Take the High Ground! *** (1953, Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Carleton Carpenter, Elaine Stewart, Russ Tamblyn) – Classic Movie Review 11,726

Richard Widmark and Karl Malden stars as drill sergeants who must transform civilians into soldiers during the Korean War.

Director Richard Brooks’s 1953 American war film Take the High Ground! stars Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Carleton Carpenter, Elaine Stewart and Russ Tamblyn.

Soldiers go on parade for MGM studios, with tough, troubled drill sergeant SFC Thorne Ryan (Widmark) training Merton Tolliver and Paul Jamison (Carpenter and Tamblyn, both on leave from dancing duty in movie musicals) and clashing with drill sergeant SSG Laverne Holt (Malden) over lovely Julie Mollison (Stewart). Meanwhile, recruit Lobo Naglaski (Steve Forrest) visits the camp chaplain to confess his murderous feelings for Ryan, while recruit Donald Quentin Dover IV (Robert Arthur) refuses to throw a hand grenade and intends to desert.

Take the High Ground! is a routine, now largely forgotten mix of comedy, romance and war drama, but it was popular in its day, and, with the help of a game, appealing cast, director Brooks buffs up all the clichés of the genre quite nicely. It cost $1,166,000, took $2,855,000 and made a profit of $244,000.

Unusually, the normally studio-bound MGM allowed him to take his cameras outside to Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas, for a touch of realism. The US Army cooperated fully with the studio but the Marines refused, unwilling to stir up controversy over the toughness of their training.

It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, losing to Titanic.

Richard Widmark stars as SFC Thorne Ryan.

The cast are Richard Widmark as SFC Thorne Ryan, Karl Malden as SSG Laverne Holt, Elaine Stewart as Julie Mollison, Carleton Carpenter as Merton Tolliver, Russ Tamblyn as Paul Jamison, Jerome Courtland as Elvin Carey, Steve Forrest as Lobo Naglaski, Robert Arthur as Donald Quentin Dover IV, Chris Warfield as Soldier, William Hairston as Daniel Hazard, Maurice Jara as Franklin D No Bear, and Bert Freed as MSG Vince Opperman.

It is written by Millard Kaufman.

It is filmed in Ansco Color.

 © Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,726

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