The greatest movie ever!

Let's be realistic.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Rod Serling was writing a lot of great scripts in the 1950's. While some of his scripts are great like Patterns which is brilliant, this one while good is not quite great. This film was originally written for live television and was on the US Steel Hour. Thank goodness MGM decided to film it, for several reasons.Paul Newman who career was just starting to boom did this and the underrated "Somebody Up There Likes Me" in 1956 and his performance here is the glue for this one. So much support here with a very limited performance from Lee Marvin to a brilliant effort from Edmund O'Brien. This is a case where the actors elevate the script into something more special than it ought to be.What would have made it better would have been a conversation Newman recalls with Marvin in his final speech at the end of the film. If only that conversation had been included in this film, as I felt like something was missing because it wasn't.Paul Newman was fortunate to come along into his prime at a time when Serling was in his prime. Arnold Laven who directed this was mostly a television director. If there had been a director like Walsh with this one, the film might have been better. This is one time where it appears MGM was not willing to spend the money to make this one better, and it does suffer a bit for that. Still, any fan of Serling, Newman, Marvin should consider this one a must see.

Paul Newman gives perhaps his most powerful performance as Captain Hall. He is restrained, moving, and with just enough wit and comedy (those hiccups) to let us know that an honorable and decent man has survived inside that devastated soldier. He stands out in a truly sterling cast led by Wendell Corey, Edmund O'Brien, Walter Pidgeon, and, holding her own with admirable grace, Anne Francis.Most IMDb reviewers seem disappointed in the film's ending, either because it's sad or because it's ambiguous (it's both: the film ends after the guilty verdict but before sentencing). But I credit the ending with intelligence, complexity, and dignity. It was persuasively real and it delivers a moment of redemption all the more moving for being underplayed. After the guilty verdict, we learn that a key witness against him has forgiven Hall after hearing his testimony about the months of torture. I found the ending both satisfying and believable-- not only that a military court would have ruled against Hall given the army's code during the Korean War, but that Hall would find true redemption not in the verdict of army judges, but in the forgiveness from a comrade in arms-- especially a comrade who had also been imprisoned and tortured in that Korean prison.By the way, although it's essentially a courtroom drama, the scenes of soldiers coming home are strongly flavored, reminiscent of "The Best Years of our Lives", and praise for coming-home pictures doesn't get higher than that.

There lies a great film hidden in the depths of 'The Rack', one that honestly and unflinchingly dares pronounce its indictment of the American way of life, of a people uninformed about the democratic traditions of their country as well as of the exact nature of Communism.But 'The Rack' is not quite that film, although in long stretches it is pretty good. Paul Newman in his second starring role plays Captain Ed Hall, being court martialed for betraying his country when he was a prisoner of war in Korea by collaborating with his captors. It turns out he was mentally tortured, brainwashed as it were, and there is an emotional forthrightness of the scenes concerning the captain's breakdown that are engaging, and the central between Newman and Walter Pidgeon as his staunch colonel father will draw tears, although Newman is not yet the acute and instinctively brilliant actor he would become.So, see it by all means next time it is aired on TCM, it's not half bad. Only, it ought to have been better.

Caught this rarity on TCM. Much heavy duty talent is involved in this production - Rod Serling as writer, and the acting talents of Paul Newman (his second screen appearance), Edmund O'Brien, Walter Pigeon, and Anne Francis, with bits by Lee Marvin and Chloris Leachman, even! The effort must be marked as a success, with an even-handed treatment of the issue of "breaking point" in a war when the Koreans openly sought to crush their POW's thru "brainwashing", a term that came into currency at that particular time. The cut and dried atmosphere of the courtroom proceedings are balanced by portrayals of the personal effects of the tragedy on the principals, especially the searing scenes between Newman/Hall and his father. A thoughtful film dealing with a major issue of the day, that is well worth seeing.