Whereas producer-director sounds like a far-off call from lab and second unit labor at Warner Bros., Siegel internalized that hard-line technical work's effective discipline by the time more modern audiences began seeking more realism and grittier attitudes in movies. His shrewd and thrifty technique at the helm squeezed full advantage of his creative power. And this brutal, and yet so unassuming, 1962 war picture can be seen to illustrate the traditionally altering function of the director in American movies. As Siegel's repertoire developed as a workmanlike director of drum-tight action films, industrially skillful but divulging little of himself, he began to embrace a more open style in which he made the best of his actors' capabilities with presence and behavior. Point to Harry Callahan and Charley Varrick for characters who have whip up some argument simultaneously while delivering the full-tilt gratifications required of testosterone-driven action thrillers, but point to Hell is for Heroes for an early example of Siegel's ability to juggle various wholly sympathetic and entertaining characterizations in what feels like a leisurely way throughout the backdrop of a taut, spare combat picture.
Bobby Darin is one of those who you can constantly forget he's a particularly good actor, and not just a serviceable one. It's not that musicians can't be good actors. It's that Darin was so dedicated to his music. Darin wasn't just at crooner. He did pop, rock, jazz, folk and country. His health was treacherously weak and this induced him to thrive within the incomplete life span he was terrified he would, and finally did, have. Roughly around the same time as he brought a lifelike suggestion to his character in John Cassavetes' forgotten Too Late Blues from his immersion in the day's music scene, he fit so comfortably into the skin of a con man, peddler and thief. He stays strongly consistent as an operator who can't sit still, always determined to peddle his countless devices. This includes peddling literally at the start, but he's a street kid with ears forever to the ground and his fingers on the pulse of what's going on, and Darin credibly use this nature in whichever manner he must in situations ranging in such close succession as dodging mortar in the trench and teaching Bob Newhart's army company clerk who suddenly and mistakenly arrives at the squad post.
Newhart is a surprise treat because his supporting role is all farce, surrounded by hard-boiled brutality and yet bringing an early Woody Allen or Albert Brooks type to life. Siegel often seemed to sprinkle a broad comic relief stereotype into a vicious action mix, usually to the chagrin of the macho men at the center of it all, as is the case here as well. Newhart is a surprise treat and he's effective, but think of how his sort of light-hearted formula concession would've fatally diffused the ultimate tensile strength of The Hill, another less well-remembered 1960s war film in uncompromising black-and-white. As the ragtag male team does here, the characters in The Hill are entrapped in the punishing confines of a survival-of-the-fittest war situation. In that case, it was a British army prison in sweltering North Africa. The closest it came to caricature was the self-conscious aping in the brilliant nervous breakdown of a young Ossie Davis' with the added trouble of being black.
That said, regardless, I still think Hell is for Heroes is worthy of significant mention on the subject of early Hollywood realism, and at the same time, I understand how oppressive it would've been if everyone in Hell is for Heroes were like Steve McQueen's difficult outsider Reese or James Coburn's mechanically gifted corporal. Variety is important and Siegel always provides it with rich characters even in his lesser films. Hell is for Heroes may not be tense or throttling in a way comparable to other realist '60s war films, but its characters are particularly memorable. Always a charismatic but hard-shelled actor, McQueen gives a compelling early portrayal of what might be an early example in modern history of the "war addict" personality studied in most state-of-the-art war films like The Hurt Locker. Reese manages to push away practically everyone in the squad right from the start. The company commander is troubled because Reese becomes when there is no fighting, but he's a good soldier in combat He lives and breathes confrontation with potentially fatal threats the way a drug addict is never satisfied with more than enough of their substance. And he's like that in the field as well.
Bobby Darin is one of those who you can constantly forget he's a particularly good actor, and not just a serviceable one. It's not that musicians can't be good actors. It's that Darin was so dedicated to his music. Darin wasn't just at crooner. He did pop, rock, jazz, folk and country. His health was treacherously weak and this induced him to thrive within the incomplete life span he was terrified he would, and finally did, have. Roughly around the same time as he brought a lifelike suggestion to his character in John Cassavetes' forgotten Too Late Blues from his immersion in the day's music scene, he fit so comfortably into the skin of a con man, peddler and thief. He stays strongly consistent as an operator who can't sit still, always determined to peddle his countless devices. This includes peddling literally at the start, but he's a street kid with ears forever to the ground and his fingers on the pulse of what's going on, and Darin credibly use this nature in whichever manner he must in situations ranging in such close succession as dodging mortar in the trench and teaching Bob Newhart's army company clerk who suddenly and mistakenly arrives at the squad post.
Newhart is a surprise treat because his supporting role is all farce, surrounded by hard-boiled brutality and yet bringing an early Woody Allen or Albert Brooks type to life. Siegel often seemed to sprinkle a broad comic relief stereotype into a vicious action mix, usually to the chagrin of the macho men at the center of it all, as is the case here as well. Newhart is a surprise treat and he's effective, but think of how his sort of light-hearted formula concession would've fatally diffused the ultimate tensile strength of The Hill, another less well-remembered 1960s war film in uncompromising black-and-white. As the ragtag male team does here, the characters in The Hill are entrapped in the punishing confines of a survival-of-the-fittest war situation. In that case, it was a British army prison in sweltering North Africa. The closest it came to caricature was the self-conscious aping in the brilliant nervous breakdown of a young Ossie Davis' with the added trouble of being black.
That said, regardless, I still think Hell is for Heroes is worthy of significant mention on the subject of early Hollywood realism, and at the same time, I understand how oppressive it would've been if everyone in Hell is for Heroes were like Steve McQueen's difficult outsider Reese or James Coburn's mechanically gifted corporal. Variety is important and Siegel always provides it with rich characters even in his lesser films. Hell is for Heroes may not be tense or throttling in a way comparable to other realist '60s war films, but its characters are particularly memorable. Always a charismatic but hard-shelled actor, McQueen gives a compelling early portrayal of what might be an early example in modern history of the "war addict" personality studied in most state-of-the-art war films like The Hurt Locker. Reese manages to push away practically everyone in the squad right from the start. The company commander is troubled because Reese becomes when there is no fighting, but he's a good soldier in combat He lives and breathes confrontation with potentially fatal threats the way a drug addict is never satisfied with more than enough of their substance. And he's like that in the field as well.