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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Different Time
Even not a fun of war movies likes this work of young US soldiers and their lucky elder wise commander much.
Why not so many awards for? Maybe, because Fuller then was not recent Spielberg. Time is different now. Even in Hollywood for Hollywood.
Rating: 
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the big red one
one of the really good wwII movies. unknown to most. lee marvin is great.
Rating: 
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Big Red One
Aside form the failed attempts to add / alter footage in Star Wars and Return of the Jedi, there are only two other movies in recent times that I can recall as being reduced in quality after previously excised material was later included. One was "Apocalypse Now; Redux" and the other is "The Big Red One".
Samuel Fuller was never a truly good director in any real sense of the word. Most of his efforts are mediocre to middling at best. Early efforts like "Fixed Bayonets" or "The Steel Helmet" showed flashes of something approaching greatness, but when one looks through his body of material, one is left somewhat under-whelmed.
"The Big Red One", which was easily Fuller's best movie contains those same flashes of brilliance, (a dead soldier's wrist watch marking time on Omaha beach on the 6th June), but also tends to leave the viewer somewhat dry after each section following Fullers young squad of American infantrymen. The project, which was in Fullers heart for many years, is just beyond the scope of the budget that Sam Fuller was able to scrape together for it. The 70 year old Fuller, who served with 1st battalion, has many memories to draw upon but they are let down sometimes by poor writing, directing and execution. "The Big Red One" never seems to know what kind of movie it's trying to be. In one moment we have a gung ho `gee whiz Sarge, let's kill the Krauts" type of Hollywood war movie, very much in the vein of the 1950's and on the other it tries hard to actually say something strong about the war and the period that the film is set in. Neither element seems to come off successfully however.
This is not to say that the "Big Red One" is totally un-enjoyable, that is not the case. On the whole the film passes by relatively well, with some very nice sarcastic moments delivered by a great Lee Marvin, who plays the squads Sergeant, although he is far, far too old (the prologue shows Marvin's character during the First World War ! ) If one ignores that, however and just enjoys Marvin for what he is, then it's forgivable. Other characters aren't so entertaining though. Among the core of the squad are a pretty dull Kelly Ward and Bobby Di Cicco, with Robert Carridine tasked with trying to be a composite of Fuller himself (complete with chomping cigar) and others and Mark Hammil fresh from "The Empire Strikes Back" playing a rather clichéd sharpshooter who, shock horror, loses his ability to shoot straight because he's worrying about "murdering the enemy", exercising one of the films nods to old style war movies.
"We don't murder the enemy, we kill him" reassures Marvin's Sergeant.
This is echoed by Marvin's opposite number, Fledwebel Schroeder (played by Siegfried Rauch). An obviously cardboard nazi type, that's actually made more silly by the extended material. Schroeder is ridiculously one dimensional, dispatching his own men when they don't agree with him or the party line and is simply a foil for Marvin. But he could have been a much better character and contributed more to the film. It's not Rauch's fault, it's just the writing.
The new material in the reconstruction of the "Big Red One" jars on the film as a whole. Most of the extra scenes don't add anything to the movie except to its running time and it's easy to see why they were cut out the first time `round. The exception being the extra footage of a French cavalry attack, which helps out Marvin's squad as they make an attack the Afrika Korps. At the end of the battle Marvin warns his men that he won't have any trading going on for "Krauts ears", as the North Afican troops have been cutting off American ears too and trading them as well. It's a nice little effort to introduce some ambiguity to the main characters of the piece. Among other added scenes is a frankly un-necessary sex scene between Hammil and an older female agent in a mental asylum and a scene with a German sniper child that is rendered absolutely ridiculous at its end.
None of the extra material ever comes close to matching some of the original scenes for power. The previously mentioned D-Day watch sequence (although it's a poor man's "Private Ryan" for the most part) and the finale in Czechoslovakian concentration camp just won't be bettered by the new inclusions.
Overall, the "Big Red One; the reconstruction" is a nice package and is essentially a good idea but with flawed material, both original and added. There's nice extras here too in the form of genuinely interesting documentaries and deleted scenes etc. It would have been nice to have the original theatrical cut included too. That would have rounded off the presentation.
Rating: -
Not as good as other war movies
I have seen this movie several times and do not rank it as among the best war films. Several films that I consider better include "Battleground", "A Walk in the Sun", "GI Joe", The Longest Day", "The Train", "Saving Private Ryan", "They Were Expendable", "Twelve O'clock High", "Bridge at Remagen", "A Bridge Too Far", "Judgement at Nuremberg", and "Band of Brothers." I sometimes watch it on cable TV but will not buy it for my film library. I cannot give explicit reasons why I feel this way but can only use my experience as a war movie buff.
Rating: -
'THE BIG RED ONE' IS A BLUNT REMINDER THAT WAR IS HELL
IN A NUTSHELL: NOT JUST ANOTHER WAR MOVIE LIKE EVERY OTHER
'The Big Red One - The Reconstruction' is a very different film from most other 'epic war dramas'. In this episodic tale, about a squad leader [Lee Marvin] and his four mainstays, we see a grunt-eyes' view of the european theatre of world war 2. From the first landing in North Africa, facing the Vichy French, to the end of the war, where this squad from the 1st U.S. Army division came face to face with the Nazi genocide, we see a path taken that is rarely shown in mainstream cinema.
Soldiers are frightened, civilians are killed, and glory is a rare thing. Language and actions are often crude, but so is real war when it is fought by real men. Fuller makes a point of showing us how men react in real situations and the irony and lack of honor that is sometimes attached to these acts color alost every scene in the film.
-----> THE CAST <-----
Lee Marvin - Sergeant Possum
Mark Hamill - Griff
Robert Carradine - Zab
Bobby Di Cicco - Vinci
Stéphane Audran - Walloon
Kelly Ward - Johnson
Siegfried Rauch - Schroeder
Serge Marquand - Rensonnet
Charles Macaulay - General/Captain
Alain Doutey - Broban
Maurice Marsac - Vichy Colonel
Colin Gilbert - Dog Face POW
Marthe Villalonga - Mme. Marbaise
Ken Campbell - Lemchek
Howard Delman - Smitty
Joseph Clark - Shep
Perry Lang - Kaiser
Doug Werner - Switolski
-----> THE PRODUCTION TEAM <-----
Samuel Fuller - Director / Screenwriter
Merv Adelson - Producer / Executive Producer
Gene Corman - Producer
Lee Rich - Producer / Executive Producer
Richard Schickel - Producer
Jim McBride - Screenwriter
Adam Greenberg - Cinematographer
Dana Kaproff - Composer (Music Score)
Bryan McKenzie - Editor
Mort Tubor - Editor
Peter Jamison - Art Director
Arne Schmidt - First Assistant Director
Lewis Teague - Second Unit Director
ABOUT THE DVD: VERY WELL CLEANED TRANSFER & WITH EXCELLENT AUDIO ADDITIONS
Besides the usual remastering and cleaning their were many scenes that had to be brought out of mothballs with only the original script and shooting schedule as a guide. Nevertheless, an admirable job of cleaning the video, piecing back the missing 50 minutes in the correct order, and augmenting the battle sounds with as many as 100+ new audio layers was done by a team led by Richard Schickel prior to the 2004 re-release.
--> SPECIAL FEATURES FOR THE 2-DISK DVD
*** Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
*** Available Audio Tracks: English, French
*** Commentary by: reconstruction producer Richard Schickel
*** Almost 50 minutes of added footage
*** Alternate scenes
*** Anatomy of a Scene: Watch the director at work and examine the before/after restoration comparisons
*** New documentary The Real Glory: Reconstructing The Big One
*** Profile: The Men Who Make the Movies: Samuel Fuller
*** War department film: The Fighting First
*** 1980 promo reel, theatrical trailer, and TV and radio spots
*** 2004 reconstruction trailer -- Stills gallery
BOTTOM LINE: THE ONLY WAY TO SEE 'THE BIG RED ONE' IS THIS 2004 RECONSTRUCTION RELEASE
ALSO RECOMMENDED:
--- BATTLEGROUND, 1949, WILLIAM WELLMAN
