Fixed Bayonets!

Writer-director Samuel Fuller's 1951 Korean War platoon drama is a small-scale production that focuses on a squad of American soldiers ordered to hold a snowy mountain pass while their division retreats. Richard Basehart stars as Corporal Denno, a soldier who can't bring himself to fire his rifle at the enemy and bristles at the thought of having to take command, and Gene Evans is Sgt. Rock, a grizzled veteran who passes on his wisdom to Denno as senior officers are killed and he becomes the highest-ranking soldier. Their only hope is to create the illusion of a much larger force hidden in the mountains (Rock has a few tricks up his sleeve) in this story of ordinary men rising to the occasion when the situation demands. Fuller draws on his service as a soldier in Africa and Europe in World War II to create the platoon dynamics (the squad is filled with all sorts of types), along with the tactics and battle action. The entire film is shot on soundstages, with sets recreating the wintry mountains, forests, and the caves in which the soldiers take refuge. The artificial setting gives the film a kind of abstracted, theatrical quality that eschews sentimentality and melodrama for a blunt portrait of men facing death (James Dean is an uncredited extra, but he's hard to pick out). Debuting on Blu-ray, extras include audio commentary by film historian Michael Schlesinger and the widow and daughter of Fuller. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)