a realistic psycho-drama from the classic novel

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	• Red Badge of Courage (1951) / Movie [VHS] Audie Murphy, Bill Mauldin MGM (Warner), 1998 average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Must See Movie

The classic book brought to the big screen with Audie Murphy as "the boy" is excellent. When you are embarrassed that you haven't read the classic you can always resort to this movie version to become enlightened by the strong character interaction on a true modern day combat issue. Even those who are "black-and-white" challenged, like my kids, once they discover the characters in the movie they watch the movie to the end.

Slight but watchable war film

The Bottom Line:

John Huston's 68 minute adaptation of Stephen Crane's famous novel is neither comprehensive nor worthy of inclusion in any list of classic films, but its war scenes are well-staged and its treatment of characters is more nuanced than you would expect in such a brief film; all things considered, it has enough interesting material to warrant a recommendation, if not an especially enthusiastic one.

3/4

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a realistic psycho-drama from the classic novel

Steven Crane is known as one of the first American "realists":
reading the novel was a real experience that I remember.
The movie didn't live up to that although it was well costumed and most of the acting was good. Audie Murphy was miscast as the hero, I think
as he just doesn't have the introspective tortured look that is necessary
to pull the role off. James Dean or Montgomery Clift would have fit the role much better?!
I liked it, anyway, for the civil war historical staging.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage, like Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, is a heartbreakingly beautiful film mutilated by its studio after a disastrous preview process. You can--and should--read the fascinating production history in Lillian Ross's Picture. Picture is a classic--and so's the movie, even in a 69-minute reduction featuring a climactic Civil War battle that has Stephen Crane's young hero wearing his red badge of courage, then not wearing it, then wearing it again (MGM editor-in-chief Margaret Booth recut two different battles into one). Most-decorated-soldier-of-WWII Audie Murphy was chosen to star ("a gentle little killer," Huston mused); the shadow of WWII is also felt in the casting of war-front chronicler Bill Mauldin as Murphy's pal, and in Huston's own experience making his great battlefield documentary San Pietro. The panoramas evoke Mathew Brady, and Huston's closeup framing brings a psychoanalytic intensity to the terrified young soldier's inner turmoil. --Richard T. Jameson

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