To Hell and Back
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Audie Murphy, Charles Drake, Gregg Palmer, Jack Kelly, Marshall Thompson Director: Jesse Hibbs Brand: UNI DIST CORP. (MCA) Writer: Audie Murphy Cinematographer: Maury Gertsman Editor: Edward Curtiss Producer: Aaron Rosenberg Writer: Gil Doud DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language) Format: Color, DVD, NTSC Picture Format: 2.35:1 Running Time: 106 minutes Published: 2004-05-01 DVD Release Date: 2004-05-25 Audience Rating: Unrated Studio: Universal Studios |
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Movie Reviews of To Hell and Back
Movie Review: Seriously dated as a war movie, viewable mainly from a historical perspective
Summary: 2 Stars
OK, Audie Murphy fans, don't bash this review. Audie Murphy was a great man, and a true American hero. However, this much has to be said, all of the five star reviews of this movie here reflect a continuing admiration for the man, and not for the movie itself.
As a child, I had often heard about Audie Murphy, about his status as "the most decorated soldier in America", and his later career as a B-movie star in Hollywood westerns. Whenever Audie Murphy was mentioned, "To Hell and Back", both the book and the movie, were usually also mentioned.
And so for all these years, I knew that this movie existed, but had never seen it. One day, I finally read the book, and then checked out the movie at the local library. And then I read some of Audie Murphy's biographies.
What to say about this movie except that it was almost certainly the high point in the life of Audie Murphy. Murphy was the sixth of twelve children of desperately poor Texas sharecroppers. The father would abandon the family and the mother would die when Audie was sixteen. World War II intervened, and Murphy's natural wholesomeness and survivalist skills as a hunter-warrior would provide him a route to become a national hero and a life as a movie star.
"To Hell and Back" was Murphy's most successful movie. It was made in 1955, at a time when Americans wanted only to forget the dreadfully inconclusive Korean War, preferring to relive the simpler glories of WWII. As a war movie, it has all the typical characteristics of that era - an unquestioning respect for the military (and all authority in general), and an unspoken acceptance of the concept (totally foreign to us today) that soldiers' lives are by nature expendable in a war. Like other war movies of the 1950's, we never see any blood, nor are there guts spraying everywhere, and definitely no mortally wounded soldiers screaming in fear and agony. Enemy soldiers who are killed fall quickly, silently and bloodlessly to the ground, like dummies. American soldiers who are killed also fall silently and bloodlessly to the ground, but get more screen time - we get to see their faces contort in agony as they die from their phantom wounds. Realism having long ago been lost, the heavy equipment of war - the tanks and other weapons - are also not quite right. The burning M10 tank destroyer that Audie Murphy jumped on becomes a more readily procurable Sherman tank. German tanks are substituted by the then prevalent M41 Walker Bulldogs.
No, this is not "Saving Private Ryan". Nor "Platoon". Nor "Apocalypse Now". This is not even "The Longest Day". War movies are never meant to be documentaries, and thus are always limited in their depiction of real war by the social constraints of the times, and the Hollywood need to put a spin on a story that will bring in the customers.
What I find most sad about "To Hell and Back", having read Audie Murphy's biographies now, is that his real story was much better: Murphy's bravery, fighting skills, and exploits were even more astounding than what was depicted in this most sanitized and unrealistic of war movies. Achieving all of that in the context of the poverty that he grew up in was even more amazing. Much of this was because the ever modest Audie Murphy refused to allow his life and his exploits to be glamorized.
Yes, Audie Murphy's story needs to be remade. But such a story would find no currency in today's Hollywood - imagine that, a movie about a young white man, pulling himself out of poverty by becoming a soldier for his country, fighting for over two years continuously, and excelling at the art of war. And then returning home as a hero, and finding even more success in life as a movie star, thanks to the help of many fellow Americans (James Cagney among them). "To Hell and Back" was indeed the product of a different time.