10 Great World War II Movies You've Probably Never Seen
2. The Big Red One (1980)
‘Men on a mission’ adventures were amongst the most popular war films of the 1960s. The likes of the Dirty Dozen (and to a lesser extent its many sequels), The Guns of Navarone and the Clint Eastwood double bill of Where Eagles Dare and Kelly’s Heroes are all classics following a similar structure, as a group of soldiers are recruited to a dangerous mission to assassinate, destroy, rescue or steal.
The Big Red One is far lesser known, perhaps by virtue of the fact that it came out more than a decade after the subgenre’s heyday in 1980. In one of his last film roles, Lee Marvin plays a part unlike most of his other performances (he was typecast as a gritty hard man), as he leads his squad of soldiers through the European campaign.
Action sequences are plentiful (the D-Day sequence that repeatedly switches focus to a watch in the water as it becomes increasingly bloodied is masterful) and the horrendous realities of war are not sugar-coated in any way as the subjects of Marvin’s nameless Sergeant become more ruthless with time.
Otherwise known as one of the few films that Mark Hamill appeared in between Star Wars outings, The Big Red One exists in two forms, with a restored version free of studio interference adding almost an extra hour to proceedings. It doesn’t feel like 160 minutes at all given the immersion that it offers.