Fixed Bayonets

A relentless but engrossing study of a platoon of men during the Korean War, FIXED BAYONETS offers a fine cast and excellent direction by director Samuel Fuller, a war film specialist (STEEL HELMET, 1951; THE BIG RED ONE, 1980). Basehart is an intellectual, refined soldier who functions well under the orders of others, but when his superiors (Evans, O'Shea, and Hill) are picked off one by one in a rear guard action on some snowy mountaintops, Basehart finds he must take command and assume responsibility for the lives and deaths of others. He almost falters but at the last minute takes a firm hand and saves a near-hopeless situation. Remnants of the platoon survive ...