Rescued by a young South Korean lad, the sole survivor of a massacred platoon huddles with other stranded soldiers at an abandoned Buddhist temple behind enemy lines in this powerful Korean War drama directed by Samuel Fuller. The film is gripping right from the opening close-up shots of lead actor Gene Evans cautiously looking over a bunker while 'the enemy', viewed only from the waste-down, approaches. Fuller does a great job visualising the film throughout though. Especially notable is how low camera angles are initially used to portray the temple as a mystic place of wonder when Evans and his fellow soldiers first arrive -- shots that have an eerie contrast against the daunting high camera angles Fullers later opts for when it is revealed that there is a sniper hiding there. With less dialogue (and none of that haunting voice-over), 'The Steel Helmet' is less philosophical that Fuller's follow-up Korean War pic 'Fixed Bayonets!', however, the sparse dialogue still amply portrays the mood and unease of the soldiers as they contemplate why they are fighting and dissociate dead bodies from those who were only recently alive. Evans is remarkable in the lead role too; initially he seems cynical and hateful towards everyone, but as the film progresses, we see beneath his thick skin. War truly affects even the more hardened men out there. It is thoughtful stuff, and the fact that the majority of the grisly action occurs at a place of worship is a bitter irony if there ever was one. Nothing is sacred in war and there is no sanctuary for those fighting.

Steel Helmet, The (1951) *** (out of 4) Fuller's grim Korean War drama follows Sgt. Zack (Gene Evans) and other rugged men as they take shelter in an abandoned Buddhist temple where they have time to reflect on what they're going in the war. Filmed in a reported ten days, this is one of those rare films that takes place during the war which it is showing. The movie doesn't really take a stance on either side of the line, although there's no question that Fuller wants to get his own ideas across. One of the best scenes involves a black man who is asked how he feels about having to fix these men up yet in the real world he wouldn't be able to sit at the same table with them. There's a lot of racial slurs thrown around at various people but this comes off very realistic as does the rest of the dialogue. You can listen to these men and actually feel like you're in the trenches with them as you'd be hearing this type of conversations. Another big plus is that the movie never paints a pretty picture, which was the type of thing we were use to seeing in war pictures from Hollywood. It's clear Fuller is doing things his way and he didn't care about criticism, which eventually came to the film. Evans delivers a fine and realistic performance as does the rest of the cast. The one negative thing was all the stock footage used at the end but the low budget probably required it. This isn't your typical war film but you can watch it and feel as if you're seeing an original. The influence on movies like FULL METAL JACKET, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and Tarantino's recent are pretty obvious.

Fuller's first major work is typically hard-hitting: not that many films have been made about the Korean War (in fact, this was reportedly the very first) but leave it to Fuller to have the last word on the subject – at least, with respect to the actual conflict. One could argue that we had more or less seen this type of jungle warfare in WWII films based in the Pacific, but there's no denying that the writer/director brought unprecedented realism and a moral outlook all his own to a genre he tackled most frequently throughout his career. Furthermore, he sketched soldiers of true flesh-and-blood with their sense of discipline and judgment often clouded by selfishness, prejudice or just plain fear – no wonder that, when the disheveled survivors are belatedly rescued from a brutal onslaught inside a Buddhist temple by their colleagues, one of the latter is induced to remark: "Say, what kind of outfit is this anyway?" For the record, the most familiar cast members are Gene Evans (though he had done a number of bits since debuting in 1947, his name is preceded here by the epithet "introducing" – and he's already fully in character as the tough, cigar-chomping sergeant), Steve Brodie as his disgruntled commanding officer and James Edwards as the black medic; others in the ragtag company are a man studying for priesthood, a youth whose bout as a child with Scarlet Fever has turned him prematurely and completely bald and even a Japanese (played by none other than Richard Loo – the villainous General from THE PURPLE HEART [1944] which, coincidentally, preceded this viewing). An effective addition to these – however unlikely a figure in a Fuller movie – is that of a South Korean child who helps the wounded Evans at the very start (the latter immediately dubs him "Short Round" – Steven Spielberg must have watched this at some point!) and eventually tags along, acting as guide-cum-mascot and even prays to Buddha for their safety. The second half of the picture is confined to the aforementioned temple, where the soldiers first fall victim to and then capture a solitary enemy-in-hiding; in pure Fuller mode, he tries to coerce fellow 'outsiders' Loo and Edwards into defecting, while Evans shoots him down (despite orders by their superiors to secure themselves a P.O.W.) after "Short Round" is pitilessly targeted by the approaching North Koreans.

****SPOILERS**** Almost forgotten Samuel Fuller war classic about a group of GI's together with a 12 year-old South Korean boy trapped behind enemy lines in the Korean War. Relased at the time, early 1951, when the US and UN forces were suffering a string of catastrophic losses at the hands of the invading Communist Chinese forces, together with their North Korean allies,the movie doesn't at all tap into the audiences patriotism with flag waving heroic by the GI's but shows them only as just wanting to survive the hell that they find themselves in.Sgt. Zack, Gene Evens, with his hands tied behind his back and a commie bullet through his steel helmet is rescued by this young Korean boy, Willian Shon, whom he nicknames "Short Round". Zack had been captured by the Communist North Koreans and together with his fellow GI's summarily shot in the head but his helmet luckily deflected the bullet where he played dead until his failed executioners left the scene. A loner who's not interested in any human companionship Zack at first tries to go out on his own in the Korean hills and under brush but "Short Round" is so insistent, as well has having lost his parents in he war,that the tough old battle-hardened GI gives in and lets "Short Round " tag along with him.In the course of the film Sgt. Zack and "Short Round" meet up with a number of GI's who were also separated from their units in the brutal and vicious fighting with the Korean Commies. The lost infantry squad makes it's way through the woods to this deserted Buddhist Temple and sets up an observation post, obviously against the Geneva War Accords, to direct artillery fire on the North Korean units in the area.Director Fuller, this at a time when his country was at war, not only keeps any patriotic themes out of the movie about the great and wonderful ideals, like freedom and democracy, that the GI's in the film are supposed to be fighting for and how evil their enemy, the North Koreans and Comunist Chinese, are but actually brings out how Black and Oriental Americans are discriminated against by the very country that there now fighting and, in many cases, giving up their lives and limbs for the United States of America and does it with this sneaky and back-stabbing North Korean POW Major Harold Fung!Fung tries to get black corpsman or medic Cpl.Thompson, James Ewdwards, and Japanese-American Sgt. Tanaka, Richard Loo,to turn against their country and fellow GI's by bringing out how their treated back home only to almost have, as Sgt. Tanaka told the Commie creep, his rabbit teeth smacked out of his mouth one at a time; it wasn't that what Fung was saying was wrong but that the two GI's that it was directed to, Thompson & Tanaka, saw through his so-called concerned for them and knew enough that no matter how bad things was for them and their fellow Black and Japanese-Americans back home the cause that Fung was fighting for would only make their lives even worse not better.The North Koreans getting a bead on just where the US observation post, that's directing murderous artillery fire on them, is and start to move in on it with a series of wild and furious Banzai-like suicidal assaults on the Buddish Temple which by the time the movie is over results in the deaths of almost all of it's defenders including "Short Round". Breaking through the inner perimeter of the Temple the Commies are then stopped cold by the last two persons who you would have expected in the movie to be gong-ho combat hero's, of the group of GI's trapped in it, US Army Medic Thompson and conscientious objector or Chaplin's assistant Pvt. Bronet, Robert Hutton. Sgt. Zack caught up with the horrific fighting and for once having heart-felt emotions for those fighting and dying in the temple along with him with his little friend "Short Round", whom he developed a genuine father and son relationship with, getting killed momentarily loses it thinking that he's back at Omaha Beach in 1944 instead of in Korean in 1951 with him mindlessly mumbling to himself "The only ones on this beach are either dead or about to die".Sgt. Zack's commanding officer Lt. Driscoll, Steve Brodie, whom he never showed any love for takes over behind the machine gun nest from Pvt. Bronte, who was mowing down the attacking North Koreans, after he was hit and killed by a commie bullet and is soon also shot dead but only after he, and later Cpl. Thompson, courageously held off the surging commie hoards long enough for a US Army infantry squad to break through, the Communist North Korean encirclement, and rescue the remaining GI's.Stumbling out of the battered Buddhist Temple and into formation together with Cpl. Thompson Pvt. Baldy( Richard Mohanan) & Sgt.Tanaka, the only survivors of this holocaust, Sgt. Zack tearfully replaces his bullet riddled steel helmet with that of Lt. Driscoll's on the graveside marker where he was buried; an act that he felt he owed him since he refused to trade helmets with Lt. Driscoll when he was still alive.Powerful war movie that you never get tired of watching not just because of the many great battle action scenes in it but the message that it brings out to it's audience, like in the timeless anti-war classic "All Quite on the Western Front", that war isn't to be looked forward to or celebrated but to be avoided at almost all costs and only to be fought when it's absolutely necessary for the survival of the people nation and freedoms of those who have ,or volunteer, to fight it.