FIXED BAYONETS *

You always know what you're going to get from a Samuel Fuller movie; it's sure to be rough around the edges and for most of the time it'll certainly be in your face. Fuller wrote and directed "Fixed Bayonets" early in his career and it isn't much revived. Like the more polished "The Big Red One"
it's a war movie but this one is set in Korea. It's very much a B-Movie and it's poorly played but like all of Fuller's work there isn't an ounce of fat to be seen. This is a lean, tough film that overcomes its Poverty Row origins with taut dialogue, excellent photography (by Lucien Ballard) and some very fine action sequences. It's also totally unsentimental and fairly bleak, evoking a genuine sense of claustrophobia as the men take to hiding out in a cave and while Fuller was never a great director of actors he certainly knew how to photograph faces. A cast that includes Richard Basehart, Gene Evans and Skip Homeier look not so much like themselves but like real grunts giving the film the added realism it needs.