Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Retreat, Hell! Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 24, 2013

The Korean War is often called “America’s forgotten war”, and so it may come as something of a surprise to realize that Hollywood was not ignoring the conflict even as it raged. Retreat, Hell! was released in 1952, when Korea was turning out to be something of a quagmire, a term more associated with the Vietnam conflict of the next decade. What’s perhaps even more surprising about Retreat, Hell! is that it doesn’t romanticize the fighting, as might be expected of a quasi-propaganda effort designed to drum up support for an increasingly unpopular campaign. In fact, Retreat, Hell! is rather ruthless, if strangely cold and calculating, in depicting the ultimately tragic efforts of the United States Marines’ First Battalion in their attempts to hold of a North Korean (and of course by default Communist Chinese) attack, The film is really rather fascinating in that it maintains a staunchly apolitical viewpoint, concentrating instead on what might be thought of as the more generic “heroism” of our fighting men. That might seem to divorce the proceedings from any context, and in fact that’s probably the case, but the rather unexpected result is that it really doesn’t matter all that much. Audiences at the time were no doubt better schooled in the ins and outs of the then long festering Korean conflict, but even modern day audiences, who might only casually be aware of Inchon and MacArthur, will be able to relate to the individual stories which are quite admirably on display throughout this ostensibly “small” film.

Retreat, Hell! is broken down into three more or less equal parts, the opening third which introduces us to the main characters and shows them being trained for combat, the middle section, which details their introduction to actual combat operations in Korea, and the final, devastating sequence which recreates in miniature the Battle of Chosin, a bruising battle which might remind some historians of a somewhat similar situation at Dunkirk with the British in World War II, where allied forces desperately try to get back to a harbor so that troops under threat of annihilation can be evacuated.

The main characters in the story are Captain Paul Hansen (Richard Carlson), a young family man with a wife and two young children who was a communications expert during World War II, and who is stunned first to be called up to active duty from the reserves and then is totally blindsided to find out he won’t be working in communications but will be a company commander in the thick of battle. Hansen reports to the no-nonsense commander of Ft. Pendleton, Colonel Steve Corbett (Frank Lovejoy), a man who doesn’t suffer Hansen’s wish to spend a little time with his family gladly, and who has suspicions that Hansen’s wish to make it back alive to his family will make him too cautious on the battlefield. The third main character is youngster Jimmy McDermid (Russ Tamblyn, billed as Rusty), a kid who has lied about his age in order to sign up for duty so that he can prove he’s at least as good a Marine as his older brother.

The opening battle scenes set up the various characteristics of these three focal points immediately. Colonel Corbett has objectives to take and he’s going to take them, come hell or high water. Corbett is also absolutely convinced Hansen isn’t pushing hard enough, and he rides his Captain to start getting with the program. Jimmy, on the other hand, quickly discovers that his imagined romance of being in battle shatters under the actual realities of the situation. All three of these characters undergo some significant changes throughout the course of the film, with at least a couple of surprising transformations along the way.

Retreat, Hell! is both unexpectedly sober minded as well as touchingly sentimental at different times. In the opening sequences, there’s an incredibly touching scene where Hansen, able to get back to his family for one last night before being deployed, walks in to gaze at his sleeping children while his wife tearfully hugs him and begs him to make it back alive. Later, in the heat of battle, Corbett encounters two Korean waifs and he tries to get them to take some canned food. The tots are obviously very frightened of the well meaning American, and that scene in miniature is a telling commentary on winning “hearts and minds” in foreign lands.

In the actual battle scenes, however, especially in the final third of the film, Retreat, Hell! is rather remarkably unsentimental. The terrifying battle conditions are portrayed quite realistically, including the frigid environment that the troops were fighting in, as is the commendable emphasis on integrated troops. The complete randomness of death and injury is very well portrayed as well. The film veers rather dramatically from the typical “rah rah” jingoistic fireworks that might be expected of a film about a war done while the war was still raging, and instead seems to be making the salient but still kind of surprising point that, as the adage states, “war is hell”. There seems to be a really unexpected (for this era, anyway) realism about to play out in the devastating final moments of the film in terms of who lives and who dies. If Retreat, Hell! does its own back pedaling to achieve something akin to a happy ending, that doesn’t discount the often viscerally exciting moments that have gone before.

Retreat, Hell! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Retreat, Hell! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. This film was made with the cooperation of the U.S. Marines (something that's at least a little surprising, considering the lack of typical wartime chest beating in the film), which also provided the filmmakers with a lot of stock footage of basic training and various battle scenes. That means the film elements tend to ping pong back and forth between pretty decent looking "contemporary" sequences and often much more ragged looking archival footage, some of which is in quite bad condition (several of the screenshots are of this archival footage, which is pretty easily identifiable). If that "stitched together" approach can be overlooked, things here are much in line with the bulk of Olive catalog releases we've seen from this era. (Contemporary) elements are in overall good condition, with only the expected flecks and specks creeping in from time to time. Contrast is generally quite good, and the image is consistent and stable. There is some pretty bad telecine wobble during the opening credits and final placard.

Retreat, Hell! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Retreat, Hell! features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix that is very nicely full bodied, aside from just a few moments of wobbliness. Once again, the opening credits provide the biggest problem to overcome here, with just a bit of wavering in the opening version of the Marine's Hymn (some may recognize the film's composer, William Lava, who scored a lot of the Looney Tunes shorts and also wrote some great television themes in the sixties, including F Troop). After that, things improve markedly, with dialogue and the often quite boisterous battle sound effects ringing out with authority and clarity.

Retreat, Hell! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Retreat, Hell! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Retreat, Hell! proves that Korea wasn't quite as forgotten as some may think. It's especially notable that this film came out so quickly after the battles being portrayed, something that on one hand can be attributed to the not so hard to believe proclivity of Hollywood bean counters to cash in on "ripped from the headlines" films, but which is also a perhaps more noble, laudatory attempt to highlight then quite recent American heroism. The performances here are top notch, including the sometimes quite wooden Richard Carlson, who nicely segues from cautious family man to a bit more of a gung ho, battle ready veteran. The film includes a lot of archival footage which may be of interest to history buffs, even if its quality isn't top notch. The film hedges its realistic bets in the final few moments, but otherwise this is a compelling recreation of a frankly pretty disastrous campaign. Recommended.