Titreenp
SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?
SteinMo
What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Twilightfa
Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.
HotToastyRag
For 1957, Bitter Victory is a pretty graphic war movie. It's filmed in black and white, but bloodstains and bullet holes are shown, deaths are prolonged, and the suspense of war is captured well.Curd Jurgens plays an officer in charge of a mission to German-controlled Benghazi during WWII. His second-in-command is Richard Burton, and since Burton is in love with Jurgens's wife, they don't have a very good working relationship. As interesting as this dynamic is, on and off the battlefield, the war scenes are where this movie really shines.This is not your typical WWII movie where one randomly fired gun makes the bad guy fall over, and the good guy comes home with a tiny scratch on his forehead as a battle scar. These men are out in the desert, delirious from heat and dying from dehydration, unfamiliar with the terrain, fighting men, scorpions, and the sun, and forced to face worse situations than they thought possible. I won't spoil anything, but there's a very intense scene in which one soldier is dying and another soldier has to decide whether to shoot him and put him out of his misery or let him die a slow, painful death. Those scenes weren't generally filmed in 1957! If you're used to lots of blood and torture in your war movies, you won't find this movie very exciting. But for a tasteful, classic war movie, it's very good. It's one of the best war movies I've seen. Plus, Richard Burton looks so incredibly handsome in his uniform. Ladies, you'll definitely want to check this one out.
mark.waltz
The events surrounding a troop in North Africa dealing with a mission against Rommel are dramatized here with a return to what audiences had seen several years before with "The Desert Rats" and "The Desert Foxes". Richard Burton had been in one of those films and returned to familiar territory in this one, a World War II drama that unlike those two films is now pretty much forgotten. It's a story of a difficult mission, of human compassion and moral struggle, and a reminder that war in the silence of the unknown can be worse than a slow death. Burton leads this troop through various struggles, finding his own as he deals with the issue of life and death for suffering German prisoners. One man faces death by trying one attempt to bind the ties by showing Burton the picture of his German family, as if to say, "I'm human too." Burton, with that gorgeously eloquent voice, shows tenderness even as he kills, making the scene touching on many different levels.Burton has his back story explained as the one time lover of his commanding officer's wife, played by the sultry Ruth Roman. This creates a quiet animosity between Burton and c.o. Curd Jurhgens that heads to their mission overseas. Roman makes the most out of a small role, and Jergens adds layers of fear, desperation and turmoil of an often unsympathetic character. As directed by Nicholas Ray, this is so much more than a war mission film, with some surprising appearances in nice supporting roles by well known actors such as Christopher Lee and Nigel Green, showing the horrors and madness in war. A scene with a deadly scorpion (one of the tiny ones) will give you a start, so be warned.
verbusen
I found this on DVD cheap in a bargain bin and saw a young Burton in a desert WW2 flick, so why not? Well, I'm sorry to say I'm in the minority here and couldn't get into it at all. I guess because I sympathized with the Jurgen's character more then Burton"s! For me the lines were not drawn nearly clear enough That Jurgen's Major was all that incompetent and that Burton's Captain all that outstanding. On top of that the love interest between the two seemed pretty unbelievable to have been all that wanted by a young Burton, she looks kind of old maid'ish to me, and definitely is not at all loyal to her husband in any scene. In the end I was much more sympathetic to Jurgen's then I was a rogue Burton looking to break up a war time marriage to a fellow officer. I also have a military background and I guess I feel a strong loyalty to senior officers (thats what makes a military work), I've actually been in a bit of wartime drama myself and stuck by my CO against an upstart enlisted person who was totally out of line in a war zone making many accusations that when asked my opinion later on by myself, I stuck by my CO, but in this movie I didn't get any of that same tension. I'll say that those guys were pretty stupid on the raid, blowing up a working jeep in the desert? C'mon! Your on a raid alone, you use the resources you have! They also shot or let escape two horses, I just couldn't get into it with any type of tension. In other words, boring! They give a DSO later on the spot? In The box? Without pinning it on? Give me a break! Also, when I saw on the DVD cover Jurgen's, I assumed he would play a German nemesis to Burton, wrong! I mean he is totally miscast as a fellow British officer (South African, Afrikaner) but I mean he doesn't have the typical accent to even achieve that, does he? Just a final note, Johnny Guitar is one of my all time favorite movies, I did not buy this disc based on it being a Ray made movie, I bought it for Burton and on a whim because it was cheap, I want to point out one quote that I saw of some of my all time favorite war movies and my view in reflection,quote: "Those who have enjoyed ATTACK, HELL IS FOR HEROES, THE BIG RED ONE and particularly Anthony Mann's brilliant MEN IN WAR are well advised to check this out,". My input is if you got this far in my feelings upon watching "Bitter Victory" is pass unless it's on cable and then check it out for free; 6 of 10 out of respect for those who love this movie, it does try to go were not many war movies went in 1957 (I actually think it rates lower like a 5/10).
Howard_B_Eale
Thankfully now available in its full 103-minute version, this is one of Nicholas Ray's strongest works and one of the handful that doesn't bear the marks of studio meddling. It's an unrelentingly grim tale of cowardice and lost love which is almost incidentally set during WWII. Richard Burton manages to deliver cutting, pointed dialogue without making it hammy, and Curt Jurgens' performance of a deceitful squad leader is extremely strong; a coiled spring which never quite releases.I can't help but wonder if some of the comments above are based upon the US version, which was cut by a whopping 21 minutes, because this is unquestionably one of the best of the Nick Ray canon. Working in many of his trademark themes of sacrifice and loss but keeping the melodrama surprisingly low-key, it's also gorgeously photographed in 'Scope black-and-white and none of the performances falter. Those who have enjoyed ATTACK, HELL IS FOR HEROES, THE BIG RED ONE and particularly Anthony Mann's brilliant MEN IN WAR are well advised to check this out, and it's a must-see for Ray enthusiasts, right up there with ON DANGEROUS GROUND, THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS, JOHNNY GUITAR and IN A LONELY PLACE.
