What Price Glory

As if it wasn't enough fighting the war, they had to fight for the girl as well. Liked the battering between James Cagney & Dan Dailey. That was the life of the movie. Corinne Calvet wasn't really having the chemistry with either of them, but that was kind of the point, but she was cute at what she did. Not much war action, it was still intense and loud in its own way. While it's good to have it in sound and color, it didn't top the 1926 silent adaptation. More a Cagney film than a John Ford.

Attractive but tonally erratic Ford pitches itself rather awkwardly between drama and comedy, and it is not particularly successful in either mode or register. Cagney is amusingly over the top, and there are picturesque moments that only a master could create. Nonetheless, beyond its odd tonal clashes, there isn't much to recommend here, not even to diehard Ford fanatics.

When Dan Dailey shows up, James Cagney ducks a swung punch and grounds him with an uppercut to the jibs. Then he takes his hand, lifts him to his feet and says, "You're the best sergeant I know." I liked this movie.

56.000

Its most defining characteristic is its weirdness. Sometimes that's great - the first act is phenomenal and the battle sequences vacillated between ridiculous and poetic - but just as often it's a bust. All the same, I'm glad a movie this bizarre happened.

stupid movie

Tedious remake of the silent original. Ford encourages Cagney and Dailey to overract, and they do not disappoint him.

Wanted to give this one a higher rating, but it's so damn sappy.

Why is Cagney even here? It seems this was meant to be a musical remake of Walsh's silent drama, and it was headed that way after an early number featuring Robert Wagner. However, Ford apparently had other ideas in mind. As the original film is more about the futility of war, a perspective not consistent with Ford's military leanings, this ends up being a mish-mash: honor the troops despite the futility, move from comedy to drama. The result is one of Ford's strangest pictures.