Battleground

Incoming MGM production head Dore Schary ramrodded Battleground into the studio's schedule over the virulent protests of MGM boss Louis Mayer. The result was an award-winning box-office hit, as well as the beginning of the end of Mayer's power. This dramatization of the battles of Bastogne and the ...more

Hailed by critics, audiences, and veterans alike, William Wellman's Battleground (1949), together with such other war movies as Wellman's earlier Ernie Pyle biopic The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) and Lewis Milestone's A Walk in the Sun (1945), set a new standard of de-glamorization in war films that continued for decades. The common elements of this new veracity were sharply observed details about the life of the common serviceman, a nearly documentary-like portrayal of war's gore and harsh ...more