Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Ricardo Daly The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

DKosty123 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.

Irie212 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.

Robert D. Ruplenas 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.

artzau I'm always shocked that so few people know or have seen this film. This is an excellent movie by any standard: story by Rod Serling, cast with Ann Francis, Paul Newman, Lee Marvin, Wendell Corey, Walter Pigeon, Edmund O'Brian and others. The setting is the Korean and this a court martial trial of an officer that capitulated with the enemy while a prisoner-of-war. The drama is tense, the acting superb and the depth of feelings portrayed in a (then) controversial subject is intense. This film is one of my favorites of all time. I'm shocked there is no video or DVD and that it has appeared only rarely on the late shows.