Halls of Montezuma poster & wallpaper

Bert Freed, Jack Palance, Jack Webb

Lewis Milestone was the American cinema's premier maker of war movies for three decades. He won an Academy Award for the single most honored film about World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front<...( read more  read more... )/I> (1930), and made one of the most distinctive contemporaneous films of World War II, A Walk in the Sun (1945)--a notable influence on Saving Private Ryan. Still, some of his efforts were rather less than milestones, including The Halls of Montezuma. That still leaves room to accord the picture a marginal recommendation; it's well cast, competently made, and free of "Hollywood" heroics. But the hallmarks of Milestone's style--such as his syncopated tracking shots--were becoming mannerisms, and the screenplay's rhythms of personal crises set against the bigger picture of the military campaign are pretty mechanical.

Richard Widmark stars as a Marine platoon leader who, having brought only seven of his men through Guadalcanal, is determined to see them safely through the next island conquest. The lieutenant was a schoolteacher in civilian life--as we see in flashbacks--and one member of his command is a former student (Richard Hylton) he helped overcome fear. Other platoon members include ex-boxer Jack Palance, trigger-happy bad boy Skip Homeier, hardcase veterans Neville Brand and Bert Freed, and Karl Malden as a philosophical corpsman. However, the most arresting performance is given by Milestone discovery Richard Boone, making his screen debut as a sympathetic colonel stuck with fighting the Japanese and fighting off a miserable cold at the same time. --Richard T. Jameson

Flixster Users

48% liked it

1,374 ratings

Unrated, 114 min.

Directed by: Lewis Milestone

Release Date: January 1, 1950

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: November 6, 2001

Get It:

Stats: 31 reviews

Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites
report incorrect info

Photos

None yet... Got one?

Your Rating


clear rating

Flixster Reviews (31)

  • garyX
    November 24, 2007
    garyX
    Lewis Milestone made some great war films, but this WWII drama about a marine platoon commanded by Richard Widmark doesn't measure up to his best. The action is all smoke and noise, with little pause for any character development and the supporting cast overact their badly melodr...( read more)amatic, overly stereotypical roles to a rather cringeworthy degree (Jack Palance's performance in Batman is comparatively understated compared to this!) The technique of using flashbacks to contrast the soldier's pre-war lives is also clumsy, and Widmark too often looks more like a social worker dishing out Werther's originals than a battle hardened lieutenant. The lack of humanity in the script is highlighted particularly in a scene where a tank sprays napalm on Japanese positions with no thought or mention of it's victims, as the marines look on cheerfully as if they're watching a sunday afternoon barbecue. It does have moments; particularly in the scenes involving the Japanese prisoners, but as a whole it's too simplistic and cliched.
  • MECreviews
    March 21, 2008
    MECreviews
    I did not really like this movie.
  • hugonar
    November 2, 2007
    hugonar
    Classified as a classic = Interested.
  • usrangers
    August 6, 2007
    usrangers
    Pacific Theatre of Operations in WW2 with the US Marine Corps. Good film, well made.
  • dorisgc
    March 16, 2007
    dorisgc
    good oldie war movie......
  • SarahJoyFrost
    December 9, 2006
    SarahJoyFrost
    I wonder what this is about, i think ill see it!

View All Halls of Montezuma Reviews

Critic Reviews

No recent reviews.

Comments

This board looks lonely. Be the first to talk about "Halls of Montezuma" !

Post A Comment | View All Comments

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

All Rotten Tomatoes content is used under license from Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes, Certified Fresh, and the Tomatometer are the trademarks of Incfusion Corporation, d/b/a Rotten Tomatoes, a subsidiary of IGN Entertainment, Inc.

Cast

More Like This

This list looks lonely.
Add a suggestion!

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

Halls of Montezum... : Watch Free on TV

Movie Quizzes

No quizzes for Halls of Montezuma. Want to create one?

Video Clips

No video clips yet. Want to upload one?

Meet Other Fans

Add Halls of Montezuma to favorites

Recent News

No recent headlines. Got one?

Recent Lists

Make a List |

View All Lists

Most Popular Skin

No skins yet. Interested in creating one?