Hell on the Battleground

Plot synopsis:
In mid-December 1944 Pvt. Jim Layton (Marshall Thompson) and his buddy Pvt. William J. Hooper (Scotty Beckett) are fresh replacements assigned to separate companies in the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. As a newcomer Layton receives a chilly welcome from his squad. PFC Holley (Van Johnson) returns to the company after recuperating from a wound sustained from fighting in the Netherlands.
Instead of going on leave in Paris, the squad is trucked back to the front to help stop a surprise German breakthrough in the Ardennes. They stop that night in the town of Bastogne. The platoon is put up for the night in the apartment of a local young woman, Denise (Denise Darcel), with whom Holley hopes to fraternize. Jarvess (John Hodiak) is informed by Denise that she is taking care of two orphaned French girls. Jarvess later goes on guard in the village, where he runs into a group of battle weary soldiers. The soldiers inform Jarvess that they are making a "strategic withdrawal". The next morning, led by Platoon Sgt. Kinnie (James Whitmore), the men are ordered to dig in on the outskirts of town. Just as they are nearly done, they are ordered to a new location and have to dig in again.
Holley, Layton and Kippton (Douglas Fowley) stand guard that night at a roadblock. A patrol of German soldiers, disguised as American soldiers, infiltrates their position and later blows up a nearby bridge. In the morning the squad awakes to a heavy winter storm. Roderigues (Ricardo Montalbán), a Latino from Los Angeles, is delighted by the novelty of snow, but his foxhole mate Pop Stazak (George Murphy), awaiting a "dependency discharge" that will send him home, is unimpressed. Layton goes over to see his friend Hooper, only to find that he had been killed hours before, and that no one in his company knew his name.
Kinnie informs the squad about the infiltration and sends out a patrol—Holley, Roderigues and Jarvess to move through the woods. Just before they start out, the platoon is shelled by German artillery, causing Bettis (Richard Jaeckel) to panic and desert. During the barrage Layton reminds his squad leader, Sgt. Wolowicz (Bruce Cowling), of his name and finds for the first time that he has been accepted as a part of the squad. Holley's patrol briefly skirmishes with the infiltrators. Roderigues is wounded by machine-gun fire from an enemy tank. He is unable to walk, so Holley hastily conceals him under a disabled jeep half-buried in snow, promising to return for him. Unfortunately, by the time they can get back to him, Roderigues has died due to the exposure of the elements (freezing to death).
Wolowicz, who has been wounded by shellfire, and a sick Cpl. Standiferd (Don Taylor) are sent back to a field hospital. Not too long after, Doc (Thomas E. Breen) informs the 3rd Squad that the field hospital had been captured. Holley is appointed the new squad leader, and partnered with Layton, while Pop Stazak is paired with Hansan (Herbert Anderson). When Pop's discharge comes in they find out from Kippton that the 101st is surrounded forcing Pop to stay with the men.
Moved again and again, 3rd Platoon is attacked at dawn. Garby (James Arness) is killed by machine gun fire. Hansan demonstrates bravery by crawling out of his foxhole and being the first to fire on the Germans. Just when it appears that the platoon will be overrun, Hansan is wounded and Holley loses his nerve and runs away. Layton follows Holley. Ashamed of his cowardice, Holley leads a flanking counterattack that defeats the German attack. The platoon leader, Lt. Teiss (Brett King), announces that he will recommend Hansan for a Silver Star. Jarvess's foxhole partner, country boy Abner Spudler (Jerome Courtland), is killed while trying to put on his wet boots.
After they get Hanson to the aid station, the squad runs into Bettis, who is doing K.P. duty in the rear and gives them a hot meal. Holley discovers that Layton is a quick learner, finding him being entertained by Denise. Later, while on guard duty, they encounter a party of Germans who have come under a flag of truce to offer Brig. Gen. McAuliffe (Ian MacDonald) surrender terms, resulting in his famous reply of "Nuts!" to the puzzled Germans.
In the bitter, foggy weather, the squad is short of supplies – supply transport aircraft are grounded. Several men attend impromptu outdoor Christmas services held by a chaplain (Leon Ames). That night the Luftwaffe bombs Bastogne. Denise is killed. Bettis, slowed by his fear of going back to the lines, is killed by a collapsing house. The "walking wounded", including Hansan and mess sergeant he befriended (George Chandler), are recalled up to duty for a last-ditch defense of the town.
As the platoon is down to its last few rounds of ammunition, the weather clears, allowing the Allied fighters to attack the Germans and C-47 transports to drop supplies, enabling the 101st to hold. Afterward, the siege lifted, Kinnie leads the survivors of the platoon toward the rear for a well-earned rest. As they move out, they spot a relief column of clean, well-equipped soldiers marching toward Bastogne. Kinnie begins calling "Jody cadence" and the veterans pull themselves together, proudly chanting the refrain as they pass the other GIs.

Tags: violence

Review:
Great muzzle flashes!. I rate movies of this genre on the number and quality of the muzzle flashes displayed. This one is almost 6 stars for number (732, 800 being 6 stars) and the quality is phenomenal! Some of the flashes are so large that one wonders how they were achieved (more than 5 feet long!). The crew certainly did not stint on the blank ammo budget.Generally speaking, the AIP war films in the 1980s all scored very well in the muzzle flash department, but (as other raters have indicated) the movies pretty much sucked in plot, acting, tactics, etc. Because my focus is on other things, I just ignore all that and enjoy the action. It's mindless, but it's fun.. garbage, pure garbage.. When i rate an action film, i rate it on two levels, two extremely difficult tests.  It needs to pass one of these to succeed.  The tests are:1. Was it entertaining as a normal movie, and 2. Was it entertaining as a b grade film.This failed miserably on both levels.Basically the story goes:  Seasoned veterans break army command and wins on the battlefield, but they need to be punished, so are assigned with hot shot new recruits.  This turns bad when they are trapped in the bush by enemy soldiers and all they can do is wait.Apparently.......So basically the entire movie is us watching them sit in the trenches saying 'we can't go out because they outnumber us so badly'.  About an hour of that.  Now THAT is entertainment.  And then, the stupidest part..... This one soldier just decides to wipe out THE ENTIRE ENEMY ARMY by himself, with his trusty machine gun.  AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHH.WHY DIDN'T HE JUST DO THAT AT THE START????  WHY SUBMIT US TO HOURS OF 'we can't leave the trench because we'll just get killed'. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHH.  You get the idea of how angry it has made me..don't make the same mistake of watching it.. Below Average, Even for the Genre. This is the first David A. Prior movie I have ever seen, and although I really wasn't expecting much, I have to say that I was disappointed. Based on the title, and what I know about the director from reviews I've read on this sight, I was expecting an entertaining, violent, stupid low-budgeter. This is what I got, minus the entertainment.This movie, which focuses on a training mission in Vietnam that unexpectedly succumbs to an enemy ambush, is really just a bunch of tediously repetitive bare-knuckle fights and shoot outs mixed with a little bit of clichéd, banal war movie dialogue. I was really disappointed to find that most of the movie's dialogue is too boring to be unintentionally funny, and the and the action is to repetitive to be entertaining at all.The only part of the movie that that was the least bit interesting is one really weird scene in which we see the movie's two main heroes(Fritz Mathews and Ted Prior) heading off on their mission and hear William Smith's narration in the form of what sounds like some kind kind of bizarre poem. I couldn't help but smile while listening to Smith's odd, cornball commentary.Overall, this is a stupid and often boring film recommended only for David A. Prior aficionados and die-hard fans of the B action movie genre.. Yes, it's very dumb, but it's fun dumb.. Sgt. Bill Lance (Prior) and Sgt. Jack Casey (Matthews) are battle-hardened warriors who play by their own rules. While in the depths of the jungle fighting the Russians (is this Vietnam?), their superior officer, Col. Meredith (Smith) punishes them for their rogue ways by having them take some new recruits along with them on their patrols. Now outnumbered by the enemy and surrounded on all sides, Lance and Casey will have to use all their warlike ways to prevail. Will they do it? Anyone who knows David Prior and the AIP style of filmmaking will appreciate this movie. It's no Deadly Prey (1987), but what possibly could be? While Deadly Prey was Ted Prior's movie, Hell On The Battleground is all about Fritz Matthews. Here Fritz gets his moment in the sun and he's truly never been better. He's a mulleted mega-meathead who literally spits his terse dialogue and it's a lot of fun to watch. He even plays his own theme song on acoustic guitar, "Casey's Bad Boys". Truly mustaches and mullets are the order of the day here, as surely they were in Vietnam. Ironically, the great William Smith is 'stache-less here, but he's as gruff as ever.Speaking of Smith, once we're firmly into the movie, Smith - who sounds like a 45 of George C. Scott played on 33 1/3, breaks into a solemnly-spoken poem about Casey and Lance. Apropos of nothing, Smith intones this ballad of the two mighty heroes. Truly in a movie that is highly repetitive and contains shooting, shooting, maybe some grenade launchers and an exploding helicopter, some more shooting followed by maybe a little more shooting, this moment of poetry from an unlikely place stood out. Are Casey and Lance aware that Col. Meredith is writing poetry about them? And how would they feel about that? Those are the unanswered questions that are the food for thought here.Apparently, since this was the 80's, our heroes are fighting the Russians, and there's even a guy that looks exactly like a Red Scorpion (1988)-era Dolph Lundgren. He even has the blonde brush-cut hairdo. The Prior brothers continued fighting the Russians in The Final Sanction (1990), and there they were represented by Robert Z'Dar. So who comes out on top? You'll have to see for yourself. Also, we're not sure if this was common practice or not, but Lance and Casey's wives ( Alyson Davis and Ingrid Vold) are along with them, encamped on the battlefield. Both Davis and Vold were in the same year's David Heavener vehicle Deadly Reactor (1989) together. Do they only come as a pair? But it just proves even further that 1989 was probably the top year for video stores in the U.S. Product was coming fast and furious, and only now are we beginning to sort it all out.There's the cross for good luck, and AIP staple Sean Holton is also on board, and this movie does probably top Jungle Assault (1989) and Operation Warzone (1988) for AIP war material, but the problem is there's no one strong, central villain. There's no baddie to boo and hiss at. It's just the nebulous concept of "Russians". But that aside, there are enough decent/funny/worthwhile moments to keep this one afloat, and it has a short running time, so it's not a burden to watch like some of its more bloated competition. Yes, it's very dumb, but it's fun dumb. And it was all done on a tiny budget and released to video stores for the viewing public. It might not be to EVERYONE's taste, but you have to respect their work ethic and the fact that they got it done.Featuring yet another quality end-credits song by Steve McClintock, "I Believe In The Battle", Hell On The Battleground, powered by the Prior-Fritz-Smith triumvirate, comes out as towards the top of the AIP war movie canon.For more action insanity, please visit: www.comeuppancereviews.com