walk in the sun movie review

Classic Film Review: “A Walk in the Sun” (1945) WWII filmed as it was happening

Has there ever been a World War II classic that starts as clumsily as “A Walk on the Sun ?”

Corny ballad with printed sing-along lyrics, a poorly-faked landing craft voyage that never gives you any sense that the GIs on board are actually at sea, arch dialogue, including one private (played by John Ireland ) who recites aloud his next planned letter home to his sister.

“Dear Frances, I am writing you this letter relaxing on the deck of a luxury liner. On shore the natives have evidently just spotted us and are getting up a reception – fireworks, music and that sort of stuff. Ha …”

There’s a solid 20+ minutes of this cheese. Even when the platoon’s lieutenant is hit offshore (and off-camera) and the drawling medic ( Sterling Holloway ) jokes his way forward to treat a dying man, everything about this opening act screams “The director was born during the Victorian Era,” as indeed Lewis Milestone was. Stodgy. Old fashioned hokum.

But once you get past the hokum, this is surprisingly sober and grimly realistic for its day. Eventually the style settles down, the “Wait wait wait” because “this is the Army, after all” tedium begins to resonate and the characters and the fine actors who play them start to make their marks.

Norman Lloyd is the put-upon complainer who figures he’ll “make sergeant” eventually, by the time they fight “The Battle of Tibet, in 1956.”

We tend to forget, in the middle of this global war, nobody really knew how long it would take to turn back fanatical fascists and anybody else who threatened liberty.

Richard Conte is the wise-ass machine gunner with a funny line for any eventuality. Italian deserters surrender to the platoon.

“Ask’em if they know where I can get a pizza.”

Lloyd Bridges is the farmer turned sergeant who might be the most competent NCO, and certainly the bravest.

Ireland is the poet, Windy, always composing those letters aloud, waxing lyrical about “GI dirt” and piping up when his commanders don’t have a clue.

“You’re a pretty shrewd guy, Windy.”

“That’s what I tell myself, all the time .”

And Dana Andrews is the stoical sergeant following the chain of command, even though the second in command ( Herbert Rudley ), nervous but in charge after the lieutenant’s death, has no one’s confidence.

“How’s baby?” Andrews’ Sgt. Tyne asks of the GI cradling his Thompson sub machine-gun, its butt covered in notches for “kills.”

“I’ll wake her up when I need her.”

The platoon is packed with troops when they land. They have a simple mission, seize a farmhouse stronghold, blow up a bridge below it.

As they duck strafing German fighters and take on tanks (off camera) and a machine-gun equipped halftrack (on camera), men die, and not generally in melodramatic ways. Nobody stops to mourn or get sentimental. Milestone — he directed the definitive 1930s film version of the anti-war novel “All Quiet on the Western Front”– and screenwriter Robert Rossen (“All the President’s Men” and “The Hustler”) give this movie, filmed while the war was winding down, a dose of unemotional reality in between the wisecracks.

“It’s a funny thing, how many people you meet in an army that cross your path for a few seconds and you never see ’em again.”

The combat is messy, inefficient, just like the real thing. Half the platoon hurls grenades at that hafltrack. It takes forever to disable and then take out.

The assault on the farmhouse, even by combat veterans, has a “follow orders” fatalism. There’s no Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, John Wayne derring do. The machine gunner is to keep the Germans pinned down.

“I’m gonna aim for the knees, and then work north ,” Pvt. Rivera (Conte) chortles.

They send a squad out to flank the house. “Volunteers? “

“Pass out the purple hearts, mother!”

“Any extra pay?”

“Naah.”

“Then I’ll go anyway, just to make them feel ashamed.”

The rest of the platoon will charge. A lot of them will go down.

The hokum here is mostly in the opening and closing moments, where singer Kenneth Spencer croons “the ballads.” The combat sequences, from quick sketches that show how limited your average GI’s field of vision is — What’s that explosion over there? Where’s that smoke coming from? Who’s coming up behind us? Are we all alone? — to the big set piece in the finale, are handled with professional polish.

After a while, even Windy’s narrated letters home stop sounding so damned hokey.

“Dear Frances, we just blew a bridge and took a farmhouse. It was so easy… so terribly easy.”

It’s not “The Ballad of GI Joe” or as good as the combat films of the ’50s. But if you run across “A Walk in the Sun,” as I have over the years, don’t let the first 20+ minutes chase you away. Ireland, Bridges, Conte, Andrews and Milestone make it well worth your while.

MPA Rating: “Approved”

Cast: Dana Andrews, Lloyd Bridges, Richard Conte, John Ireland, Huntz Hall, Sterling Holloway, Herbert Rudley and Norman Lloyd

Credits: Directed by Lewis Milestone, script by Robert Rossen, based on the novel by Harry Brown.

Running time: 1:57

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A Walk in the Sun (1945) Lookback/Review

What better movie for Memorial Day than one that declares: Nobody dies. A Walk in The Sun is an often-overlooked World War Two movie. It has a reputation for being one of the most realistic war movies made during the war to end all wars, but the film advisor was an officer, not a foot-soldier. Directed by the man who made the classic anti-war film, All Quiet on the Western Front, it was a patriotic military movie made at the time of war that dared to explore PTSD and soldiers’ reluctance.

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On Memorial Day, you can be sure to see classic heroic war films with stars like Gary Cooper or John Wayne. Hollywood has always supported the troops. From the time of FDR’s presidency, through the Reagan years of Top Gun, the Bush era and present day pro-military films like Zero Dark Thirty, Tinseltown can be counted on to support any presidency’s military agenda. Although film makers have a long history of making anti-war and anti-military films, Hollywood was forced to make pro-war propaganda films for the most part. Directors volunteered to shoot soldiers in the best possible light. The men were shown with a quiet heroism. A Walk in the Sun tells the story of the Lee Platoon of the Texas division of the U.S. army during World War Two. It takes place in the hours from a pre-dawn landing on the beach in Salerno, Italy to noon the same day. It featured soldiers who were tired of war. Tired of being on foreign soil that wasn’t fertile enough to grow a simple apple tree. Weary to their bones as they lay siege to a strategically located farmhouse.

A Walk in the Sun isn’t an anti-war film, like Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion) , directed by Jean Renoir. It’s not an anti-military movie, like Crossfire , the film noir war drama Edward Dmytryk which explored anti-semitism in the military (The book it was based on, “The Brick Foxhole” by screenwriter and director Richard Brooks, was about the persecution of a gay soldier.) But it wasn’t the typical rah rah patriotic film that was the usual fair while the U.S. was in the middle of WWII. The men in the troops didn’t want to be there. They were dog faces. Bitter, tired, sick of killing, sick of waiting to be killed, sick of walking and walking and walking. A Walk in the Sun paints in broad strokes. It tackles post-traumatic stress disorder, battle fatigue. When the Staff Sgt. Eddie Porter breaks down and is unable to continue, he is no coward. These things happen, too many battles. Sure it’s overdone, and yeah he overreacts the shit of the scene, throwing himself face-down into unconditional surrender, but it’s alright, his men understand. He fought too many battles. He should have never been in command. He should have never had the choice of life or death for 53 men in his hands.

The “Walk” is a dangerous mission and death can come unexpected from any direction, at any time. For one soldier it comes in the middle of a word. The soldiers blanket themselves in gallow’s humor. They joke about death. They tease each other. They can be cruel. Cruel enough to shove a love letter into a wound instead of mailing it.

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Director Lewis Milestone made the classic anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930 based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque and starred the fantastic actor Lew Ayres along with Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy and Ben Alexander. The Russian-born director won Best Director Oscars for All Quiet on the Western Front and Two Arabian Knights from 1927. He also directed The Front Page in 1931, The General Died at Dawn in 1936, Of Mice and Men in 1939, Ocean’s 11 in 1960 and Mutiny on the Bounty in 1962. A Walk in the Sun was based on the book by Harry Brown who wrote for Yank, a weekly Army magazine that came out of England. Liberty Magazine serialized the book in 1944.

Do you know who you’re fighting? They never told me.

Dana Andrews leads the platoon Staff Sgt. Bill Tyne. Andrews is best known as the detective in Laura, the 1944 film noir starring Gene Tierney and as war veteran Fred Derry in The Best Years of Our Lives from 1946. Andrews made his film debut in William Wyler’s 1940 western, The Westerner which starred Gary Cooper. Andrews played a gangster in the 1941 comedy Ball of Fire . Andrews was the lynching victim in 1943 movie The Ox-Bow Incident with Henry Fonda.

Jon Ireland made his screen debut as Private Windy, He writes letters in his head that, someday, he will write and mail. Ireland played in Wake Up and Dream and John Ford’s My Darling Clementine in 1946. He would play alongside Montgomery Clift in Howard Hawks’ 1948 film Red River . Ireland was the innocent man on the run in the 1955 film The Fast and the Furious and played the gladiator Crixus in the Stanley Kubrick classic Spartacus with with Kirk Douglas.

As Rivera, who loves his machine gun, Richard Conte personifies the rough camaraderie of men in arms. He wraps himself in the flak jacket of his mantra: “Nobody dies.” When he says “Butt me,” he’s not talking about how to kill time in a platoon without women, he just wants a cigarette from his friend, the man he wants to protect, and knows wants to protect him. He doesn’t want to be there either. They came to this beautiful country to kill those who live in this beautiful country. Herbert Richard Benedict’s Pvt. Tranella “speaks two languages, Italian and Brooklyn,” When he’s called on to translate for two Italian army deserters, he’s friendly. He likes them, begins to gossip, begins to joke.

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After being considered for the part of Don Corleone, Richard Conte was cast as Don Barzini in The Godfather. Conte made his theater debut in Moon Over Mulberry Street in 1939, the same year he made his first film Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence , where he was credited as Nicholas Conte. He changed his name when he signed on with 20th Century Fox. For Fox Conte played soldier after soldier in such films as Guadalcanal Diary in 1943 and The Purple Heart in 1944 before walking in the Italian sun. After World War II Conte played in noir films like Whirlpool with Gene Tierney and the spy movie 13 Rue Madeleine starring James Cagney in 1947. He also played in Call Northside 777, Thieves’ Highway , The Sleeping City, The Raging Tide, Highway Dragnet, The Blue Gardenia, The Big Combo and I’ll Cry Tomorrow . Conte played Edward G. Robinson’s lawyer son in House of Strangers . He starred in a Twilight Zone episode in 1959.

Known to modern audiences for his Emmy-nominated role of Izzy Mandelbaum on Seinfeld, Lloyd Bridges plays Staff Sgt. Ward. Bridges is best known as Mike Nelson the main character of the TV series Sea Hunt . Bridges was blacklisted in the 1950s after admitting to the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had been a member of the Actors’ Lab. He was cleared by the FBI only to spout profanity on live television during a 1956 appearance on The Alcoa Hour . The episode was directed by Sidney Lumet, who began his career on stage as a Dead End Kid.

Another Dead End kid, Huntz Hall, has a very small part, but, because he’s one of my favorite actors, I’m going to dwell on him. He doesn’t want to be there. He’s gotta be a draftee. He doesn’t give a shit about the trees or the land, the beautiful countryside of Italy. He just wants to go home. Hall plays a very down-to-earth caricature of New York soldiers. He’s not interested in Norman Rockwell. “Now they got pictures, so why bother drawing?” He asks his more artsy platoon partner who says. “You might was well say now they got movies, why take pictures? Why don’t they put moving pictures on the covers of magazines?” “Someday they’ll have it,” a precognitive Hall says. And now, of course we do. Hall’s Pvt. Carraway is no patriot. He’d desert in a heartbeat. He’s just looking for an excuse. “What would you give me for a spoon of beer? I’d give you my GI rifle, my GI bayonet, and even my GI pants.”

Huntz Hall gained his own infamy when the police found two pounds of marijuana buried on his property in the 1940s. Talking about it with David Letterman years later, he admitted that was what they found, hinting that he had further stash. Hall appeared on the cover of the Beatles’ 1967 classic album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Norman Lloyd plays Pvt. Archimbeau. Archimbeau is convinced that wars will never end. He predicts continuing conflicts in a never-ending march of battles. He is obsessed about a war that will happen in Tibet in the 1950s. The movie was narrated by Burgess Meredith.

Now, about the theme song, it functions as a kind of Greek chorus as a faux spiritual, but it breaks the action, has an awful beat and you can’t dance to it. It’s no “High Noon.” It’s more “Sixteen Tons.” You forgive it. Barely.

A Walk in the Sun is a classic. It’s made better by its low budget because it forces what might have been a routine war movie into a character-driven study. Yes, the characters were caricatures but they were enduring caricatures. What better movie for Memorial Day than a war movie that declares: Nobody dies.

Den of Geek Rating: 4 Out of 5 Stars

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Tony Sokol | @tsokol

Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. He contributed to Altvariety, Chiseler, Smashpipe, and other magazines. He is the TV Editor at Entertainment…

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A Walk in the Sun Reviews

A war film that, in my opinion, lacks substance when it places plastic soldiers in the same predictable trenches in the sunlight. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 9, 2022

Overall, "A Walk in the Sun" is a unique World War II film that is both thought-provoking and compelling to watch from scene to scene.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 27, 2021

Once you get past the hokum, this is surprisingly sober and grimly realistic for its day.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 16, 2021

...a quiet mood piece, lyrical and elegiac, more than it is an action adventure. As such, it works wonderfully well.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 20, 2009

Gritty, realistic WWII yarn with strong cast directed by Lewis Milestone.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 14, 2007

Might be the best WWII film.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 19, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 3, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 30, 2003

Kit Parker Films

A Walk in the Sun

Blu-ray: $19.99

by Michael Sandlin

June 29, 2022

Rating: 3 of 5

Director Lewis Milestone

Production Company Kit Parker Films

Genre War , Classic Film , Drama

Cast John Ireland , Dana Andrews , Lloyd Bridges

Rating Not Rated

Release Date 2022/02/08

Duration 117 minutes

In what would be possibly the first “introspective” war movie—a precursor to later philosophical war films like Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line — A Walk in the Sun , now re-released in this freshly minted Blu-ray format, was directed by Lewis Milestone. He was certainly no stranger to realistic but thoughtful portrayals of men in battle ( All Quiet on the Western Front being his first artistic directorial triumph), and A Walk in the Sun was made while World War II was still raging and released in 1945. But as gritty and realistic as the film eventually gets (for its day, anyway), the opening sequences of the featured platoon of American GIs (of the so-called Texas Division) landing in Italy in 1943 will seem hopelessly hokey to most modern audiences.

Where part of the authentic appeal of Milestone’s All Quiet was the clever absence of a distracting soundtrack, A Walk in the Sun is bookended by some cornball balladeering that sounds anachronistic and tonally awkward for the mood of the rest of the movie. The platoon is led by the all-business Sgt. Tyne (Dana Andrews) who shares command duties with Sgt. Ward (a young Lloyd Bridges), a former farmer.

Once these men get on the march, we see the director’s obvious attempt at humanizing these soldiers as something more than just your usual cannon fodder. It’s a slow-moving talky, smoky affair (everyone demanding cigarettes every few seconds—“give me a butt!”), but you do get to witness some unique personalities rise to the fore as the soldiers talk away their fears and anxieties in light, nervous chatter, or sometimes more contemplative exchanges about what all the madness around them really adds up to.

Then, of course, once they get orders to hit a German-held farmhouse, the action bit of the film begins in earnest, and the chatter of men is replaced by the chatter of opposing machine-gun fire, with the platoon sustaining some serious damage. But where All Quiet ends with an unmistakable antiwar message, A Walk in the Sun is understandably more conventional in its portrayal of warfare and the righteousness of personal sacrifice in a war that perhaps meant more than the so-called Great War fought a quarter-century earlier. Recommended for film collections with an emphasis on war, World War II, and history.

Discover more titles with our list of drama movies .

Star Ratings

As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.

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A Walk in the Sun 01/04/22

Lewis Milestone directed this poetic, optimistic ode to the American infantryman, a ‘lone patrol’ saga that emphasizes its soldiers’ hopes and fears. The lineup of fresh, eager acting talent is remarkable: Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway, Norman Lloyd, Herbert Rudley, Richard Benedict, Huntz Hall, James Cardwell, Steve Brodie. Voiceovers and ‘ballads’ give a six-mile beachhead incursion the tone of a spiritual rumination. A beautiful full film restoration brings the image back to prime quality. The controversial filmmakers and the unusual production circumstances are covered in Alan K. Rode’s commentary. On Blu-ray + DVD from Kit Parker / MVD . 01/04/22

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A walk in the sun.

Directed by Lewis Milestone

THEY FOUGHT BEST WHEN IT WAS HOPELESS!

In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to attempt to take a fortified farmhouse, as tension and casualties mount.

Dana Andrews Richard Conte George Tyne John Ireland Lloyd Bridges Sterling Holloway Norman Lloyd Herbert Rudley Richard Benedict Huntz Hall James Cardwell George Offerman, Jr. Steve Brodie Matt Willis Chris Drake Alvin Hammer Victor Cutler Jay Norris John Kellogg Fred Carpenter Tony Dante Danny Desmond Ray Elder Jack Ellis Richard Elmore Bennett Green Robert Horton John Laurenz Billy Lord Show All… Robert Lowell Burgess Meredith Ted O'Shea Foster H. Phinney Dan Quigg Joe Roach Jerome Root Jerry Sheldon Jack Sterling Don Summers George Turner Henry Vroom

Director Director

Lewis Milestone

Producers Producers

Lewis Milestone Samuel Bronston

Writer Writer

Robert Rossen

Original Writer Original Writer

Harry Brown

Editor Editor

Duncan Mansfield

Cinematography Cinematography

Russell Harlan

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Maurie M. Suess Sam Nelson

Art Direction Art Direction

Max Bertisch

Composer Composer

Freddie Rich

Sound Sound

Corson Jowett

Costume Design Costume Design

Superior Pictures Lewis Milestone Productions

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English Italian

Releases by Date

03 dec 1945, 25 dec 1945, releases by country.

Premiere NR
Theatrical NR

117 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Blaze the Action Junkie ★★

A 1945 movie about events two years earlier in Italy during WW2. I'm always a bit more fascinated on takes of events that are recorded closer to the events themselves even if the productions are dated, and you don't get closer to World War 2 than with a 1945 flick. Most of the first half of this one was a bit of a tough sell for me. There's just tons of dialogue and several sequences that amounts to little more than the camera watching two soldiers talking about what they're seeing. Obviously it's dialogue from the book and a way for the production to both save cash and follow the source material, but I found these stretches incredibly boring. Fortunately…

Review by Nitrate_Diet ★★★★ 1

Impressionistic WWII tale and a worthy addition to the Lewis Milestone war movie canon. Less pacifist than All Quiet on the Western Front , but still willing to consider soldiers' fears and insecurities. More than other genres in classical Hollywood, war movies get away with an unusual amount of narrative freedom. The story here is about a trek to a farmhouse six miles away, a scenario so simple it's forced to revolve around the characters and their existential reflections on what they're doing. A lot of the cast were becoming familiar faces in noir pictures, so in a roundabout way that also contributes to the film's sense of absurdism and dread. Screenplay is by Robert Rossen, who would become a director himself the following year.

Review by Quiller ★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Some folks consider this one of the best WWII movies ever made, but it’s never worked for me. It didn’t work for future director Samuel Fuller, either, so I’m in good company. Fuller was so upset that the man who directed All Quiet On The Western Front made something so inauthentic about a war Fuller had fought in that he wrote to Lewis Milestone to tell him so. Among Fuller’s complaints were the idea that a single platoon would be tasked with two different objectives six miles inland from a landing site with no artillery or tank support whatsoever, an unclear chain of command, and cliched characters (such as a pair of New Yorkers reminiscing about Coney Island). I’ll also…

Review by PUNQ ★★★½

A Walk in the Sun (1945) provides a unique and intimate war experience. We follow a troop as they pass from battle scene to battle scene. The focus is more on the soldiers and the trauma they face than the bombs blowing up around them. Another example of Hollywood changing in the way they actors are captured.

Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★★★½

The always level-headed Samuel Fuller was reported to have written to Lewis Milestone, the director of A Walk in the Sun, to tell him that he didn't like his film at all. Which I'm all in favour of, even though I liked it, because film history is disappointingly short on director beefs.

If I'd have been writing that letter to Milestone, my focus would have been more specific.

" Dear Mr. Milestone,

I am writing to tell you that I rather enjoyed your recent motion picture, A Walk in the Sun, even though the version Sony Movies was showing was the one that looks like a piece of shit before it was recently restored. Its qualities still shone through though. I…

Review by emmarosebrady ★★★★

When my dad said he was putting on a war movie from 1945 at 11:30 pm, I figured I'd fall asleep on the couch. To my surprise, I was enthralled. A Walk in the Sun has the sensibilities of a typical 40s flick - charming, poetic, funny, wholly original, and with surprising emotional depth. A movie about WWII made/released during the war itself that still manages to step outside the propaganda genre. Nearly every war movie I've seen rips this movie off. Must be flattering. The editing was fire. John Ireland is a stunning sensitive king. Idk this is kinda my shit.

Review by Prof. Ratigan ★★★½

The restoration blu-ray is marvelous. An amazing thing to see a rough transfer on a first viewing and a restoration on the second. I don't know if I appreciated the film more, but I certainly appreciated the lack of the distraction, which freed up other observations. I love the screwball dialogue along with the dark, determined perspective. Milestone was the perfect pick for this film as the maker of All Quiet on the Western Front and a film that could have easily been a chapter out of that book. I believe I may have made the same observation last time, but A Walk in the Sun lines up very well with other tough war movies made around and within a…

Review by Ruth Scouller ★★★★ 2

A Walk in the Sun finds Milestone in the same elite genre form he brought to All Quiet . The 2022 restoration is a revelatory improvement, gorgeously crisp and indeed a definitive update (especially if you pick up the blu ray with commentary).

This one in particular feels very influential to those acclaimed turn of the millennium war films from Malick, Spielberg and co. Both humorous and humane, it is more of a single-morning hangout which uses the ensemble very well, including a couple enduring names like Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Norman Lloyd, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway and Burgess Meredith in voiceover.

As we enter this Texas Division platoon are in a pre-dawn landing barge about to hit the…

Review by Scott Huston ★★★★

Is all about the banter, and the walking. There is a fight with the Germans near the end of the film, but no big battles. Just like Twelve Angry Men (1957) is about the give-and-take during the jury deliberations , much like the typical chatter of any work place. Dana Andrews is Sgt. Bill Tyne, his tagalong group of men constantly move onward to the next objective, setting a goal and then the deliberative action. It is not about combat tactics, it is all about the repartee (rated PG) Directed by Lewis Milestone who did Ocean’s Eleven (1962), Rain(1932 ), and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) he uses the constant sound of marching to strengthen the momentum.

Review by Ryan Terry ★★★★

This is a wonderfully, casual, character-driven war film with a fantastic cast of character actors highlighted by solid performances from Dana Andrews and Lloyd Bridges...and all I can focus on is that the character of McWilliams, a medical staffer is played by Sterling Holloway. Basically, all I hear is Winnie the Pooh as a soldier.

Review by Richard ★★

A nice forerunner of plenty of war films. I've seen this compared to Saving Private Ryan but I get more of a Thin Red Line vibe from this.

OK performances but a little too talky for me. And a bit hokey too.

Review by upthejunction ★★★★

A Walk in the Sun is radically different to war films of the time and I admire it greatly for this. Rather than being a gung ho action feature Robert Rossen writes a screenplay for adults which focuses on the characters instead of the action itself. The result is an incredibly empathetic and intelligent feature that really drives home the horrors of war to audiences at home. At times A Walk in the Sun has so much to say that it does drag a little, however, thanks to the atmospheric direction from the legendary Lewis Milestone and the excellent work of a strong ensemble cast including Dana Andrews, John Ireland and Richard Conte it succeeds as a gritty, moving document of the realities of war. An important picture in American cinema and although not perfect, certainly ahead of its time.

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Cast & crew, lewis milestone, dana andrews, richard conte, george tyne, john ireland, lloyd bridges, photos & videos, technical specs.

In 1943, the diverse group of fifty-three soldiers comprising the Lee Platoon of the Texas Division anxiously await their upcoming landing on a beach near Salerno, Italy. A landing barge carries them to their objective during the pre-dawn hours, and the increasing danger of their situation is demonstrated when their young lieutenant, Rand, is wounded by a shell fragment that destroys half of his face. Platoon Sgt. Pete Halverson takes over command and orders Sgt. Eddie Porter to lead the men to the beach while he tries to find the captain and confirm their orders. First aid man McWilliams remains with Rand, and the rest of the men hit the beach and dig in while trying to elude the shelling and machine-gun fire. Sgt. Bill Tyne wonders what they will do if Halverson does not return, and after the sun rises, the sergeants send the men into the woods to protect them from enemy aircraft. Tyne remains on the beach to wait for Halverson, but learns from McWilliams that both Rand and Halverson are dead. Soon after, McWilliams is shot by an enemy airplane. Tyne walks to the woods, and there discovers that three other men have been hit, including Sgt. Hoskins. Hoskins stays behind and Porter, Tyne and Sgt. Ward then lead the men in three squads along a road toward their objective, a farmhouse with a nearby bridge that they are to blow up. Porter knows that the six-mile journey will be a dangerous one, and warns the men to watch out for enemy tanks and aircraft. As they walk, the men shoot the breeze and discuss their likes and dislikes, the nature of war and the food they wish they were eating. Porter grows increasingly agitated, but is distracted when two retreating Italian soldiers surrender to the platoon and confirm that they are on the right road. The Italians warn them that the area is controlled by German troops, and soon after, the platoon meets a small reconnaisance patrol of American soldiers. After the patrol's motorcycle driver offers to ride to the farmhouse and report back, Porter becomes even more edgy as minutes pass without the driver's return. Finally Tyne tells the men to take a break while he sits with Porter. As machine gunner Rivera and his pal, Jake Friedman, razz each other, Porter begins to break down and tells Ward that he is putting Tyne in charge. Porter has a complete breakdown when a German armored car approaches, but Tyne's quick thinking prevails and the men blast the car with grenades and machine-gun fire. The bazooka men, who Tyne had sent ahead to search for tanks, blow up two tanks and another armored car, but expend all of their bazooka ammunition. Leaving a man to guard the still-crying Porter, Tyne pushes on, and as the men march, Friedman tells Rivera that he is a traveling salesman who is "selling democracy to the natives." The men finally reach the farmhouse, but when a small patrol attempts to crawl through the field in front of the house, they are shot at by the Germans, and two men are killed. Tyne and Ward are baffled about what to do next when Windy, a calm, introspective soldier suggests circling around the farm via the river and blowing up the bridge without first taking the house. Tyne sends two patrols, headed by Ward and Windy, to accomplish the mission, then orders Rivera to strafe the house while he leads a column of men in an attack on the house, which he hopes will distract the Germans. The remaining men nervously wait for their comrades to reach the bridge, until finally Rivera opens fire and Tyne and his men go over the stone wall and into the field. Tyne's sight blurs as he crawls toward the house, and when he comes across the body of Rankin, one of the fallen men, the platoon's constant refrain, "Nobody dies," resounds through his head. The bridge is blown up, and despite heavy losses, the platoon captures the house. Then, at exactly noon, Windy, Ward and the remaining men wander through the house as Tyne adds another notch to the butt of Rankin's gun.

Sterling Holloway

Norman Lloyd

Herbert rudley.

Richard Benedict

James Cardwell

George offerman jr..

Steve Brodie

Matt Willis

Chris drake, alvin hammer, victor cutler, john kellogg, danny desmond, don summers, anthony dante, malcolm o'guinn, grant maiben, harry cline, dick daniels, robert lowell, john laurenz, gus lombardo.

Robert Horton

Harry leonard, russ randall, jack sterling, mickey novak, luis rosado, foster phinney, henry vroom, robert wright, george turner.

Burgess Meredith

Jerome root, fred carpenter, dan cassell, dick elmore, bennett green, tommy hagan, orn huntington, larry murphy, ted o'shea, fred sanders, jerry sheldon, serge bertensson, max bertisch, samuel bronston, colonel thomas d. drake, edmund l. gruber, russell harlan, david hersh, arthur johns, corson jowett, millard lampell, duncan mansfield, joseph h. nadel, elmer raguse, fredric efrem rich, earl robinson, robert rossen, maurie suess, louis walters.

Hosted Intro

You ever think you'll live to make corporal? - Friedman

Baby, I just want to live long enough to make civilian. - Rivera

It's a funny thing, how many people you meet in an army that cross your path for a few seconds and you never see 'em again. - Sergeant Tyne

Nobody dies. - Rivera

Nothing slower than crawling. Nothing in the world. How long would it take to crawl around the world? A hundred years? A thousand years? - Sergeant Tyne

Wonder what it'll be like when we hit France, Mac. - Sergeant Tyne

I don't know. I never seen France. - McWilliams

I bet its just a long concrete wall with a gun every yard. Maybe they'll set the water on fire with oil, too. Boy, when that day comes I wanna be somewhere else. - Sergeant Tyne

Although the opening credits of this film indicate that Lewis Milestone Productions copyrighted the picture in 1945, the title is not included in the Catalog of Copyright Entries . After the picture's title card, which is the cover of Harry Brown's novel, the soldiers are shown marching, and the camera individually focuses on Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway, Norman Lloyd, Herbert Rudley and Richard Benedict as Burgess Meredith's narration mentions each actor's character name and gives a brief description of the character. An onscreen acknowledgment extends appreciation to the United States Armed Forces for assistance and participation in the film's production and to Colonel Thomas D. Drake for his technical advice. Throughout the film, the offscreen narrator and a balladeer comment on the action. Although the onscreen credits list "The Ballads" by Millard Lampell and Earl Robinson, "The Ballad of the First Platoon" is one song. An abridgement of Brown's novel appeared in Liberty magazine on 16 September 1944. According to information in the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department, located at the UCLA Arts-Special Collections Library, and Hollywood Reporter news items, the film's tangled production history began in September 1944, when independent producer Samuel Bronston purchased the rights to Brown's novel. Bronston, who had a distribution agreement with United Artists, intended to make the picture under his newly formed company Comstock Productions, Inc. with Lewis Milestone as co-producer and director. The film began shooting in October 1944, and in November 1944, Bronston obtained a $500,000 mortgage loan from Walter Heller & Co. and Ideal Factoring Corp. When the lending corporations discovered that the film could not be completed on the budget allocated by Bronston, according to the legal records, they foreclosed on the loan in early January 1945 and took over the project. The rights were transferred to Superior Productions, Inc., which was headed by Milestone, David Hersh and John J. Fisher, and the picture was completed. Superior Productions negotiated with several major studios for distribution rights, according to a July 10, 1945 Hollywood Reporter news item, and the picture was purchased for distibution by Twentieth Century-Fox in July 1945. In late January 1945, Bronston filed suit against Superior Productions, Walter Heller & Co. and Ideal Factoring Corp., claiming that the foreclosure was illegal. In February 1945, Bronston's suit was settled out of court and dismissed, with Bronston assigned to receive 21.25 percent of the profits from the picture's sale and distribution. Other lawsuits filed over the film included one by publicist Frank Smith and attorney Herman H. Levy, who argued that they were not adequately compensated for their services. The dispositions of their suits have not been determined. The legal records note that Buddy Yarus was originally scheduled to play "Jake Friedman." Although Hollywood Reporter production charts include Barton Hepburn in the cast, his appearance in the completed film has not been confirmed. Dana Andrews was borrowed from Sam Goldwyn for the production. The legal files indicate that Goldwyn's studio facilities and recording equipment were used in production for the picture, which, according to Hollywood Reporter news items, was shot on location at Malibu Lake, CA. A October 29, 1944 New York Times article reported that some sequences were shot on location at a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, CA, which modern sources note was the Agoura Ranch in Agoura, CA. Several contemporary news items noted that the production received full cooperation from the War Department and Army officials, which in turn requested several rewrites of the script. According to a April 19, 1945 Hollywood Citizen-News article, Milestone added the sequence in which the platoon expends all of its bazooka ammunition during an attack on a German armored car and two tanks in order to satisfy the Army's complaint that bazookas would have been used when the platoon stormed the farmhouse. A Hollywood Reporter news item reported on January 15, 1945 that Milestone was shooting added scenes "to provide a prologue requested by the War Department that would show all officers being properly briefed before the invasion." Carl O'Bryan was added to the cast to play the briefing captain, according to Hollywood Reporter , but that sequence does not appear in the finished film. According to an October 11, 1944 Hollywood Reporter news item, Milestone had requested permission from the War Department to film "one extra, complete, unexpurgated print to distribute to Allied forces only." Milestone felt that the use of authentic dialogue spoken by soldiers would "considerably strengthen the powerful drama for boys who have become accustomed to life 'as is,'" but the uncensored version was not produced. Many reviews praised the film and favorably compared it to All Quiet on the Western Front , the influential World War I picture directed by Milestone in 1930. According to a June 27, 1946 Hollywood Reporter news item, the picture, which had opened two days previously in Los Angeles, was "playing to bigger business than anywhere else in the country," because of "the elimination from newspaper advertising of any mention of the war theme." A Walk in the Sun was named one of the year's ten best films by the National Board of Review. The film marked actor Robert Horton's motion picture debut. The film was re-issued in the 1950s under the title Salerno Beachhead .

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"We waste our money so you don't have to."

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Movie Review

A walk in the sun.

US Release Date: 11-03-1945

Directed by: Lewis Milestone

Starring ▸ ▾

Dana Andrews , as
Sgt. Bill Tyne
Richard Conte , as
Pvt. Rivera
George Tyne , as
Pvt. Friedman
John Ireland , as
Pvt. Windy Craven
Lloyd Bridges , as
Sterling Holloway , as
Norman Lloyd , as
Pvt. Archimbeau
Herbert Rudley as
Sgt. Eddie Porter

Dana Andrews and Sterling Holloway in A Walk in the Sun .

A Walk in the Sun is based on a novel and the first thing you will notice in watching this movie is that the writers of this movie and book loved dialogue. From start to finish no one stops yackking the entire film. Before the action, during the action and after the action someone is constantly talking.

The movie tells the story of a 1943 beach landing in Italy during World War II. It follows a platoon of American soldiers from the beach, through the Italian country side and finally to an assault on a German held farm house. Between all of the talking there are out breaks of fighting. Men constantly get killed and the wounded left behind. The movie takes the action very seriously. There are no Hollywood heroics. The entire point of this film is to show just so how average and normal these men are.

The movie accomplishes that through having the characters constantly talk to each other. They talk about their futures and pasts. They complain about the military. They talk about trivial matters, “I have all Bing Crosby's records except his new one." One soldier says. They joke, such as when one soldier says that someone is coming another says, “Maybe it's Marlene Dietrich. Does it have legs?" They refer to sex. A Sargent goes on about apples and how he would “like to be cuttin one open now and licking that juice off the knife." A nearby soldier says, “Cut it out sarge now you got me thinking of something juicy." A third soldier just giggles at the comment. They discuss politics. One soldier tells another one that he is, “a traveling salesman selling Democracy to the natives." They also speak very honestly. A couple of soldiers see, from a distance, some of their platoon get shot and killed. “I hope it ain't anybody I like." One of them says.

The cast is led by Dana Andrews. He is a good actor but had the unfortunate luck to never appear in a truly classic film. Also in the cast is Lloyd Bridges who went on to greater television and movie success. Sterling Holloway may not sound real familiar by name but I bet you have heard his voice many times. He went on to do the voice of Winnie The Pooh in the Walt Disney movies. Also in the cast is an actor names John Ireland. I have no idea who he is but the entire film I was struck but how much he looked like Jean-Claude Van Damme.

A Walk in the Sun is one of the best World War II movies to honestly depict how the soldiers probably acted. You see them scared. You see them worried. You see some of them fall apart under the stress. The only thing unrealistic is that they never show blood. They refer to gore and horrible wounds but it is never shown. The problem with A Walk in the Sun is that so much of the dialogue is superfluous. The dialogue needed some arc to it. It is mildly interesting to hear two soldier debate which is better; a photograph or a painting by Norman Rockwell, but it does nothing for the plot.

A song is sung, narratively, throughout several parts of the movie. It is meant to be inspiring but is just annoying. There is enough words spoken in this movie to have a song added. The only actual dialogue that seems to arc in the story is when John Ireland writes letters to his sister out loud. At the beginning of the movie he is with the rest of the platoon on a landing craft heading for the beach. He sarcastically says, “Dear Frances, I am writing you this letter relaxing on the deck of a luxury liner. On shore the natives have evidently just spotted us and are getting up a reception - fireworks, music and that sort of stuff. Ha. The musicians in our own band have also struck up a little tune. Ha ha" At the end of the movie he continues the sarcastic letter, “Dear Frances, we just blew a bridge and took a farmhouse. It was so easy... so terribly easy." His sarcasm is the best narration and they should have increased his part and edited some of the other pointless conversations.

Photos © Copyright Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (1945)

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A walk in the sun is the most underrated wwii movie of the 1940s.

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A Walk In The Sun is one of the most underrated war movies of its era. Saving Private Ryan has become one of the defining movies set during World War 2, with its brutal battle sequences underlining the horrors of the conflict. That's not to say there hadn't been great movies about the conflict before then, ranging from The Longest Day to The Dirty Dozen , but Saving Private Ryan would prove to be a major influence on future depictions of World War 2, including Hacksaw Ridge and Enemy At The Gates .

A Walk In The Sun from 1945 was released the same year World War 2 came to an end and is based on the novel of the same name by Harry Brown. It was actually actor Burgess Meredith ( Rocky ) who got the project moving after convincing a producer to adapt Brown's book, and while Meredith doesn't appear in A Walk In The Sun he would serve as the uncredited narrator. The movie follows a platoon of soldiers who land in Italy and have to fight their way through hostile territory and face many casualties along the way.

Related: None But The Brave: Frank Sinatra's Directorial Debut Was An Anti-War Epic

A Walk In The Sun was helmed by Lewis Milestone, who had a varied career which includes directing anti-war classic All Quiet On The Western Front and the original Ocean's 11 starring Frank Sinatra. A Walk In The Sun was unique for war pictures made during this time in that it took a more grounded approach to how it depicted soldiers. The men of the platoon are all tired, scared and exhausted from the conflict. A Walk In The Sun was also produced on a modest budget, so in place of action setpieces, the focus is squarely on the characters with some battles thrown in.

A Walk In The Sun featured no big name actors like John Wayne or Clark Gable, which makes the soldiers feel all the more authentic. There are no inspiring speeches about the nature of war, and instead, there's just naturalistic - and even downright inane - chatter between fighting men worn down by endless fighting and knowing they could die at any moment. There's not to say there aren't tragic sacrifices but the movie never preaches and instead follows the platoon as they weather another day of fighting.

A Walk In The Sun is a tense and humanistic war film, and it's grounded take on the subject feels like it would later inspire films like Platoon or even Saving Private Ryan itself, and remains one of the most underrated war movies of its era.

Next: Ben Foster's 3:10 To Yuma Performance Is Grossly Underrated

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A Walk in the Sun

As a film Walk is not so sunny. It is distinguished for some excellent, earthy GI dialog, but the author has failed to achieve a proper fusing of dialog and situation. Too frequently he is given to spieling the colorful talk of the enlisted man, and thus allows his yarn to flounder. He is content, seemingly, to allow GI talk to encompass all else.

By Variety Staff

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Film [from a novel by Harry Brown] concerns an operation by a platoon of American soldiers after they hit the beach at Salerno. They’re detailed to wipe out a farmhouse and its Nazi occupants. That’s the major element of the story, such as it is, and the rest of the pic is mostly concerned with reactions of the GIs to the conditions under which they’re fighting, their thoughts, and so forth.

Dana Andrews gives one of his invariably forthright performances as a sergeant, and the rest of the impressive cast know their way around a script. And that holds particularly true of Richard Conte, who, perhaps, has the best lines.

Production: 20th Century-Fox. Director Lewis Milestone; Producer Lewis Milestone; Screenplay Robert Rossen; Camera Russell Harlan; Editor Duncan Mansfield; Music Frederic Efrem Rich; Art Director Max Bertisch
Crew: (B&W) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1945. Running time: 117 MIN.
With: Dana Andrews Richard Conte John Ireland Norman Lloyd Lloyd Bridges Huntz Hall

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Produced by, released by, a walk in the sun (1945), directed by lewis milestone.

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Synopsis by Hal Erickson

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A WALK IN THE SUN

Post author: eenableadmin
Post published: August 5, 2019
Post category: Uncategorized

(director: Lewis Milestone; screenwriters: Robert Rossen/from the novel of Harry Brown; cinematographer: Russell Harlan; editor: Duncan Mansfield; music: Fredric Efrem Rich; cast: Dana Andrews (Sgt. Tyne), Richard Conte (Rivera), John Ireland (Windy), George Tyne (Friedman), Lloyd Bridges (Sgt. Ward), Sterling Holloway (McWilliams); Runtime: 117; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Lewis Milestone; Twentieth Century-Fox; 1945)

“Might be the best WWII film.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Lewis Milestone (“Ocean’s Eleven”/”All Quiet on the Western Front”/”The Purple Heart”) directs this bleak realistic war drama, which just might be the best WWII film. It’s adapted from Harry Brown’s novel and the literate screenplay is by Robert Rossen. It tells of an infantry platoon in 1943 that lands at night on the beach at Salerno, Italy, walks six miles during daylight, and takes out a farmhouse defended by Nazis. Ironically titled, as the walk to the farmhouse and the subsequent action was no piece of cake. The black and white film marvelously captures in an unsentimental way the banter of the grunts, their boredom and fears.

Dana Andrews is terrific as he stars as the hard-nosed Sgt. Tyne, a platoon squad leader who through a series of deaths ends up assuming command of his platoon.

The film is less concerned with plot or antiwar sentiments, as it is with honest characterizations and showing how the ordinary soldiers carries out his job in a battle zone. Richard Conte and George Tyne, two machine gunners, needle each other and trade banter as they walk to the destination. John Ireland composes letters to his sister Frances in his head, such as the letter framed during the farmhouse skirmish where he says out loud “Dear Frances, we just blew a bridge and took a farmhouse. It was so easy… so terribly easy.” Though the platoon met with casualties, Ireland made it out alive and goes on to live another day for another fight. Which just might be what it’s all about for the soldier.

REVIEWED ON 7/19/2007 GRADE: A

Presumed innocent, just one drink.

A Walk in the Sun (1945) Blu-ray Review

January 29, 2022

A Long Time Waiting

A Walk in the Sun is dull. It’s boring. It’s rarely exciting. Those are its striking, memorable qualities.

War films during and immediately following WWII swelled with theatrical, inspiring heroics. Action dominated. Bodies were felled, often sans consequence; a death was a background event. Heroes didn’t die. A Walk in the Sun begged to differ.

More than death, some members of A Walk in the Sun’s platoon fall off due to injuries. One gives in to dwindling mental health, a rare depiction of war’s non-physical toll. Others enjoy the opportunity, speaking philosophically as they wait for explosions and bullets. One even smiles at the thought of hearing gunfire.

The isolating feel from A Walk in the Sun makes it stronger

A calm conversation between two soldiers asks who they’re fighting against. It’s slightly sarcastic in tone, if morbid as other unit members dig a grave for the fallen behind them. A Walk in the Sun is ruthless in a most unusual way, concerned with the mundane day-to-day as this troop wanders the Italian front, looking for something – anything – to fight. The movie’s title isn’t wrong. Instead, it’s a descriptor.

Personalities form. Characters are made. No one is defined by their weapon or skill, rather their likes and dislikes in a general way. But this is less about building camaraderie in an ultimately hollow story than it is biding time. The wait seems cruel; there’s too much time to think, too much consideration about the literal road ahead.

The isolating feel from A Walk in the Sun makes it stronger, the purposeful emptiness in terms of command and the total disassociation from intelligence causes intense doubt. Ideas begin to form about possible mine fields or tank attacks. Peace on a battlefield, it turns out, is worse than the conflict itself. Men distract themselves, worried about their next cigarette instead of a bullet. When violence happens, it’s almost numbing, even casual. The first victim loses part of his face, and it’s described in monotone dialog, not seen. This, before the troop even arrives on dry land. Already they accept the inevitable, and already, they’re prepared.

Carefully restored, remnants of a damaged source print remain. Minor distortion serve as a reminder, noticeable but not severe. Scratches and dirt stick around too, but nominally. The result? Pure, refined imagery, grain intact and easily resolved.

Natural sharpness in the film stock shines through on this Blu-ray, resolving exquisite detail. Cinematography quirks of the day aside, Walk in the Sun shows determined texture. Dirt and grass on the battlefield backdrops look just as stable as the facial texture in close.

Gray scale is a touch lean, restricting both extremes, if potent enough to drive dimensionality. Firm contrast suggests the exterior sun successfully regardless, and at their deepest, black levels keep shadows thick. Smooth gradients help though.

Static runs under the audio, a fair compromise to keep the fidelity smooth. A marginal toughness in the dialog and top-end treble sounds organic to the period. Time hasn’t degraded much, and this PCM track preserves the source.

The Blu-ray brings a commentary from author Alan K. Rode. The second disc is a DVD (!), and that begins with a 48-minute overview of Fox’s classic war films. Rode & Norman Lloyd speak at a screening of Saboteur and A Walk in the Sun , and that lasts 41-minutes. The Battle of San Pietro is a restored war department documentary short, reaching 38-minutes. A six-minute collection of Fox newsreels closes this disc out.

Full disclosure : This Blu-ray was provided to us for review. This has not affected the editorial process. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page to learn more.

A Walk in the Sun

Long, ponderous, and thoughtful, A Walk in the Sun represents the authentic war experience both at its most grueling and dull.

User Review

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 33 full resolution, uncompressed HD screen shots grabbed directly from the Blu-ray:

Matt Paprocki

Matt Paprocki has critiqued home media and video games for 20 years across outlets like Washington Post, Variety, Rolling Stone, Forbes, IGN, Playboy, Polygon, Ars, and others. His current passion project is the technically minded DoBlu.com . You can read Matt's body of work via his personal WordPress blog, and follow him on Twitter @Matt_Paprocki .

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Francis Ford Coppola on Thursday premiered his self-financed opus “Megalopolis” at the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling a wildly ambitious passion project the 85-year-old director has been pondering for decades.

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Francis Ford Coppola debuts 'Megalopolis' in Cannes, and the reviews are in Back to video

Reviews ranged from “a folly of gargantuan proportions” to “the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.” But most assuredly, once again, Coppola had everyone in Cannes talking.

No debut this year was awaited with more curiosity in Cannes than “Megalopolis,” which Coppola poured $120 million of his own money into after selling off a portion of his wine estate. Not unlike Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” some 45 years ago, “Megalopolis” arrived trailed by rumors of production turmoil and doubt over its potential appeal.

What Coppola unveiled defies easy categorization. It’s a fable set in a futuristic New York about an architect (Adam Driver) who has a grand vision of a more harmonious metropolis, and whose considerable talents include the ability to start and stop time. Though “Megalopolis” is set in a near-future, it’s fashioned as a Roman epic. Driver’s character is named Cesar and the film’s New York includes a modern Coliseum.

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The cast includes Aubrey Plaza as an ambitious TV journalist named Wow Platinum, Giancarlo Esposito as the mayor, Laurence Fishburne as Cesar’s driver (and the film’s narrator) and Shia LaBeouf as an unpleasant cousin named Claudio.

Coppola, wearing a straw hat and holding a cane, walked the Cannes carpet Thursday, often clinging to the arm of his granddaughter, Romy Coppola Mars, while the soundtrack to “The Godfather” played over festival loudspeakers.

After the screening, the Cannes audience stood in a lengthy ovation for Coppola and the film. The director eventually took the microphone to emphasize his movie’s ultimate meaning.

“We are one human family and that’s who we should pledge our allegiance to,” Coppola told the crowd. He added that Esperanza is “the most beautiful word in the English language” because it means hope.

Many reviews were blisteringly bad. Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian called it “megabloated and megaboring.” Tim Grierson for Screen Daily called it a “disaster” “stymied by arbitrary plotting and numbing excess.” Kevin Maher for the Times of London wrote that it’s a “head-wrecking abomination.” Critic Jessica Kiang said “Megalopolis” “is a folly of such gargantuan proportions it’s like observing the actual fall of Rome.”

But some critics responded with admiration for the film’s ambition. With fondness, New York Magazine’s Bilge Ebiri said the film “might be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.” David Ehrlich for IndieWire praised a “creatively unbound approach” that “may not have resulted in a surplus of dramatically coherent scenes, but it undergirds the entire movie with a looseness that makes it almost impossible to look away.”

“Is it a distancing work of hubris, a gigantic folly, or a bold experiment, an imaginative bid to capture our chaotic contemporary reality, both political and social, via the kind of large-canvas, high-concept storytelling that’s seldom attempted anymore?” wrote David Rooney for The Hollywood Reporter . “The truth is it’s all those things.”

“Megalopolis” is dedicated to Eleanor Coppola, the director’s wife who died last month.

Coppola is seeking a distributor for “Megalopolis.” Ahead of its premiere, the film was acquired for some European territories. Richard Gelfond, IMAX’s chief executive, said “Megalopolis” _ which Coppola believes is best viewed on IMAX — will play globally on the company’s large-format screens.

In numerous places in “Megalopolis,” Coppola, who once penned the book “Live Cinema and its Techniques,” experimentally pushes against filmmaking convention. At a screening Thursday, a man emerged mid-film, walked across the stage to a microphone and posed a question to Driver’s character on the screen above.

Several weeks ahead of Cannes, Coppola privately screened “Megalopolis” in Los Angeles. Word quickly filtered out that many were befuddled by the experimental film they had just watched. “There are zero commercial prospects and good for him,” one attendee told Puck.

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Guy maddin’s ‘rumours’ starring cate blanchett gets nearly six-minute ovation in cannes debut, ‘when the light breaks’ review: rúnar rúnarsson’s original and specific vision of grief – cannes film festival.

By Stephanie Bunbury

Stephanie Bunbury

Cannes Film Festival 2024: All Of Deadline’s Movie Reviews

Emma Stone during a photocall for the film

Cannes Film Festival 2024 In Photos: Opening Ceremony & ‘The Second Act’ World Premiere

But when Diddi is killed in a freak fire in a road tunnel the next morning – a national disaster that claims upwards of a dozen lives – Una finds herself alone with her searing grief. Diddi’s friends fly in to check hospitals and records; people she has never met, but who have known him all their lives. Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir) is there, a dead ringer for Una and recognized as the officially bereaved. The friends hug each other. These people own his past which, given that Diddi now has no future, means they own him.

RELATED: Cannes Palme d’Or Winners: Photos From Every One Of The Festival’s Top Films Through The Years

It’s understandable. There were only five of them in the 10th grade in their tiny country high school, Diddi’s old schoolmate Siggi (Gunna Hrafn Kristjánsson) tells her. It is an immediately recognizable but unfathomable bond.

Una is an oddball in her way, a “pan-sexual” who dresses in men’s clothes, but she is not so against convention that she would break Klara’s heart with the truth. Instead, she tells herself she is the real widow and bites her tongue. These two women give remarkable, sensitive performances; they are perfect foils for each other. Klara is cow-eyed, flattened by sadness, fleshy where Una is lithe, a bit of a country bumpkin. Klara is not, however, any kind of fool.

Whenever he can, he takes us outdoors, showing the sun descend to the horizon while casting its empty spotlight across the waves. At times – when skipping us over the sea or taking us through the doomed tunnel – the light becomes an abstraction, heightened by the soaring voices of boy choirs that he already used to powerful effect in his 2015 film Sparrows .

There is a sense of living under a great canopy of light, with roofs an insignificant interruption. Going to find out if Diddi is one of the dead, talking about him, celebrating him – all within a space of 24 hours – is the story’s busywork, but it is overarched by the transcendent.

That said, Rúnarsson has kept his ambitions small; his canvas is limited, his narrative spare – so spare, indeed, that it sometimes drags. Within his self-imposed limitations, however, he draws a portrait of muffled grief that feels true and poignant. The reflective pairing of the two young women, emphasized by a visually inventive moment when their images merge in a window where one is seen through the glass and the other as a reflection, recalls the existential ambiguity of Bergman’s Persona . Una feels more than she can say; Klara knows more. Their silence communicates volumes; their shared pain is so thick you could run your hands through it. Somehow, they will find their way through silence to accommodate each other.

As an opening-night choice for Cannes ‘ Un Certain Regard, When the Light Breaks sets a standard for the original and specific vision that is expected of films in this section. Whether its heavy-hearted melancholy will be a hallmark of the sidebar itself will be revealed over the next 12 days.

Title: When The Light Breaks (Ljósbrot) Festival: Cannes (Un Certain Regard) Director-screenwriter: Rúnar Rúnarsson Cast: Elín Hall, Katla Njálsdóttir, Ágúst Wigum, Mikael Kaaber, Baldur Einarsson, Gunna Hrafn Kristjánsson Sales agent: The Party Film Sales Running time: 1 hr 22 min

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A Walk in the Sun

During WWII, a platoon of American soldiers trudge through the Italian countryside in search of a bridge they have been ordered to blow up, encountering danger and destruction along the way.
In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to blow up a bridge next to a fortified farmhouse, as tension and casualties mount. Unusually realistic picture of war as long quiet stretches of talk, punctuated by sharp, random bursts of violent action whose relevance to the big picture is often unknown to the soldiers. — Rod Crawford <[email protected]>
1943. A disparate group of infantrymen form the lead platoon of the Texas Division, they who have to rely on each other despite their differences, both to accomplish their mission but also to survive especially in combat. In the overnight hours against possible enemy fire, they have just landed on a beach in Salerno, Italy, where they discover their mission is to commandeer a farmhouse approximately six miles away - they having no idea who or what is inside - as a strategic base to blow up a nearby bridge. With injuries and casualties in that beach landing, the person who leads them on their march to the farmhouse - the highest ranking injury-free man - is Sgt. Eddie Porter, not the most well equipped mentally to take on this task, compared to some others, such as Sgt. Bill Tyne. While there are possible dangers all along the way to the completion of the mission, if they are able to accomplish their task, there are dangers in the form of Porter himself and the scattered leadership possibly leading to lack of focus on the task at hand. — Huggo
September 1943. The Allied invasion of mainland Italy at Salerno has begun. A platoon of US infantrymen is tasked with taking a farmhouse and blowing a bridge several kilometres inland. After several setbacks they set off for their objective, facing an enemy of unknown strength and location. — grantss

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‘In Our Day’ Review: Meditations on the Spice of Life

The Korean director Hong Sang-soo winds together the slenderest strands of two intersecting stories to make a tender film about simple pleasures.

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A game of rock, paper, scissors involving an older man and two younger people around a table littered with beer bottles.

By Brandon Yu

In another world there’s a Hong Sang-soo Cinematic Universe, where a rabid fandom celebrates the one or two movies every year featuring a revolving door not of familiar superheroes but of poets, filmmakers and actors, each of them contending with questions of life and love rather than planetary threats. Those elements, of artists in quotidian scenarios, drinking soju and smoking amid everyday conversation, are present in many of the small humanist gems that make up this South Korean auteur’s filmography, and the same goes for his latest, “In Our Day.”

The film, as warm and wise as it is simple and languid, follows two separate parties (diptychs are another Hong trademark) across a single afternoon. One involves Sangwon (Kim Min-hee, Hong’s frequent collaborator and offscreen partner), an actress pondering retirement, as she spends the day with her friend and her younger cousin; the other involves Uiju (Ki Joo-bong), an old poet dispensing life lessons in his apartment to two university students, one of whom is filming him for a documentary.

The two story lines don’t cross paths, as they often do in Hong’s films; they are united only by the deployment of a culinary hack: mixing hot pepper paste into ramyun. His gochujang-inflected noodles provide a simple pleasure made all the more satisfying in recent days for Uiju, who, on doctor’s orders, is abstaining from drinking and smoking. But he can’t quite resist on either front, reflecting a sentiment from early in the film when Sangwon, offering up treats to a friend’s cat, says, “What’s the point of living, anyway? Eat your fill.”

It’s a glimmer of existential wisdom buried in the mundane, if you look at it the right way. Most of the film is made up of these moments. Isn’t life like that, too? To search for or expect more would be to court disappointment. “Don’t look for meaning. That’s cowardice,” Uiju tells a young pupil searching desperately for grand answers. “Just jump in the water. Don’t try knowing it all before jumping, like a coward.”

In Our Day Not rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters.

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Garden tours, plants sales and more ways to spend time among flowers

Visit Maine's botanical gardens or get a sneak peek of what your neighbors are growing in their back yards.

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One of the loveliest ways to ease yourself fully out of the post-winter blahs and into springtime is to quit being a wallflower and instead surround yourself with living, blooming plants.

From botanical gardens to plant sales and garden tours, it’s time to make like the Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz” and while away the hours, conferring with flowers.

The waterfall at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. Photo by Tory Paxson, Courtesy of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

TOTALLY BOTANICAL

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay is open for the season, daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Maine Days are May 31 to June 2, when anyone with a Maine driver’s license or state ID gets in for free. Ditto for dads/father figures on Father’s Day (June 16). Advance registration is required. With more than 300 acres of gardens and natural spaces, including a waterfall, there will be plenty to see, smell and bask in the scenery.

Here are more things to do in Boothbay

A tour group walks on the boardwalk at Viles Arboretum in Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Viles Arboretum is a botanical garden in Augusta with 6 miles of trails and more than 20 botanical collections. It’s open daily from sunrise to sunset, and admission is free. There are 224 acres with all sorts of flora and fauna to discover. Leashed dogs are welcome, and the visitor center is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

Viles Arboretum offers medicinal plant walks, and although the May 18 session is full, you can still register for the June 15 and Sept. 14 events, lead by herbalist, homeopath and flower essence practitioner Debra Bluth. Tickets are $25. Advertisement

The Mount Desert Land & Garden Preserve has four areas to explore on its property in Northeast Harbor: the Asticou Azelea Garden (dawn to dusk daily), the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden (noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday from July 9 to Sept. 8, reservations required), Thuya Garden (dawn to dusk daily, June 15 to Oct. 14) and Little Long Pond Natural Lands (hiking trails and carriage roads open dawn to dusk daily). On June 26, at the Wildflowers of Little Long Pond event, participants can wander around the garden’s fields and forest, spotting wildflowers along the way while practicing how to identify them.

Joyce Saltman, right, and Beth Anisbeck embrace a tree for 60 seconds during a tree hugging event sponsored by Portland Parks and Recreation, at Deering Oaks Park last year. Carl D. Walsh/Staff Photographer

TOURS AND MORE

2nd Annual Tree Hugging 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. Deering Oaks Park, Portland. portlandmaine.gov The tree hugging is a family-friendly community gathering to celebrate Portland’s many trees. Park ranger Liz Collado will lead a sensory awakening and forest bathing session. Along with tree hugging, there will be a storytime, and you can touch a forestry truck and meet naturalist Noah Querido and Portland city arborist Mark Reiland. Just down the road, you’ll find Fessenden Park, on the corner of Brighton and Deering Avenues. The tulips have arrived, and it’s worth a visit to see them.

McLaughlin Garden Lilac Festival 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 24. McLaughlin Garden and Homestead, 97 Main St., South Paris, $5. mclaughlingardens.org You’ll find more than 125 varieties of lilacs at the McLaughlin Garden Lilac Festival. Explore on your own or take a guided tour led by a horticulturist. There will also be family-friendly activities, and you can shop for native and unusual plants.

4th annual Woodfords Community Garden Tour 1-4 p.m. June 8. Woodfords Corner Community in Back Cove, Deering Highlands, Oakdale and Deering Center, $20 suggested donation. woodfordscorner.org Presented by Friends of Woodfords Corner, this self-guided tour features at least 10 gardens. As you make your way down the list, you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised by all of the hidden havens bursting with flowers, plants and impressive yardscaping elements.

Peony Society of Maine 23rd annual Garden Tour 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 8 and 15. Both tours start at 1348 Ohio St., Bangor, $5 donation. peonysocietyofmaine.net You’ll visit multiple gardens in Bangor, Winterport, Ripley and St. Albans, and your senses will be filled with countless peonies. A peony plant will be raffled off at the end of each tour. Advertisement

Hidden Gardens of Historic Bath 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 22. Sagadahoc Preservation Inc., 880 Washington St., Bath, $40. sagadahocpreservation.org The Hidden Gardens of Historic Bath house and garden tour features several homes in North Bath. Every stop on the tour will be a treat for your senses and may motivate you to make some of your own magic when you get back home.

Garden Conservancy Open Garden Days 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 29. Beckett Castle Rose Garden, Singles Road, Cape Elizabeth, $10. gardenconservancy.org You’ll see plenty of roses as well as ocean views at Beckett Castle, which sits right on the water, with views of five lighthouses. The castle was built in 1871, and its rose garden features more than 70 varieties of heirloom roses. A 50-foot stone tower doubles as the rose arbor entrance to the castle.

PICK A PLANT SALE

Tate House Museum’s Annual Plant and Herb Sale 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 18. Tate House Museum, 1267 Westbrook St., Portland, 207-774-6177. tatehouse.org The wide selection includes perennials divided from the museum’s 18th century reproduction garden. Visitors can also make their own “seed bombs” and get a sneak peak at a new installation by artist Ashley Page from 10 a.m. to noon.

Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland Spring Plant S ale 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. May 18, Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland, 217 Landing Road, Westbrook, 207-854-9771. arlgp.org Perennials, house plants and more will be on sale, and plants that don’t have specific pricing are “name your own fee.” Anyone interested in donating plants or pots to the sale should send a message to [email protected] .

Taking Root Plant Sale 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 1, Tom Settlemire Community Garden, Maurice Drive, Brunswick, 207-729-7694. btlt.org This annual sale is organized by the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust. Proceeds benefit the Common Good Garden, which provides food and gardening education for the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program. Master gardeners will be on hand to help shoppers choose their best options.

Scarborough Land Trust Native Plant Sale and Spring Festival 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 1, Broadturn Farm, 388 Broadturn Road, Scarborough, 207-289-1199. scarboroughlandtrust.org Visitors will find native plants, food vendors, local artisans, guided nature walks and activities for kids. To preorder plants, visit the Scarborough Land Trust website.

Maine Audubon Society Native Plants Sale and Festival 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., June 8, Gilsland Farm Audubon Center, 20 Gilsland Farm Road, Falmouth, 207-781-2330. maineaudubon.org More than 75 species of native wildflowers, shrubs and tree seedlings will be available, along with workshops, info tables and experts.

Staff writer Megan Gray contributed to this report.

Related Headlines

Headed to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens? Here’s what else to check out in Boothbay

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A Walk in the Sun (1945)
A Walk in the Sun (1945)

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A Walk in the Sun
[Full review in Spanish] Rated: 5/10 Dec 9, 2022 Full Review Ian Kane Epoch Times Overall, "A Walk in the Sun" is a unique World War II film that is both thought-provoking and compelling to watch ...
A Walk in the Sun (1945)
7/10. A different war movie. pageiv 30 June 2002. This is a different war movie, it has very few action sequences. But the director created a compelling movie none the less. Most action in this movie takes place off camera, this creates a feeling of 'being there.'. One character mentions that all the action he has seen he had to listen to it.
A Walk in the Sun (1945 film)
A Walk in the Sun is a 1945 American war film based on the novel by Harry Brown, who was a writer for Yank, the Army Weekly based in England. The book was serialized in Liberty Magazine in October 1944.. The film was directed by Lewis Milestone, stars Dana Andrews and features Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway, Norman Lloyd, Herbert Rudley and Richard ...
A Walk in the Sun (1945)
A Walk in the Sun: Directed by Lewis Milestone. With Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland. During WWII, a platoon of American soldiers trudge through the Italian countryside in search of a bridge they have been ordered to blow up, encountering danger and destruction along the way.
Classic Film Review: "A Walk in the Sun" (1945) WWII ...
It's not "The Ballad of GI Joe" or as good as the combat films of the '50s. But if you run across "A Walk in the Sun," as I have over the years, don't let the first 20+ minutes chase you away. Ireland, Bridges, Conte, Andrews and Milestone make it well worth your while. MPA Rating: "Approved". Cast: Dana Andrews, Lloyd Bridges ...
A Walk in the Sun (1945) Lookback/Review
Reviews A Walk in the Sun (1945) Lookback/Review. What better movie for Memorial Day than one that declares: Nobody dies. A Walk in The Sun is an often-overlooked World War Two movie.
A Walk in the Sun
Overall, "A Walk in the Sun" is a unique World War II film that is both thought-provoking and compelling to watch from scene to scene. Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 27, 2021. Once you ...
A Walk in the Sun
In what would be possibly the first "introspective" war movie—a precursor to later philosophical war films like Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line—A Walk in the Sun, now re-released in this freshly minted Blu-ray format, was directed by Lewis Milestone.He was certainly no stranger to realistic but thoughtful portrayals of men in battle (All Quiet on the Western Front being his first ...
A Walk in the Sun
01/04/22. Kit Parker / MVD. Blu-ray. Lewis Milestone directed this poetic, optimistic ode to the American infantryman, a 'lone patrol' saga that emphasizes its soldiers' hopes and fears. The lineup of fresh, eager acting talent is remarkable: Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway, Norman ...
A Walk in the Sun (1945)
Amazingly, and very much in contrast to most other war films of the period which demonized the enemy, this film provides a neutral texture to the foe. Here the German soldiers are but shadows on the cave wall. The stray Italian soldiers appear as comic sidekicks in the maelstrom of a nation at peril from two sides.
A Walk in the Sun -- The Definitive Restoration (1945)
Watch the restored version of A Walk in the Sun, a 1945 war drama about American soldiers in Italy. See Dana Andrews, John Ireland and more in this WWII classic.
‎A Walk in the Sun (1945) directed by Lewis Milestone • Reviews, film
To my surprise, I was enthralled. A Walk in the Sun has the sensibilities of a typical 40s flick - charming, poetic, funny, wholly original, and with surprising emotional depth. A movie about WWII made/released during the war itself that still manages to step outside the propaganda genre. Nearly every war movie I've seen rips this movie off.
A Walk in the Sun (1946)
Walk in the Sun, A -- (Movie Clip) Opening Credits Opening credit sequence from Lewis Milestone's A Walk in the Sun, 1946, starring Dana Andrews, features memorable narration by Burgess Meredith from Robert Rossen's screenplay. ... In his New York Times review of A Walk in the Sun (1945), Bosley Crowther singled out Dana Andrews for praise ...
A Walk in the Sun
A Walk in the Sun is based on a novel and the first thing you will notice in watching this movie is that the writers of this movie and book loved dialogue. From start to finish no one stops yackking the entire film. Before the action, during the action and after the action someone is constantly talking.
A Walk In The Sun Is The Most Underrated WWII Movie Of The 1940s
A Walk In The Sun is one of the most underrated war movies of its era.Saving Private Ryan has become one of the defining movies set during World War 2, with its brutal battle sequences underlining the horrors of the conflict. That's not to say there hadn't been great movies about the conflict before then, ranging from The Longest Day to The Dirty Dozen, but Saving Private Ryan would prove to ...
A Walk in the Sun (1945)
Lewis Milestone's solid, low-key war film manages to avoid the flag-waving clichés of most WWII pictures, as it concentrates on the thoughts of the members of an infantry platoon as they undertake an assault on a German-held farmhouse outside Salerno.
A Walk in the Sun
A Walk in the Sun As a film Walk is not so sunny. It is distinguished for some excellent, earthy GI dialog, but the author has failed to achieve a proper fusing of dialog and situation ...
THE SCREEN; Walk in the Sun,' Sincere Film About the War, Comes to
A WALK IN THE SUN, screen play by Robert Rossen, from the novel by Harry Brown; directed by Lewis Milestone; ballad by Millard Lampell and Earl Robinson; produced by Mr. Milestone and distributed ...
A Walk in the Sun (1945)
Find trailers, reviews, synopsis, awards and cast information for A Walk in the Sun (1945) - Lewis Milestone on AllMovie - Harry Brown's honest, unsentimental WW2 novel A…
A WALK IN THE SUN
The black and white film marvelously captures in an unsentimental way the banter of the grunts, their boredom and fears. Dana Andrews is terrific as he stars as the hard-nosed Sgt. Tyne, a platoon squad leader who through a series of deaths ends up assuming command of his platoon. The film is less concerned with plot or antiwar sentiments, as ...
A Walk in the Sun (1945) Blu-ray Review
The isolating feel from A Walk in the Sun makes it stronger, the purposeful emptiness in terms of command and the total disassociation from intelligence causes intense doubt. Ideas begin to form about possible mine fields or tank attacks. Peace on a battlefield, it turns out, is worse than the conflict itself.
Francis Ford Coppola divides critics with 'Megalopolis ...
Francis Ford Coppola on Thursday premiered his self-financed opus "Megalopolis" at the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling a wildly ambitious passion project the 85-year-old director has been ...
'When The Light Breaks' Review: Runar Runarsson Movie About Grief
Whenever he can, he takes us outdoors, showing the sun descend to the horizon while casting its empty spotlight across the waves. At times - when skipping us over the sea or taking us through ...
A Walk in the Sun (1945)
Summaries. During WWII, a platoon of American soldiers trudge through the Italian countryside in search of a bridge they have been ordered to blow up, encountering danger and destruction along the way. In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to blow up a bridge next to a fortified farmhouse ...
'In Our Day' Review: Meditations on the Spice of Life
In another world there's a Hong Sang-soo Cinematic Universe, where a rabid fandom celebrates the one or two movies every year featuring a revolving door not of familiar superheroes but of poets ...
Garden tours, plants sales and more ways to spend time among flowers
Viles Arboretum is a botanical garden in Augusta with 6 miles of trails and more than 20 botanical collections. It's open daily from sunrise to sunset, and admission is free. There are 224 acres ...

Classic Film Review: “A Walk in the Sun” (1945) WWII filmed as it was happening

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Francis Ford Coppola debuts 'Megalopolis' in Cannes, and the reviews are in Back to video

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