A WALK IN THE SUN

US, 1945, 117 minutes, Black and white.
Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway, Norman Lloyd, Huntz Hall, Steve Brodie.
Directed by Lewis Milestone.

A Walk in the Sun is considered one of the best of the World War Two films. It was produced at the time the war was coming to an end in Europe and released at the end of 1945.

It is one of those films which offer a microcosm of war rather than the larger scope. This follows a group of men who land at Salerno during the Allied invasion of Italy and walk six miles to a farmhouse. It portrays in some depth each of the characters, their interactions, their place in the platoon. It also focuses on the demands of war, the dangers in that walk in the sun, the place of the enemy, weapons, wounding and death. The film has a great deal of human pathos.

Director Lewis Milestone had made the Academy Award-winning film about World War One, All Quiet on the Western Front. He was to make a Korean war film with Gregory Peck, Pork Chop Hill.

1. How good a war film was this? What impact about war and soldiers did the film have? How successful a film was it, cinematically? The use of characters, situation, dialogue, music, black and white photography, the interaction of situation and characters?

2. The film was made at the end of World War Two. What iImpact do you think it had then? Why? As a well made film? Its war theme? What iImpact does it have now? Is it the same kind of impact as that of the mid-forties?

3. The film took a platoon as its focus for the war. How was the platoon a microcosm of the war world? How useful is this device for understanding a vast issue? How typical was the cross-section of men? Their particular mission, their knowledge of it and their ignorance of its impact? Is this what life, war, are about? Why?

4. The platoon was a detail on a particular morning in the mar. How was this communicated in the film? The limitations of our understanding of the wider implications? The fact that the men knew only their own mission and task? The fact that they were not top brass soldiers etc.? The details that were presented in the film of the detail of the Italian landing? How important was this for the total impact of the film and its meaning? Did this presentation of war have more impact than war on a vaster scale in so many film? Why?

5. What did the ballad contribute to the film? Its repetition during the film and its use at the beginning and end? What impact does a ballad like this have? Its emphasis on the people. The film's emphasis on persons. How important was this?

6. Did you understand the impact of the mission that they bad? The landing, establishing themselves, the six mile walk, the taking of the farmhouse. What did this mean in itself? For the war? To the men concerned? Living and dying on this particular morning? What comment on the war situation does this make?

7. How did the film create its atmosphere? The photography, the limitation of location, the physical exertion of sailing, landing, walking, the attack itself? The men themselves and their world, their interaction amongst themselves, the voiceover of their thoughts? The ordinariness and extraordinariness of these people?

8. How important was the theme of’ fear in the film? In the boat before landing, the first impact of the shootings, the planes flying over, the deaths, the uncertainties, the needs for planning, the sergeant's fear at the end and the visual lack of focus to illustrate this etc.? How important was this message of fear for the film?

9. What did the film communicate about death in the war, sudden and unexpected, undiscriminating, as inevitable? What was the message of this?

10. What did the film have to say about achievement?