The Big Red One [Blu-ray]

Overview

Samuel Fuller's valedictory war picture, The Big Red One follows the First Infantry Division from Africa to Europe during the years 1942 through 1945. Lee Marvin portrays the division sergeant; he's tough and experienced, to be sure, but he takes on his job with cool professionalism rather than Hollywood bravado. Based on Fuller's own experiences, the film is a loosely constructed series of anecdotes. Among them are an insane asylum under bombardment while the inmates applaud and a climactic vignette in which a very young concentration camp internee dies while a friendly soldier plays piggy-back with the boy.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/06/2014
UPC:	0883929392957
Original Release:	1980
Rating:	PG
Source:	Warner Home Video
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:53:00
Sales rank:	14,733

Special Features

Commentary on Reconstruction version by Richard Schickel; Documentary The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller; Featurette The Real Glory: Reconstructing The Big Red One; Featurette The Fighting First: A War Department Film; Before-and-after-restoration scene comparisons; Alternate scenes

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Lee Marvin	Le sergent
Mark Hamill	Griff
Robert Carradine	Zab
Bobby Di Cicco	Vinci
Kelly Ward	Johnson
Siegfried Rauch	Schroeder
Serge Marquand	Ransonnet
Charles Macaulay	Général / Capitaine
Alain Doutey	Broban
Maurice Marsac	Colonel de Vichy
Colin Gilbert	Prisonnier de guerre
Joseph Clark	Shep
Ken Campbell	Lemchek
Doug Werner	Switolski
Perry Lang	Kaiser,German Countess (extended edition)
Howard Delman	Smitty
Marthe Villalonga	Madame Marbaise
Giovanna Galetti	Woman in Sicilian Village
Gregori Buimistre	German
Shimon Barr	German Male Nurse
Matteo Zoffoli	Sicilian Boy
Avraham Ronai	German Field Marshal,German Field Marshall
Galit Rotman	Pregnant Frenchwoman
Stéphane Audran	la Wallone
Pascal Breuer	Hitler Youth
Ulli Kinalzik	Gerd - German Soldier
Guy Marchand	Capt. Chapier
Steve Moriarty	Staff Sergeant at Kasserine Pass

Technical Credits

Samuel Fuller

Jim McBride

Samuel Fuller	Director,Screenwriter
Lee Rich	Executive Producer
Merv Adelson	Executive Producer
Gene Corman	Producer
Jeff Clifford	Special Effects
Peter Dawson	Special Effects
Barbara Miller	Casting
Kit West	Special Effects
Brian Jamieson	Producer
Richard Schickel	Producer
Cyril Collick	Sound Effects
David Dockendorf	Sound Effects
Robert L. Harman	Sound Effects
Mark Linden	Sound Effects
Roy Street	Stunts
Jim McBride	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Some critics would select maverick director-writer Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One as the best war movie ever made. It is certainly one of the most terrifying. In its unforgiving and realistic action scenes, it matches the immediacy of the first half of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. In its allegorical nature, it presages Terrence Malick The Thin Red Line. Fuller's script is a loosely connected series of vignettes, based on his own World War II experiences, that follow a rifle squad across North Africa and into Europe. The squad is led by a gruff, unyielding sergeant (Lee Marvin), who taunts and terrorizes his four green, frightened soldiers. There are many spooky scenes, including the climactic liberation of a Nazi death camp. The two-hour final version was less than half the length of Fuller's director's cut, but it retains his uncompromising vision. Made when Fuller was in his late 60s, The Big Red One provided a crowning achievement for his long and controversial career, in which his renegade techniques and film noir sensibilities made him a post-modernist before his time.

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