The Hero Hour (1961)

D. Henry Hathaway
Colour


Ignore ‘The Expendables’, feel free to discard Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’ – ‘The Hero Hour’ stands up there as perhaps the most macho and bloody film ever made.


Have a look at the cast list - or mug shots, which might be the best term in this instance. There’s John Wayne at the captain who breaks the rules; Robert Mitchum as his lieutenant, with whom he once had a falling out over a woman; Lee Marvin as the hard-case troublemaker; and Charles Bronson as the tough guy with a secret. Sterling Hayden (prefiguring his ‘Doctor Strangelove’ outing as a possibly barking mad senior officer) orders them behind enemy lines to rescue school teacher Elizabeth Montgomery and her charges. Montgomery has information which could aid the allies and it’s crucial she’s brought out within seventy-two hours.


(Elsewhere, if you’re interested, there are speaking cameos for Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra and John Huston. And one of the little boys in Montgomery’s class did indeed grow up to be Kurt Russell. No wonder he became an action star, all he’d have to do was breathe near this cast for the essence of manliness to just flood into him).


What follows are dead Nazis piled on top of dead Nazis piled on top of dead Nazis. Essentially the same plot as ‘Saving Private Ryan’, but whereas the modern war film comes with lashings of angst as to how terrible war is, this one revels in how damned great it is to kill Germans. The firm it most reminds me of is Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton machine gunning with aplomb in ‘Where Eagles Dare’, but this one undoubtedly has an even higher death toll. Here we have Germans machine-gunned, blown up, garrotted, knifed, strangled, shot in cold blood in the head, hanged, suffocated and even drowned in a bathtub of soapy water. The levels of actual blood aren’t that high (as befits its vintage), but if it was made now this would be a gruesome 18 certificate with an oddly starry cast.


Wayne and Mitchum look to have the better roles and each of them serves up fried machismo with a side order of boiled brutishness and a customary sprinkling of charm, but it’s Marvin and Bronson who have the most fun. At one point Marvin is seen juggling grenades with a big smile on his face and a match jammed between his teeth; while later on Bronson throws himself on top of dynamite to protect Elizabeth Montgomery, and still manages to survive and get the hell out of France. That’s the kind of man he is!


Of course it’s rubbish. Obviously it’s insensitive to death and war and the pain it causes. Evidently it’s macho bullshit crap of the worst American excesses. But in its brio and enthusiasm and belief in itself – in the fact that even it knows it’s a big macho cartoon that’s beyond ridiculousness – you can’t help but be swept along in a wave of bloody enjoyment.