KHJ-Channel 9 In Los Angeles used to feature foreign films back in the 1960s. Some of the best Russian, French and Japanese movies ever filmed made their appearance in those days. Many were so unforgettable that I've spent a lifetime looking for them. This was one of them.
This one tells the story of young Czech Václav Maly (Jaroslav Mares) who survives the German concentration camps of WWII and his quest for revenge. Having survived the concentration camp that saw the deaths of his father and sister, the young man searches for the lead SS guard Wolf (Hannjo Hasse) who escaped from the Allies. He finds the guard had joined the French Foreign Legion and is fighting the war in French Indo-China. So the young man joins the Foreign Legion and volunteers for Indo-China and somehow gets assigned to the same unit as the guard. Wolf is now a lieutenant and platoon leader of a Foreign Legion unit fighting a desperate battle against the Viet Minh in the last days of the war.
Aside from fighting a deadly foe, the Legionnaires are also suffering at the hands of the brutal leadership of LT Wolf, who had not changed his ways, and his Platoon Sergeant Storch (Kurt Oligmüller). Near the end of the movie, some of the men attempt to desert, but their plans are found out and they are arrested. However, one of them manages to murder Sergeant Storch and he is condemned to death by firing squad.
The rest of the platoon are sent on a road clearing operation through a pass in the mountains notorious for ambushes. Though the pass is deceptively quiet, LT Storch suspects a Viet Minh ambush and asks for a volunteer to accompany him on a leader's reconnaissance. Legionnaire Maly volunteers.
In one of the most memorable and dramatic scenes I have ever seen play out in a war movie, LT Storch realizes that Maly intends to kill him but cannot refuse his offer in front of his men. He fatalistically accepts and together the two walk side-by-side down the road to their fate. As they walk they don't look at each other but both release the safeties on their MAT-49 submachine guns.
They walk around a bend of the road and all you hear is automatic weapons firing. Maly's closest comrade looks in their direction, and then looks upward to the sky with a despairing look on his face as the move ends. You never know who came back alive. I read that in an alternate ending that neither returned.
In his book, Street Without Joy, the historian Bernard Fall tells a similar story of a Romanian Jew who survived the concentration camps and swears revenge against the guard that killed his family. After the war, when he hears the guard had joined the Foreign Legion and is in Indo-China, the man deserts the Israeli Army, joins the Foreign Legion, joins the guard's unit and kills him in the same scenario as the movie. He is honorably discharged after his enlistment is up, returns to Israel where he is court martialed for desertion and after the circumstances of his desertion is revealed, he is sentenced to one year in prison that is suspended.
This is one of the best movies about the French Indo-China War I've ever seen and depicts the deadly, gritty hopelessness of fighting a war that is already lost. But as professional soldiers, they fight on until told it is over. That is what professional soldiers do.
This one tells the story of young Czech Václav Maly (Jaroslav Mares) who survives the German concentration camps of WWII and his quest for revenge. Having survived the concentration camp that saw the deaths of his father and sister, the young man searches for the lead SS guard Wolf (Hannjo Hasse) who escaped from the Allies. He finds the guard had joined the French Foreign Legion and is fighting the war in French Indo-China. So the young man joins the Foreign Legion and volunteers for Indo-China and somehow gets assigned to the same unit as the guard. Wolf is now a lieutenant and platoon leader of a Foreign Legion unit fighting a desperate battle against the Viet Minh in the last days of the war.
Aside from fighting a deadly foe, the Legionnaires are also suffering at the hands of the brutal leadership of LT Wolf, who had not changed his ways, and his Platoon Sergeant Storch (Kurt Oligmüller). Near the end of the movie, some of the men attempt to desert, but their plans are found out and they are arrested. However, one of them manages to murder Sergeant Storch and he is condemned to death by firing squad.
The rest of the platoon are sent on a road clearing operation through a pass in the mountains notorious for ambushes. Though the pass is deceptively quiet, LT Storch suspects a Viet Minh ambush and asks for a volunteer to accompany him on a leader's reconnaissance. Legionnaire Maly volunteers.
In one of the most memorable and dramatic scenes I have ever seen play out in a war movie, LT Storch realizes that Maly intends to kill him but cannot refuse his offer in front of his men. He fatalistically accepts and together the two walk side-by-side down the road to their fate. As they walk they don't look at each other but both release the safeties on their MAT-49 submachine guns.
They walk around a bend of the road and all you hear is automatic weapons firing. Maly's closest comrade looks in their direction, and then looks upward to the sky with a despairing look on his face as the move ends. You never know who came back alive. I read that in an alternate ending that neither returned.
In his book, Street Without Joy, the historian Bernard Fall tells a similar story of a Romanian Jew who survived the concentration camps and swears revenge against the guard that killed his family. After the war, when he hears the guard had joined the Foreign Legion and is in Indo-China, the man deserts the Israeli Army, joins the Foreign Legion, joins the guard's unit and kills him in the same scenario as the movie. He is honorably discharged after his enlistment is up, returns to Israel where he is court martialed for desertion and after the circumstances of his desertion is revealed, he is sentenced to one year in prison that is suspended.
This is one of the best movies about the French Indo-China War I've ever seen and depicts the deadly, gritty hopelessness of fighting a war that is already lost. But as professional soldiers, they fight on until told it is over. That is what professional soldiers do.
