RyothChatty ridiculous rating

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Leofwine_draca TO HELL AND BACK is a WW2 movie of the 1950s with a unique hook: it tells the true story of the army career of western actor Audie Murphy, with Murphy playing himself, no less. I can't think of another film quite like it, and if the execution is purely standard, then that doesn't matter too much. This all-colour production is handsomely mounted and features a big supporting cast studded with familiar faces including Marshall Thompson and David Janssen. There's a little of the old propaganda about it, but the battle sequences are well staged and the best thing is just how much ground this covers, never slowing down for an instant.

zardoz-13 This autobiographical account of the exploits of Audie L. Murphy as the most decorated American soldier of World War II makes for a good--but not great--traditional military movie where everybody obeys orders and few complain about serving in the infantry. "Ride Clear of Diablo" director Jesse Hibbs and "Saskatchewan" scenarist Gil Doud has fashioned a solid, unpretentious combat movie that opens with a brief prologue about our protagonist and the rigors that he endured as a teenager. Murphy had no father. The man abandoned his family and left them to fend for themselves with our hero setting aside his eighth school education to earn money for his mother and his brothers and sisters.The outbreak of World War II prompted Murphy to enlist, but the Marine Corps and the Navy rejected him for his size. He stood five feet five inches and must have looked even scrawnier in real life. Eventually, Murphy made it into the Army, but Hibbs and Doud skip his basic training and have him showing up in North Africa as a replacement. The commanding officer of the outfit is somewhat surprised when Murphy puts in a request to transfer to the paratroopers. Initially, the C.O. wants to transfer the ailing Murphy out because of his poor health on the trip to North Africa (Murph had never been on a ship) and put him in with the cooks. Murphy asks them to forego any special treatment. Nothing happens for our heroes in North Africa, but they get their taste of combat in Sicily and later the Italian campaign. Everybody in the outfit sets out to protect little Audie, but by the time that it is over, he has risen to the rank of lieutenant and he is the one watching out for them.What sets this combat film apart, aside from its infantry perspective, is the appearance of two genuine Sherman tanks--which while they may not be the same models that plowed through the fields of France--are a rarity in World War II movies, especially during the 1950s. Hibbs includes the famous scene where Murphy single-handedly stalled a German advance by manning a .50 caliber machine gun on a blazing tank. His superior officers wanted to ship Murphy off to West Point, but those ambitious plans were sidetracked when Murphy suffered a war wound that disqualified him for the academy. Marshal Thompson, who played the replacement in the Battle of the Bulge movie "Battleground" is cast as a fellow G.I. along with Jack Kelly who later attained fame on the "Maverick" television series with James Garner. Murphy has a brief interlude with a spunky Italian babe, Maria (Susan Kohner in her film debut), but they never get it on with fireworks to boot. Basically, "To Hell and Back" covers the war from North Africa to France without too much fanfare on the part of the protagonist. The theme of friendship is explored in some detail. Nobody wants to make friends under such stressful conditions because their friends wind up dying under fire and the separation is agonizing for them. The action ends with Murphy receiving his decorations. The Germans are pretty much depicted as extras in long shots without any interaction between themselves or the Americans.

Robert J. Maxwell In the early 50s, Audie Murphy and his ghost writer published a book of Murphy's unbelievable exploits in Italy, France, and Germany during World War II. Murphy, still in his teens, won about every decoration for valor that the human mind can dream up -- and he earned them too. The experience wrecked him. He made movies later in his life, always boyish looking and modest sounding. But he suffered from PTSD. He was tormented by nightmares of firing an M-1 at attacking Germans and having his rifle fall apart, piece by piece. He slept with a Colt pistol under his pillow and attacked another man with a baseball bat. His many medals were stashed in disarray in a drawer. He died in a plane crash.Hollywood has taken this man's remarkable story, lifting pieces of it from his memoirs, left out the most poignant passages and twisted Murphy's remaining heroics into pablum. An example of what I mean. In the book, written in the present tense, Murphy describes his first encounter with the enemy and sees one of his targets fall. "Now I have killed," he writes, and goes on to explain his emotions.No room for any such ruminations in the movie. We see Murphy rejected by the other services for being too young or too short. In the Third Infantry Division he is ridiculed in a good-natured way by the usual stereotypes from other war movies -- the guy who brags about his sexual exploits, the stoic Indian, the ambitious Pole, the reckless good friend. The musical score suits the film: a high school marching band plays "On Wisconsin" or something.Murphy's achievements provide a peg to hang a formulaic war movie on. No cliché is avoided. On leave at last with his fellow troopers in Rome, they all head off to get drunk and get laid, leaving the bashful hero behind. The shy Murphy winds up spending the night with an accommodating young woman while the others are either satisfied with finding someone to talk to or find themselves in some other sort of dead end. The next morning all the men brag about their conquests while the reticent Murphy says nothing about his night of romance.The battle scenes are pretty good, though again they fit the Hollywood mold. The writers even are forced -- get this -- they are forced to downplay or skip over Murphy's boldest actions -- because they are UNBELIEVABLE. The guy's military achievements are so extravagant that the writers must have figured no one would believe them, although to be sure, what's left in is heroic enough.It isn't a bad movie, or rather it wouldn't be if it were fictional from beginning to end. It would just be a standard genre effort from the 1950s, inferior to, say, "Battleground" or "The Story of G. I. Joe." But it pretends to be a true story and it is simply not.What a tragic waste -- of the rest of what life remained to Murphy, and of an historically accurate narrative that was never told.

Romanus Nies I cannot understand why a man like Audie, certainly a man with character, let it happen that he was misused for this propaganda film. This film is of the same indescribable, ridiculous stupidity as most war films that were produced as long as the Germans and the Japanese were the bad guys. I watched it horrible 60 minutes long, still waiting for something positive. In vain. It is remarkable that - the longer the time runs since WWII - war films are becoming more realistic and "fair" with the former enemies. Compare this Audie film with the last film of Clint Eastwood or even Soldier Ryan (which has still a lot of unbearable patriotism).I am bored to look these films in which the US-boys are always: 1. outnumbered by the red-Indians, Huns, Japanese, Spanish whereas the historical record has it that more often it was vice versa 2. the enemy always has the bigger weapons, the better equipment, the better support etc, whereas in reality it was more often vice versa 3. the US heroes are mostly shot from behind, there is no other way to overcome them! They are always character better. Believe me, if you have two armies with 100 thousand young men between 18 and 30 the percentage of good guys and bad guys is on both side the same, as well as the percentage of mothers who swear an oath that their boys are good boys - right so as well as wrong so! All of these 3 typical Hollywood-war-film-points are displayed in this film. Audie played it like that because the film-makers ordered him to do so. This was his earnings. He died young. Maybe he could not live very long with these lies or he became sick of being a hero that felt to be useless for normal peace-time-life. Maybe his biographical war-time-story was a total fake. America needed a hero like that, because America lacked of true heroes. The American soldiers had hardly any chances to become heroes as it was looked for it that they got as often as possible their exchange at front. Air fighters for example had ten times less service at the front than Germans. The care the Americans took for their men should be hailed, where lives counted much contrary to totalitarian systems where human lives count nothing. So, if the story of Audie was true, it was not a typical story of an American soldier in the last war. Anyway human acts should be hailed as heroism, not exterminating humans which is always a multiplication of human tragedies (think of all the mothers and fathers, wives, children). If You want to know how the war was ask one of those who were really at the front and whom you know as reliable and honest people. If you believe in these propaganda Hollywood movies you fall in the same pit as so many of Your nation. You will have to pay the bill. Trust in God and You will thrive, not in Your own weakness! He can win Your wars for You, if You leave him, no more.... I know that the readers do not like to read this comment, which is so hostile to their liking, but soldiers who fought at the front mostly do not like glorifying films either. There is no room in reality to glorify people for killing others. Following orders might be a necessary act to survive and to fight against evil (which Nazi-terrorism or Stalin-terrorism were) and banish it from the face of Earth. But this is nothing heroistic. Germans or Japanese who fought against the overwhelming powers of the Allies committed also "heroic" acts (and wasteful as well!), but for what good? In our days it is only acceptable to show films which demonstrate the necessity to fight against injustice and evil, but at the same time the barbarism and cruelty of war. I do not understand the reason for that kind of American film-making. It must be an exaggeration of patriotism as I do not believe that Americans have a minority complex, which is often the reason for hubris. This exaggeration is self-deceit and also very dangerous, because it blindens oneself for reality which in the long run has very negative effects.