrack of any kind, which was very unusual for the day. The board room proceedings play out in tense silence, which I don't think would've been helped with a ladling of syrupy strings.

"Executive Suite" features the prototypical 'cavalcade of stars' that was popular in that era, particularly from MGM., which had a vast pool of talent to pull from. This includes William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Pidgeon, Fredric March, June Allyson, Paul Douglas, Dean Jagger, Louis Calhern, Shelly Winters and Nina Foch.

In a lot of ways it reminds me of a forbear of "Modern Men," focusing on the men and women carousing the Big Apple corridors of power, often winding up in each other's laps or beds. (Or at least what I know of the show from pop culture, having never seen an episode.)

These great actesses are largely relegated to the role of the wife, the secretary, the jilted mistress, the girlfriend -- or some combination thereof.

Produced by John Houseman (who does not appear), written by Ernest Lehman from a script based on the book by Cameron Hawley, this is defintely a tale of a man's world where the womenfolk populate the fringes of the story.

The president, Avery Bullard, is never actually depicted in the film, other than his body being seen put into an ambulance from afar. The film actually opens with a first-person perspective of Bullard exiting the Wall Street headquarters of the Tredway Corporation, filling out a telegram calling for a board of directors meeting for that Friday evening at 6 o'clock, then keeling over dead from an apparent heart attack.

His wallet, which he'd just used to pay for the telegram, flies out of his hand into a street gutter, where it is pilfered for cash and the ID tossed into a trashcan. So it takes a few hours for the police to identify Bullard.

As it would happen, two people in the Tredway building saw the commotion and identified Bullard: George Caswell (Louis Calhern), a conniving playboy board member, and Julius Steigel (Edgar Stehli), an old hand who would seem to be a lawyer or similar advisor. This sets all sorts of higgledy-piggledy into motion.

The men had just been arguing about Bullard's failure to appoint one of his vice presidents as executive VP, thereby anointing an heir apparent. Julius had waved the need off, pointing out that Bullard was a hale 56 years of age, while he himself is almost 71.

Caswell responds to the death by immediately selling off of as much of his stock as possible, anticipating the price will crash when Bullard's death hits the news. But because of the snafu with the wallet, this happens after the stock market has closed, so on Monday he will either turn a handsome profit or be wiped out.

As the story plays on, we learn the identity of the other executives and the background of Tredway. It seems the company's founder died some years ago leaving it in a lurch, and Bullard was able to turn things around and make it very profitable. But in recent years they've gotten away from their hallmark of well-made furniture in favor of cheap stuff like the new K-H line, which is little more than the DIY pressboard so common today.

Don Walling (William Holden) is a hard-charging young designer who was brought in personally by Bullard five years ago to develop new styles and experiment with more efficient production methods. He's mostly a rolled-up-sleeves type hobnobbing with workers in the factory rather than authoring memos in "the tower," aka the NYC HQ. His wife, Mary (June Allyson), is supportive but assertive, insisting that it's time for him to move on from Tredway.

Frederick Alderson (Walter Pidgeon), the treasurer, would seem to be the obvious pick to succeed Bullard. He's been at the company forever, is appropriately grey-haired with a patrician mien, and yearns for a return to the company's glory days.

However, Alderson is outmaneuvered by Loren Shaw (Fredric March), the controller who sees everything in terms of dollars and cents. He gets to the office before anyone, handles the press, the official statement, even arranges the funeral so it will not interfere with Monday's day shift. Shaw also takes the liberty of releasing the company's stellar earnings report early to mitigate the hit to the stock price.

Of course, this has the effect of underming Caswell's little scheme. The two men hatch an arrangement to transfer some of the company's reserved stock to Caswell to cover his wager in return for his vote to make Shaw the next president.

It's a very subtle, internal performance from the great Fredrick March. He plays a man of quiet ambition who has been licking his chops for the top job for years, and obviously has done the legwork to make it happen. If there were an element of intrigue in this story, I'm sure it would be Shaw who had poisoned Bullard's martini or something.

Shaw's not a bad guy, or certainly he would not see himself as such. He's just a (then) new breed of corporate denizen who believes everything should be about maximizing shareholder dividends rather than thinking about and investing in the future.

After Shaw undercuts Alderson's self-confidence, he feels he's blown his own chance at taking over the corner suite, and withdraws his own candidacy. (This is ludicrous, of course; though surrendering after one minor defeat is probably a good indicator he doesn't possess the mettle for the job.)

Alderson and Walling flail around trying to find somebody else who would be less objectionable than Shaw, but the most obvious choice, manufacturing chief Jesse Grimm (Dean Jagger), had already determined to retire, tired of the company's decline in quality products. They try to tag Walter Dudley (Paul Douglas), the likeable sales VP, but Walling feels he'd do little to halt the company's wayward path.

What they don't know is Shaw has already secured Dudley's vote by subtly blackmailing him over his affair with his secretary, Eva (Shelley Winters). Meanwhile, Walling puts himself forward as an alternative. Alderson is initially hesitant given his age, and likely his own pride, but eventually comes around.

The other major player is Julia Tredway (Stanwyck), daughter of the company founder and owner of the largest share of company stock. It was also a well-known secret that she had carried on a 10-year affair with Bullard, who ultimately rejected her in favor of the company. She's easily manipulated by the men, particularly Shaw.

Stanwyck has one great scene where she's confronted by Walling, and she nearly throws herself off the skycraper balcony. It's not a big part, but Stanwyck makes the most of it.

Foch plays Erica Martin, the president's secretary and keeper of secrets. It's an interesting role, played very close to the vest as the loyal person who carries out orders. She's the one who makes the calls, arranges the meetings, tallies the votes. Shaw tries to press her for dirt on Bullard but is sharply rebuffed.

Foch is in the only peformer in the film to receive an Oscar nomination, which must have stung for all these male thespians wearing their three-piece suits and spouting urgent dialogue. The film also received nods for the cinematography (by George J. Folsey), costumes (Helen Rose) and art direction.

In general I love black-and-white pictures, though I do wish this one had been in color. All the handsome wood board rooms and costumes probably would've looked quite amazing in Technicolor.

An odd egg of a movie that still slides seamlessly into mainstream Hollywood fare of that era, "Executive Suite" is well-acted and undeniably entertaining. Even if business films have hardly ever been a going concern, this one is cinematically profitable.

Reeling Backward: "Golden Boy" (1939)

"Golden Boy" was William Holden's very first feature film, and nearly his last. The studio didn't like his looks or his acting style, and was determined to fire him in the middle of production. But star Barbara Stanwyck fought for her young colleague, he was retained, the picture was a big success and Holden became a sensation overnight.

Nearly 40 years later, while presenting an award together at the Oscars, Holden momentarily interrupted the ceremony to publicly thank her for saving his career, which was long and illustrious. So should we all.



The movie itself is a rather mushy romance about a young boxer who must choose between the ring and his love for the violin, with his manager, the manager's moll (Stanwyck) and the fighter's family acting as proxies in the tussle over his devotion. The plot isn't terribly interesting, though the dialogue and characterizations, based on the play by Clifford Odets, are quite vivid.

"Golden Boy" probably has the least amount of pugilism of any boxing movie. Director Rouben Mamoulian ("Queen Christina") doesn't bother with even cursory highlights of the matches, simply showing quick montages of Holden throwing punches that last but a few seconds each. Up until the final bout, we don't even get so much as a wink at his opponents.

When the big fight does finally arrive, I have to say Holden's not a terribly convincing boxer. He tends to do that side-to-side punching thing, almost slapping, that is the hallmark of someone who doesn't know how to fight.

The young thespian had to learn how to play the violin for the role, or at least look like he could, and I guess also learning to box would've been a bridge too far.

I'm not sure if the film was shot in chronological order -- which was more common with studio pictures of this era -- but Holden's line deliveries and expressions are indeed rather stiff in the early scenes. As kid boxer Joe Bonaparte, he calls his father "Papa" as if he's trying to caress each syllable like a delicate, newly-laid egg. But he gets a lot better as time goes on, and by midway it's vintage Holden, all fiery drive and passion.

I should also mention the score by Victor Young is quite beautiful, filled with lush strings as you might expect given the title character's musical proclivities. It earned the film's only Academy Award nomination.

The cinematography, by Nicholas Musuraca and Karl Freund, is also quite nice, with a lot of depth and shades of gray in the black-and-white. The film has been well preserved, with virtually pristine prints transferred to DVD and Blu-ray.

As the story opens, Joe is about to turn 21 and is living with his family in the apartment behind his father's grocery. He's been studying violin for the past decade but hasn't been able to turn it into a playing career. He's been spending the last year or so hanging out at local boxing gyms, practicing and studying the techniques.

When a fighter breaks his hand right before a bout, he begs the manger, Tom Moody (Adolphe Menjou), to give him a shot in his stead. Moody is at the bottom of his barrel, wistfully recalling the money days of 1928. His estranged wife is demanding $5,000 for a divorce so he can marry his much-younger girlfriend, Lorna Moon (Stanwyck), a hard-bitten type whose gold heart will eventually be unearthed.

"Oh, leave it to me, Tom. I'm a dame from Newark and I know a dozen ways," she says, in just one of the twinkly lines of dialogue.

You can pretty much guess where things go from there. Joe turns out to be a wunderkind in the ring, quickly moving up the ladder into big money, which of course goes to his head. He and Lorna fall for each other, but she feels loyalty to Tom and manipulates Joe to further his ends, which Joe eventually finds out about.

He accepts a bid from Eddie Fuseli (Joseph Calleia), the local mafia don, to take over his contract so he can get a prime match at the Garden. Soon all the stakes are riding on the fight against big-name contender Chocolate Drop (real life boxer-turned-actor James "Cannonball" Green). I appreciated that this is the rare boxing movie that doesn't end with a crack at the championship.

It was also interesting to me that the movie treats African-Americans in way that's pretty respectful for 1939. White and black boxers are shown training side-by-side, without fuss. Chocolate Drop is heavily favored in their bout, to the point the assembled reporters dismiss Joe as Fuseli's inept upstart. The black and white audience sections, though segregated, cheer lustily with equal fervor for their gladiator.

When Joe accidentally kills Chocolate Drop, there's a very touching scene where Joe goes into his opponent's room to apologize to his family. Clinton Rosemond (uncredited), as the father, gives a terrific little speech when Joe alludes to committing suicide, telling him that everyone has their burden to bear, and this killing will be his.

The father character is a small counterpoint to the other huge figure in the movie, Joe's dad, played by Lee J. Cobb in a masterful performance. Cobb is best known for playing middle-aged anger and strife, most notably as the bigoted jurist in "Twelve Angry Men." But he gives a completely ravishing turn as a simple-minded but big-hearted Italian immigrant who abhors Joe's fighting and only wants him to play the violin.

Outfitted with big curly gray hair and ethnic mustache, Cobb is pitch-perfect in showing the man's utter broken-heartedness when Joe turns away from music, refusing to touch the magnificent Ruggieri violin he saved $1,500 to buy. (That's $26,000 in today's money.) This big, beaming man seems to slowly fade into himself, his shoulders stooped and his eyes hollowing out.

It astonished me to learn that Cobb was barely six years older than Holden at the time -- he had not yet turned 28 when "Golden Boy" debuted. I completely believed him as a broken-down old man.

Like a modern-day Wilford Brimley, Cobb played old early, and often.

Beatrice Blinn plays Joe's sister, Anna, who lives with her husband, Siggie (Sam Levene), at her father's. Siggie is a character unto himself, perpetually schlepping around, wearing a wifebeater shirt and chomping on a stogie butt, complaining about not having enough money to buy his own taxicab. Despite his carping, Joe's father (he's never given a name) treats Siggie with respect, even when his son-in-law playfully slaps Anna on the rear.

Edward Brophy is the resident comic relief as Roxy Lewis, Tom's perpetually flustered partner, who owns 10% of Joe's contract. William H. Strauss has some nice moments as Mr. Carp, the elderly neighbor who comes around to kvetch with Joe's papa. I also liked Don Beddoe as Borneo, the trainer who knows his place is in the corner of the ring, but is still willing to stand up for the kid and offer him advice.

It took a foursome of screenwriters to adapt Odets' play into a movie -- Lewis Meltzer, Daniel Taradash, Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman. There's always a challenge in stage-to-screen translations, but the strength of the distinctive characters, the emotive cast and the smart dialogue carry the day.

Reeling Backward: "Born Yesterday" (1950)

Judy Holliday had one of those comet-like Hollywood careers, burning fast and bright. She won an Oscar for "Born Yesterday," her first lead role after a lauded turn in "Adam's Rib." She starred opposite Jack Lemmon in his first two films, went back to Broadway, endured ill health and died of breast cancer in 1963 at the age of 43.

It seemed like Holiday was everyone's second choice for a role that she then knocked out of the park. Playwright Garson Kanin wrote the part of Billie Dawn, the tough moll with the squawky voice, for Jean Arthur. When she left the show, Holiday was picked to replace her for the Broadway run, which was so successful the movie studios soon came calling. But the Columbia Pictures chief didn't want her. It took a lot of wrangling by director George Cukor and some big stars to help her land the part.

She was rewarded with a Golden Globe and the aforementioned Academy Award, beating out the likes of Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard" -- which also featured William Holden in the supporting role of the boyfriend. Though instead of being an object of degradation, Holden's character in "Born Yesterday" serves to lift Billie up out of her dreary circumstances.

The film also received Oscar nods for screenplay, director, best picture and costume design.

The story centers around a junkyard magnate/mobster, Harry Brock, played by Broderick Crawford. He's an abusive bully, lording it over everyone in the same room, including the Congressman (Larry Oliver) he's come to Washington, D.C. to help him pass desired legislation for his junk business. Harry treats his longtime fiancee Billie like an accessory, often bellowing at her, "Do what I tell you!!"

I was surprised watching the film how edgy it is. Harry says the word "pregnant" at one point, which was banned on nascent television but still more or less verboten in the days of the Production Code, which was still very much in effect in 1950. Even more surprisingly, Harry's threats of violence against Billie result in a sudden moment where he belts her very hard several times onscreen. Billie's face is turned toward the camera when it happens, so we see the impact of his neanderthal blows.

Harry, with the help of his obsequious attorney Jim Devery (Howard St. John), hires high-minded journalist Paul Verrall (Holden) to tutor Billie so she'll be more acceptable to the hoity-toity D.C. social crowd. Verrall takes the job less for the money -- $200/week, or twice his newspaper salary -- than an opportunity to infiltrate Harry's circle and get the scoop on what he sees as a greedy sod working the system for his own benefit.

But he doesn't count on Billie falling for him, or him eventually returning the favor. It's interesting to see Holden in two movies in a single year where he is the pursued object of feminine attraction, rather than the traditional wolf on the hunt.

There's not much of a plot to speak of -- Harry's various machinations getting tripped up by Billie's increasing social consciousness being about the extent of it. Half his business is on paper in her name for legal protection, an asset she eventually puts to good use.

The movie is really just a showcase for Holliday. Her Billie is a tramp with a heart of gold buried underneath seven years of cynicism and abuse from Harry, whose taint has infected her outward behavior if not yet her soul.

Her voice is hard to listen to for 103 minutes -- screechy, nasal-y timbres tend to give me a headache.  Holliday makes Billie's tawdriness a feature rather than a bug, though. She'll never lose her brash style and rapport with regular folks. That's integral to her charm. Paul doesn't try to change her, just expand her ambition and internal library.

The film's political commentary is a mite heavy-handed at times -- Albert Mannheimer is given sole screenwriting credit, though Kanin contributed, too. Harry is in many ways a cartoon version of the brute subverting democracy to his own self ends. If instead of ordering people around and paying off a congressman he started a PAC, Harry would be indistinguishable from traditional lobbying efforts. Meanwhile, Verrall seems to be advocating for a collectivist hive of selfless citizens working together for the good of the people, which is an awfully naive mindset for a cynical reporter.

"Born Yesterday" is also something of a love letter to the city of Washington, D.C., showing all the various tourist spots and hidden lovely vistas. It's a fun, romantic dash of a movie that also has something to say. And it features one of the all-time iconic female comedic performances.

The Bridges at Toko-Ri

The Korean War has been called "the forgotten war," and the 1955 film "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" is an early look at the disillusionment of the men who fought it.

As I've discovered more war pictures from the 1940s and '50s, I've been struck by how anti-war -- and often downright cynical -- they can be. Most people consider the Golden Age of cinema an era of unquestioning patriotism when it came to movies about armed conflict. But in point of fact, filmmakers were quite capable of delivering harsh, sobering glimpses of war.

William Holden plays Harry Brubaker, a Navy lieutenant pilot who as the story opens is forced to ditch his jet in the ocean when he runs out of fuel returning from a mission. He nearly dies in the frozen sea, but is saved by the plucky rescue helicopter pilot Mike Forney, memorably played by Mickey Rooney.

We soon learn that -- like the Jimmy Stewart character in "Strategic Air Command" -- Brubaker was a reservist called back up to active duty, and he's none too thrilled about it. He had a successful law practice going, a wife (Grace Kelly) and two young daughters. Now he's risking his neck doing bomb runs over a country most Americans back home couldn't find on a globe.

Fredric March has a great role as the grizzled old Navy admiral who brutally assesses his men's grit and abilities while also extending a paternal hand to Brubaker. He sees much of his dead son in the brash young pilot, and even looks the other way when Brubaker's wife brings his family to Japan to see him, despite regulations to the contrary.

The film is based on a book by James Michener, based on his real experiences with an air command unit in 1951-52. The bridges of Toko-Ri are fictitious, but based on some real key bridges in the North Korean mountains that American air forces badly wanted to destroy.

The flight scenes are thrilling and realistic -- the film won an Academy Award for special effects -- but director Mark Robson doesn't romanticize the notion of combat or fetishize all the military gear. It's simply the backdrop to a great story about warriors that is less concerned with the war in which they find themselves.

There are numerous references to the war being a wasted effort, and something of which the Americans safe at home are barely even cognizant -- pretty radical stuff in late 1953 and early 1954, when the film was made.

I rather liked the Mike character, and how Rooney played him. He's an impish little hot-headed Irishman, who's an ace behind the yoke of a chopper but hell on wheels on land. He gets thrown in the clink when he learns his Japanese girl fell for another sailor while he was at sea, resulting in a huge brawl. Brubaker bails him out, and Mike eventually makes it back onto the ship, but not before nearly getting thrown in jail twice more.

Mike wears a bright green tophat and scarf while he's piloting his helicopter, despite the consternation of the captain. Mike is an interesting character, who flourishes in the tightly regimented society of the Navy, despite being a born hellraiser.

Brubaker becomes unnerved when a second low-fuel scenario nearly ends with him ramming his plane into a huge crane on the landing deck of his "flat top" -- aircraft carrier. He starts to lose his nerve as the big Toko-Ri mission approaches. But he does OK in the end.

The film ends with Brubaker and Mike dying in a muddy irrigation ditch in a Korean field. Brubaker completed his mission but took flak damage, and had to crash-land. Mike comes to rescue him but his helicopter is damaged.

"The wrong war in the wrong place, and that's the one you're stuck with," Brubaker intones just before perishing. It's a grim, unglamorous portrait of war, and one well worth catching.

3 stars

Reeling Backward: "The Bridge on the River Kwai"

When you are a film critic, the one question you dread getting in social situations is, "So what's your favorite movie?"

People are invariably disappointed when I give vague, wishy-washy answers like, "Well, I love so many!" or "It's just impossible to choose." I suspect that chefs can readily tell you their favorite dish, and sports columnists don't hesitate to name the athlete they most admire. People don't like it when those who are supposed to be experts fudge on a pretty fundamental question.

The truth is my tastes have evolved over time. If you'd asked me the "favorite film" question when I was 14 or 15, I think I would have said "Blade Runner" without much pause. That one's still near the top of my list, although the themes of alienation and dehumanization that seem so important when you're a teen are less forceful now.

But I think I can say that however my list of favorites has shuffled over the years, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" has consistently remained very high. At this particular moment in time, I'd probably call it the film I most admire.

"Bridge" was directed by the great David Lean from a screenplay (by Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman) based on the novel by Pierre Boulle. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards for 1957, and won seven, including Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, Editing, Musical Score and Best Actor for Alec Guinness. It also won Best Screenplay, but as Wilson and Foreman were blacklisted at the time, they received no onscreen credit. Their Oscars arrived posthumously in 1984, and their names are listed in the restored edition of the film.

It's a rousing prisoner-of-war picture, with the usual heroic Allies showing terrific resolve in the face of their dastardly captors. But I think why the film stands up for me is that it's really about self-delusion. All of the main characters are in some way compromised, a combination of good and evil tendencies. I would go so far as to argue that Col. Nicholson, the British commander of the Allied prisoners, is the real villain of the piece.

Think about it: Nicholson is prepared to have himself and all of his other officers shot dead rather than perform manual labor at the insistence of Col. Saito (Sessue Hayakawa, who was the only Oscar nominee from the film who failed to take home a statue). Later, after winning his contest of wills with Saito -- by nearly suffocating to death in a tin "hot box" -- Nicholson undertakes the task of building a railway bridge for the Japanese with such misguided enthusiasm that he becomes a collaborator with the enemy.

As the bridge approaches its deadline and it's clear they will not finish in time, Nicholson orders his officers to do manual labor -- the same principle he was willing to die over. He even cajoles the sick men to hobble away from the hospital and lend a hand, too.

In his final act, Nicholson nearly upsets a plan by British commandos to blow up the bridge right as the first train steams over it. So invested has Nicholson become in the bridge, in what it represents to his ideals, that he alerts the Japanese soldiers and even struggles with one of the commandos. The bridge demolition still goes through -- in a spectacular cinematic display, in which Lean actually destroyed a real bridge and train -- but three of the four commandos are killed, including Maj. Shears (played by William Holden), who had previously escaped from the same prison camp.

Through it all, Nicholson is convinced that he's doing the right thing. He sees the bridge construction as a way to restore order and pride to his soldiers, who have become a rabble. Later, he sees it as a symbol of defiance against the enemy, to build a better bridge than they could themselves. The film is a lesson in how a series of decisions, each of which seems sound, can add up to calamity. I think our country's involvement in Iraq is a modern example.

A few other thoughts on the film:

I must have seen it a half-dozen times before I caught on to the subtle portrayal of Saito. A proud man, he is utterly crushed when Nicholson succeeds in building the bridge that he could not. There's also a bit near the end where Saito is shown cutting off his Bushido topknot, and slipping a dagger into his uniform right before the bridge's dedication. It seems clear now that Saito intended to kill Nicholson, or himself, or possibly one and then the other. Only the complication of Nicholson spotting the demolition wiring prevents this.

Shears, the ostensible American protagonist of the film, is a fraud, liar, impersonator and suck-up. He bribes the Japanese guards for favorable treatment, treats the arrival of Nicholson with great cynicism, and seems bent on doing anything to save his own skin. He only agrees to join the commandos when faced with court-martial and imprisonment for impersonating an officer. If he's supposed to represent the Yanks, we don't come off too great.

The use of the "Colonel Bogey March" musical theme throughout the film is interesting. It's an act of defiance by the British prisoners, but also illustrative of Nicholson's delusion. During the opening scene, where they're marching into camp for the first time, the men are whistling the tune. Slowly, the musical score takes up the melody until it sounds like a grand marching band booming away. This coincides with the shift to Nicholson's perspective. Despite the sorry state of his men, many of them marching barefoot, he still views them as British soldiers, brave and true.

(The tune really was used by Allied soldiers during WWII, who came up with some vulgar lyrics, including the revamped title, "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball." The film's soldiers were to sing these lines -- which continue, "Goring has two but very small; Himmler is somewhat sim'lar, and poor Goebbels has no balls at all!" -- but producer Sam Spiegel felt they were too vulgar, so they came up with the whistling instead.)

The film ends with the British doctor, having just watched the train wreck and the deaths of Nicholson and the commandos, shouting "Madness, madness" into the jungle air. To those who think war is great, it's an apt indictment.

4 stars