Movie review: ‘The Big Red One’

FloridaGator80
A promotional still photograph from the 1980 movie “The Big Red One.”

I like war movies, especially those about World War II. Through the frame of war, a variety of stories, both dramatic and comedic, can be and have been told on the big screen. Unfortunately, sometimes they are told and filmed poorly. However, I find it especially maddening that “The Big Red One” falls into the poor category because there’s everything to like about it: A big, varied cast to tell the story; a good canvas for the scope of the film; the potential of a decent screenplay; and a director who actually served in the unit that is the focus of the film. Yet, “The Big Red One” never takes off and barely stumbles across the finish line with too many hackneyed, stereotypical situations and totally muffed action sequences. Although you can find much better, if you’re a war-movie buff, then you’ve seen this one and certainly won’t mind seeing it again …

‘The Big Red One’
(1980; 113 minutes; rated R; directed by Samuel Fuller and starring Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill and Robert Carradine)

A BAD WAR FILM (IF THERE CAN BE SUCH A THING)

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion, more trivia and the updating of links on Nov. 25, 2017. I expanded it again on Jan. 16, 2020. I expanded it again on May 6, 2026.)

Director-writer Samuel Fuller had all the experience in the world to draw upon in making the World War II film “The Big Red One.” As a soldier during WWII, he took part as a member of “The Big Red One” in all the battles depicted in the film and came home having earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his duty.

However, it’s surprising that such an experienced combat veteran could make a war movie like “The Big Red One,” which is mediocre at best and terrible at its worst. Remember, any criticism here is about a movie and is in no way critical of how the director used his life experiences to make the film or his service to the United States.

A promotional still photograph from the 1980 movie “The Big Red One.”

I’m not quite sure how, why or whatever possessed the judges, but Fuller was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. It must have been a desperate year or the judges were smoking something together while riding unicorns at a mushroom farm, since the film has only two other award nominations – both by regional film critics organizations in 2004 for restoration and reconstruction work on the film. It certainly never received any recognition for what passes as acting.

A promotional still photograph from the 1980 movie “The Big Red One.”

In its most simple form, the plot to “The Big Red One” is the oft-used story of a group of soldiers in World War II as they find their way both individually and as a group through the battles. They are in the U.S. First Infantry Division (click here for the history of “The Big Red One”) and the film follows them through combat in North Africa, Sicily (called Operation Husky), on D-Day in France (Operation Neptune) and then further into Europe and ultimately at the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp.

The biggest complaint I have with “The Big Red One” is all of the stereotypes: from the cowardly soldier to the newly minted veterans, who don’t even want to know new soldiers’ names, to the sad, sad and wickedly bad stereotypical scene of soldiers delivering a baby … in a tank of all things.

Whew! Just thinking about the stereotypes takes another star off the rating for this one and it just doesn’t have any more stars to give away, especially evaluating the poor performance of the cast.

The thread through “The Big Red One” is by Lee Marvin, who plays a grizzled veteran called only “the Sergeant” (in real life, Marvin served in the Pacific theater during WWII). Marvin’s character served in the “The Big Red One” in World War I and that war opens this film with Marvin killing a German soldier after the armistice went into effect. Of course, you know this will come back to be part of the circle of the story and you’ll see more in the end.

The plot then follows the soldiers through a variety of battles and stereotypes of men in combat. You’ve seen it all before and you’ve seen it all done better.

Now, you don’t need any more of a plot outline and now I’ll take a look at some of the principal cast. As for the two soldiers in charge:

  • A promotional still photograph from the 1980 movie “The Big Red One.”

    An Oscar winner (not for this one), Marvin is just OK here and makes the effort, but it’s an completely inferior performance to his “Maj. John Reisman” of the war classic “The Dirty Dozen.” Marvin has some material to work because his character has some layers. He’s both military and compassionate while always being coldly professional. Marvin’s other efforts include “Gorky Park,” “Paint Your Wagon” and even TV’s “ Kildare” and was on TV’s “Combat!” He won his Oscar for “Cat Ballou” and I liked his small role in another WWII classic when he played “Meatball” in “The Caine Mutiny” with Humphrey Bogart (click here to read my review). Marvin died at 63 in 1987 of a heart attack.

  • A promotional still photograph from the 1980 movie “The Big Red One.”

    The alter ego to Marvin is his German opposite number, “Feldwebel Schroeder” played by veteran actor Siegfried Rauch (“feldwebel” in a designation in some European countries that is the equivalent to “sergeant”). Rauch, like Marvin, has the same advice to his troops and carries the same philosophy of the professional soldier. At one point, both men are in the same hospital but unaware of each other’s presence. I would have liked to have seen more of Rauch, who was also in “Patton” as well as “The Eagle has Landed” (click here to read my review). He had an extensive resume from his work on TV in Germany. Rauch died at 85 in 2018 of heart failure.

As for the supporting actors, you get a decent cast working with tepid material.

  • A promotional still photograph from the 1980 movie “The Big Red One.”

    Mark Hamill gives his typical energetic-but-I’m-not-that-good performance as the cowardly sharpshooter “Pvt. Griff.” I can’t put it any other way: Hamill just doesn’t have the acting chops necessary to pull off this character. Hamill was terrible in the even more terrible “Corvette Summer” (click here to read my review) the year after bringing “Luke Skywalker” to life as one of cinema’s great characters with “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.” Hamill has had a prolific career with 340 acting credits in a variety of films, television and voice-over performances through the beginning of 2020. He should have one fewer as he shouldn’t have been in “The Big Red One” – or two, if you also count “Corvette Summer.”

  • A promotional still photograph from the 1980 movie “The Big Red One.”

    Robert Carradine of the acting Carradine brothers (including David and Keith are all sons of legend John Carradine) does the best of all the rest of the supporting cast put together, but that means he is only so-so here. As “Pvt. Zab,” Carradine is the unit’s would-be author (a Wouk-esque stereotype to add to the others) and has some life in him. I liked him best in “Revenge of the Nerds” (click here to read my review) and its sequel – as well as two TV movies of “Nerds” – but also liked him in lesser characters in films such as “TAG: The Assassination Game” (click here to read my review) and “The Long Riders” (click here to read my review).

The rest of the soldiers are a mishmash of poor material for a decent performer (say Bobby Di Cicco as “Pvt. Vinci”) or vice versa (say Kelly Ward as “Pvt. Johnson”).  Di Cicco was also in “Splash” (click here to read my review), “Night Shift” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” while Ward is better known as a voice actor with roles in “All Dogs Go to Heaven” and “Bolt.”

The group of soldiers never manages to project any chemistry among themselves and the sequence at the end with the liberation of a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia is just using the Holocaust as a statement the film didn’t need to make – it was about Hamill’s character, but you didn’t need the camp sequence to satisfy this need.

Moving on to the combat sequences, you’ll find them mediocre even allowing for the non-CGI special effects technology and cinematography of the day. The tanks are all WWII-era Shermans and there’s really not much difference from one battle scene to the next with the exception of the D-Day landing scene. “The Big Red One” does a good job on this one.

Fuller tried to inject some depth to his characters. For example, both Marvin and Rauch express to their own soldiers that they do not murder … they kill. There’s a difference to both fighting men, who are both on the same side of this war within the psyche of a professional soldier.

However, the potential is all wasted as the credits roll on “The Big Red One.” It’s too bad because of the wasted effort by all. Watch it only if you cannot find some other war movie.

“The Big Red One” was the 74th ranked film at the Box Office in 1980 and brought in $7.2 million on a budget of $4 million, according to Box Office Mojo.com. In comparison, the No. 1 film was “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back” with $209.3 million. Here are the other films from 1980 that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

Other cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Marvin’s full name was Lamont Waltman Marvin Jr.; and Carradine’s middle name is Reed.
  • Stéphane Audran, who plays a resistance fighter at the battle at the asylum, also had roles in “Babette’s Feast,” “The Unfaithful Wife” and “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.” Audran’s character is nothing but a throwaway. Her birth name is Colette Suzanne Jeannine Dacheville and she died at 85 in 2025.
  • Marvin served in WWII in the Pacific campaign (Saipan to be exact).
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “In the film commentary, Richard Schickel points out two incidents which really happened to Samuel Fuller while serving in the Big Red One and are given to Pvt. Zab (Robert Carradine) in the film: One was when Zab is playing basketball and spots Keiser (Perry Lang) reading his novel. In real life, Fuller didn’t know his novel had been published until he spotted a soldier reading it. The other major incident is when Zab acts as runner during the D-Day invasion and tells the colonel that they’ve broken through. Fuller was awarded a medal for his actions.”
  • Here’s a real oddity pointed out by IMDb.com: “During the UK clampdown on video nasties in the 80s the film was briefly seized by Manchester Police who believed it to be a sex film.“
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “The screams from the foxholes as the tanks roll over them seem strangely out of place, but actually happened. Samuel Fuller said, ‘When we were in those holes, and the tanks were rolling over us, it was our only chance to scream all the terror out and not be heard. We got it all out in those holes …’”

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