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Find out moreGiven that The Story of G.I. Joe’s director William A. Wellman is said to have exclaimed: “let’s make this the god-damnedest most honest picture that has ever been made about the doughfoot” (‘doughfoot’ being slang for a US soldier), you’d imagine his movie set out to capture the Battle of Monte Cassino in a pretty realistic way.
Released in 1945 to a rapturous reception, this cinematic take on World War Two quickly earned a very solid reputation.
But this is Hollywood after all, so we’re going to delve deeper into the famed Monte Cassino film and – with the help of a historical expert – analyse what it gets right, and wrong.
Created with input from real-life accounts, and based on war correspondent Ernie Pyle’s book ‘This is Your War’, Pyle himself acted as an advisor on the film, while the director was also a former military pilot. Wellman even managed to convince the army to let 150 soldiers become extras on the set.
When it comes to depicting Monte Cassino in a movie, the scene following the monastery being captured has been described as one of the “grubbiest” in any war film. And while the central battle itself may have been simplified, some of the main characters are those who actually featured in the columns Pyle wrote.
Matthew Parker, author of Monte Cassino: The Story of the Hardest-Fought Battle of World War Two, explains that the clear ambition of the film is to tell the story of an ordinary infantryman’s experience of the war in an accurate way.
Inspired by the reports of Pyle, who travelled with the infantry in various different theatres, there is also an obvious visual influence of cartoonist Bill Mauldin here – much like his work, there is an emphasis on the ground, the mud and the wet.
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The 1945 war flick (actually filmed while the Second World War was still taking place) stars silver screen icon Robert Mitchum, and snagged an impressive four Oscar nominations. Director Wellman had strong awards form behind him to be fair – his 1925 film Wings became the first film to snap up the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In total, The Story of G.I Joe was nominated for:
It was also named a top 10 film by the National Board of Review in 1945.
“There is obviously a strong emphasis on comradeship,” Parker says. “This is remembered fondly by most veterans from their overall war experience. However, there were only a tiny number of units at Cassino that had more than a couple of their original components still there, due to the huge turnover of men.”
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“Overall, the film accurately portrays the starkly unromantic business of being an infantryman in this theatre,” states Parker. “That said, like Pyle’s writing, it does have a certain austere romanticism in its celebration of the grit and endurance of the infantryman.”
Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and war correspondent, so having his backing on the film gave it a great foundation. Probably due to this ability to draw on direct knowledge, it is often seen as quite accurate, with a 2020 report naming The Story of G.I. Joe as one of the top 50 greatest war movies ever made – 75 years after its release.
Bild 101I-578-1931-03A / Haas / CC-BY-SA 3.0
“In pursuit of accuracy, the film boasts a long list of veteran consultants,” notes Parker. “It features real veterans playing themselves, and it includes actual combat footage from John Hutson’s film The Battle of San Pietro.”
Here are some other things the Monte Cassino film gets serious props for.
The events in Italy, portrayed in the film, are based on Pyle’s experience with the 133rd Infantry at the Battle of Monte Cassino. Pyle’s reports of damp “misery”, and of men being almost reduced to a “prehistoric” state, are effectively captured in scenes on screen that don’t shy away from the messy realities.
Captain Bill Walker, played by Mitchum, was modelled on two soldiers who really impressed Pyle (even if, according to Parker, his rather fine wavy hair is definitely non-regulation!).
“It also successfully makes the important point that these men were essentially civilians in uniform,” Parker notes. That’s partly thanks to a voiceover, which emphasises that the soldiers included a drugstore worker, a ‘budding lawyer’ and a gas station attendant studying medicine.
“Here they are’, says Pyle, ‘guns in their hands, facing a deadly enemy in a strange and faraway land’.”
“In general, it refrains from glamourising the war or enabling the war effort,” says Parker. “It eschews triumphalism, neither recklessness or bravura is underscored, and there is no moral story shaping the action: good guys are killed, the strong break down.
“From my research, it is clear that anything resembling patriotism or ‘For King and Country’ was shunned by the Allied infantry in Italy.
“This last point is important. One GI says: ‘Someday I’m gonna buy me a map and find out where I’ve been.’ The infantry, indeed, had little idea where they were, and what they were there to do in the grand scheme of things.”
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“It features real veterans playing themselves, and it includes actual combat footage from John Hutson’s film The Battle of San Pietro.”
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Play through the battle yourself in the immersive Company of Heroes 3 campaign.
“Many of the characters are off-the-peg stereotypes/clichés of the day,” claims Parker. “The pooch who melts the hearts of the gruff GIs, good natured grumbling, the Italian lover boy flirting between fights, the tough sergeant who melts when he hears his son’s voice on a record.”
It seems that even with the best of intentions, the filmmakers couldn’t stop some of that Hollywood cheesiness creeping in.
The scenes in front of the (rather unconvincing-looking) monastery are clearly unrealistic, as movement that close would have automatically attracted shellfire. Parker understands why it was filmed that way for practical purposes, however.
Parker explains that under the rules of the Production Code (or Hays Code), films of the time were forbidden from showing graphic or realistic violence.
“For example, when people are shot or hit by shells, they just fall down, rather than have bits blown off, or guts spilling out. These sorts of horrors were vividly remembered by the veterans I met – perhaps more than anything else.”
Did you know?
Real American GIs served as ‘extras’ on the film
Tragically, Ernie Pyle would never get to see the movie himself. He was killed during the Battle of Okinawa, in the year of the film’s release.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th US President, described The Story of G.I. Joe as the “finest war film” he had ever seen.
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Interview with Matthew Parker
https://warmoviebuff.blogspot.com/2012/01/45-story-of-gi-joe.html
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/g_i_joe.pdf
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038120/
https://www.avclub.com/the-story-of-g-i-joe-1945-1798229784
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0038120/awards/?ref_=tt_awd
https://www.vulture.com/article/best-war-movies-ranked.html
https://issuu.com/historynet/docs/mhq_fall_2020_combined_pdfsm
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