Evening star., 1945-08-03
THE CAST,

Ernie Pyle'S hero, the foot soldier,
comes at long last to the honor due
him in The Story of G.. 1. Joe,"
which opened yesterday at the Earle
Theater. The degree of that honor
is great and 1t makes a great motion
picture, an epic blend of warm, wry
humor; the tenderness and the trag-
edy that beset the infantryman slog-
ging over the blood STAINED mud OF
the world. 1t is the picture that
Ernie wanted made of the story he
wrote, which he regarded as far more
important than the story he lived.
He is in it in the person of Burgess
Meredith, very much to the life to
those who knew Ernie, but the pic
ture reaches out to embrace those
with whom the columnist lived, OF
whom he wrote and with whom he
died. 1t is not sad picture, The
Story OF G. I. joe" brilliantly di-
rected by William Wellman. 1t is
heroic one, full of comedy and
pathos. and above all, the great hu-
manity of the man who wrote the
basic script.
Producer Lester Cowan and his
collaborators in this greatest of war
pictures have succeeded admirably
in retaining the essential simplicity
of Erne's style, together with the
high drama of its content.
In so many other screen plays the
characters have evolved into symbols
in spite of the bravest efforts to
prevent that misfortune. Not in
"The Story of G. I. joe" They are
what they were to Ernie, brave fell
lows fighting loneliness and frantic,
fanatic enemies. They are the prey
of fears, of doubts and bafflements,
but without ever quite realizing what
has happened to them, they become
giants inside themselves. They learn
even when they are beaten that they
are unbeatable and you are left with
an abiding affection and admiration
for them, which is what Ernie
wanted. x u x
The Story of c. I. Joe" is not a
documentary film, but it achieves a
great degree of it's realism through
the use of actual battle photography.
Considerable of this footage is taken
from the vast Photographic library
of one of the bittereSt of battles
fought by the infantry in this war,
the battle of San Pietro. 1t is blended
into the action of the Pyle picture
with remarkable skill, and in no
other picture we recall is there such
violently dramatic intimation that
this is what war was really like
1t shows what a perceptive and
articulate writer Ernie was in re-
porting his own and G. I. Joe's ex-
perience.
1t is an altogether wise selection
from the vast gallery of Pyle char
acters that has been made in the
Cowan picture The same is true of
the incidents taken from his COL
hmns. ''''y' ""'iQ
The people are principally Sergt.
Warnicki, who STAYED off battle
fatigue for remarkably long time
largely by his determination to find
gramophone on which he could
play the record Of his child's voice:
IT. Bill Walker, whose death gave
Ernie occasion to write the most
powerful and poignant column of
the war; wayward and undiSci-
-plined Pvt. Dondaro, a great fighter
If not always good soldier, and
Pvts. Spencer, Murphy and New,
whose adventures and personalities
were the stuff of drama.
The incident is chosen with an
equally skilled eye to variety and
likeliness. Life in the foxholes and
death among the ruins or on the
precipitiouS sides of impossible
mountains provide the laundering
climaxes. But these are counter
balanced by the simpler phases of
soldier life, mail call, gifts from
home, the problems of personal san
itation. the dealing with conquered
peoples, private reflections on love,
romance and the related facts of
life.
This is the flow of war as Ernie
recorded it, not the limited and
ordered material of the average mo-
ton picture plot.
This is the way it would have
been written by the man who is i'm
personated in the picture by Mere
dith, man who hated the limelight
as much as he loved and admired
his fellow humans. The portrait by
Meredith is amazingly convincing,
even in its physical resemblance.
There is the shy, crooked smile;
io nh to