A little like Australian wartime reporter Damien Parer, this story of a renowned American equivalent is also something that makes us realise just how perilous the job of correspondent really was. This film focuses on the segment of Ernie Pyle’s career when he (Burgess Meredith) joins an American company moving from North Africa to be at the vanguard of the invasion of Italy. He is paired up with Lt. Walker (Robert Mitchum) and across those gruesome theatres of war he reports honestly to his readers at home whilst befriending many of the war-weary soldiers. The production is interspersed with actuality which adds a richness to the engaging characterisations that illustrate really effectively just how ordinary these soldiers were, and therefore just how they reacted - each to their strengths and vulnerabilities - to the relentless onslaught and deprivations of war. These men are fighting tenaciously through the sand or the snow for every inch they can obtain, and this film doesn’t shy away from showing us the personal costs of war. Their enemies are well entrenched, well armed and ready for what is coming. Meredith himself fought in the war and presents a considered and personable performance of a brave and often sickened man, and he works well with an authentic looking Mitchum and a solid and small cast of supporters with whom Pyle became good friends. It’s not without it’s optimism, and there’s even a tiny bit of romance, but essentially it’s a grim indictment of a modern and indiscriminate conflict.
