Although made by a major producer (Hal Wallis) for a major studio (Paramount), 1953’s
Cease Fire! plays like the kind of gimmick picture that was the staple of many small-time exploitation outfits. In this case it’s a film with three gimmicks – shot in 3D in Korea and, long before Act of Valor, starring real American combat troops recreating an action just before the cease fire. There’s an excellent one star review from a veteran of the war who was in Korea in the areas they were making the film that goes into great length about just how inauthentic the film is in almost every way that’s well worth reading, but even without it the film’s boasts of authenticity don’t ring true: the men may be genuine soldiers, but the film has the feeling of one of those sanitised training films – not entirely surprising since writer-director Owen Crump used to make short films for the US Army Department of Public Relations. It doesn’t help that, unlike Retreat, Hell!, the army didn’t exactly throw resources into this one, with most of the firepower reserved for the last ten minutes. For much of the rest of the film it simply follows one multi-racial patrol on a recon mission over hill and dale (mostly hills to showcase the 3D more) with very little in the way of action, incident or tension until the end.
Not that it’s especially bad: while you’d think no-one would offer any of the cast Hollywood contracts (though Ricardo Carrasco was offered a contract with Paramount, which he turned down only to die that July at Pork Chop Hill), they’re not as inept as some modern reviewers paint them, but they have little to work with. One of them cracks wise, one of them has a history of impulsively ignoring orders, one of them is a jinx, their lieutenant seems to be doing his best Les Tremayne impersonation (since all the real soldiers were dubbed it may well even be Tremayne) and their Korean interpreter has a pregnant wife just about to give birth in a nearby village, so you just know what’s in store for him. In the background, two war correspondents, one deeply cynical the other hopeful and idealistic, cover the final stages of the peace talks in Panmunjom while mean still die on ‘quiet’ routine patrols as the war winds down (the film started shooting as The Fighters in March 1953, four months before the cease fire, and it’s pretty obvious that like the title change these scenes are a late addition). While it’s no chore to sit through, the early novelty tends to wear off as it develops into a long walk, and not exactly A Walk in the Sun, making the tidal wave of rave reviews the film received when it came out hard to understand unless it was an excess of patriotic zeal to be seem to be supporting the boys out there.
A respectable Dimitri Tiomkin score helps a lot, though the post-High Noon hunger for another Oscar-winning hit single that never left him and often resulted in wildly inappropriate efforts saw him adding a song, Brothers in Arms, with lyrics by his Do Not Forsake Me lyricist Ned Washington that runs through the film, though it’s used in a fairly low key fashion. The 3D is very impressive too, never used in a gimmicky way aside from the title sequence and predominantly used to add a feeling of depth to the terrain, though the newsreel footage of the arrivals at the peace talks is very obviously 2D.
The film ran into censorship trouble over its language (three Hells and a damn had to be removed and are still MIA) and, despite press predictions of Oscars, only had limited distribution in 3D despite performing better in the format than in the wider 2D release before vanishing into the vaults in 1954, not turning up on TV until 1998. Given a few 3D screenings since a new print was struck in 2006, the 3D Film Archive’s restoration is superb, and the 3D itself has few of the problems with extreme backgrounds of the other 3D Korean War movie, Dragonfly Squadron – the only real anomaly is that curious tendency of some of the 3D lenses to magnify foreground and background that sees General Mark W. Clark, the former commander in chief of UN forces in Korea, look dwarfed by his desk in his approving introduction to the film.
Two alternate versions of the introduction for regional premieres, the film’s trailer, in 2D with and without 3D announcement tags, and a radio spot make up the light extras package on Kino Lorber’s Region A-locked Bluray – although the packaging boasts of the 3D Film Archive’s excellent article on the film by Ted Okuda, it’s actually just a page with the internet address of the article. Print quality is generally excellent, pristine picture quality and excellent 3D complete with intermission card as well as a restored stereophonic soundtrack. The film may lack drama and play more as a curiosity these days, but it’s still a must for 3D enthusiasts.
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Linear Mode
