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BALL EXPRESS (director: Budd Boetticher;
screenwriters: Billy
Grady, Jr/John Michael Hayes/story by Marcy Klauber;
cinematographer: Maury
Gertsman; editor: Edward Curtiss;
music: Milton
Rosen/Frank Skinner; cast: Jeff Chandler (Lt. Chick
Campbell), Alex Nicol (Sgt. Kallek), Charles Drake (Pvt.
Ronald Partridge), Judith Braun (Joyce McClellan),
Sidney Poitier (Cpl. Andrew Robertson), Jacqueline Duval
(Antoinette Dubois), Frank Chase (Pvt. Higgins), Bubber
Johnson (Pvt.
Taffy
Smith), Howard Petrie (Maj. General
Gordon), Robert
Davis (McCord), Hugh
O'Brian (Pvt. Wilson);
Runtime: 83; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Aaron Rosenberg;
Universal-International Pictures; 1952) "Routine but solid old-fashioned WW II war story." Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz Budd Boetticher
("Bullfighter and the
Lady"/"7 Men From Now"/"The Tall T") energetically directs this
routine but solid old-fashioned WW II war story, that
successfully blends together action, melodrama and
comedy. It's based on the story by Marcy Klauber and
is written by Billy
Grady, Jr and John
Michael Hayes. It tells of the U.S. Army Transportation
Corps, an integrated unit in the segregated army, who
in July 1944 are required to supply gas and ammo to
General Patton's fast moving 3rd Army tanks roaring
through German-occupied territory in France that
reaches as far as the outskirts of Paris during the
Allied advance from the Normandy beachhead. Lt. Chick Campbell (Jeff
Chandler), a hard-nosed trucker from Colorado, is in
charge of the Red Ball Express outfit, an unruly
company of clerks, misfits, goldbrickers and many
blacks who are whipped into line by the stern
taskmaster. The trucking detail's name is derived from
a railroad term for high priority freight. The
outfit's top sarge, Kallek (Alex
Nicol), was
friends with Campbell in Colorado where they were
truckers, but now hates him because he blames Campbell
for not freeing his late brother from a burning truck
that jackknifed off the road. In the climax, while
delivering gas to a tanker outfit Campbell's men must
cross a burning town and in the film's most contrived
moment the Lieutenant rescues the Sergeant from his
burning vehicle and all is forgiven between them. The
sensitive black corporal, Andrew Robertson (Sidney Poitier) unfairly resents Campbell
because he believes he's insensitive to the black
soldiers under his command, until he learns otherwise.
The other soldier who sticks out is big talker Pvt. Ronald Partridge
(Charles Drake), who comically finds romance with a
French girl (Jacqueline Duval) on a bike and later performs an
heroic deed in taking out a German tank that had his
company pinned down on the road. REVIEWED ON 7/10/2012 GRADE: B Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |