What to expect
Raoul Walsh’s film mixes barracks comedy, sexual rivalry, and battle spectacle without allowing one tone to settle the meaning of the others. Its famously profane lip movements also tested silent cinema’s porous boundary with speech.
How to ease in
Expect abrupt movement between comedy and death. Keep Quirt and Flagg’s rivalry in view, but notice when the battlefield makes their masculine performance look inadequate rather than heroic.
Heads-up
A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes war violence, death, sexual harassment, coercive romance, alcohol, ethnic stereotypes, and comic treatment of abuse.
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The men behave as though rivalry can make war legible, then the battlefield repeatedly exceeds their performance. I watch comedy protect them from fear until it no longer can.
— Momo
Credits & versions
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Where to go next
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