The Steel Helmet

A Korean War film made while the war was still going on. Sergeant Zack is the only survivor of his platoon. He is found lying with his hands tied and a bullet hole through his helmet, and he is freed by a South Korean boy who follows him afterwards; Zack calls him Short Round. They join up with a lost patrol and take shelter in a Buddhist temple. What follows takes place almost entirely there: the men set up an observation post, wait, argue, and try to work out where the enemy is. The film is less interested in combat than in the men themselves. There is an argument between a black medic and a captured North Korean officer about segregation at home, and another with a Japanese-American soldier about the internment camps. Those scenes were remarkable for an American film in 1951 and drew official attention. Zack is not a hero. He shoots a prisoner during an interrogation, and the film neither excuses it nor condemns it. It was made in about ten days on a very small budget, using a Los Angeles park for the Korean landscape and a handful of extras. Gene Evans plays Zack. Samuel Fuller wrote, produced and directed, drawing on his own infantry service in the Second World War. The film made a great deal of money against its cost and established Fuller's reputation. One of the genre's founding examples for anyone who likes war cinema and direct, unpolished filmmaking. For a viewer expecting scale, the production is small, the landscape unconvincing and the whole thing takes place in one location.