Sight and Sound - 09/01/2004
"[I]t's a delicate and lyrical affair, full of evocative and stylised flashbacks. There are some wonderful scenes of Bottoms with Jason Robards..."
Uncut - 09/01/2004
"[D]riven by an acute, angry intelligence. Hard to forget."
A.V. Club - 04/08/2009
"Trumbo spares viewers the full gruesomeness of his physical state, but hides nothing of the mental toll....The film refuses to treat war as an abstraction..."
Product Description:
A moving drama which realistically depicts the horrors and evil of war. A youthful combatant in the first World War finds himself in a hospital bed with both of his arms and legs amputated.
Product Description:
Starring Timothy Bottoms, Jason Robards, Donald Sutherland, Marsha Hunt and Diane Varsi.
A young American soldier (Timothy Bottoms) is wounded by a mortar shell on the last day of World War I. He lies in a hospital bed as a quadruple amputee who has lost his arms, legs, eyes, ears, mouth and nose. He remains conscious and able to think, thereby reliving his life through strange dreams, memories and conversations with Jesus (Donald Sutherland), unable to distinguish whether he is awake or dreaming.
Dalton Trumbo, author of the famous 1930's antiwar book Johnny Got His Gun wrote and directed this film adaptation. In 1947, he refused to testify before a congressional committee investigating alleged Communist infiltration of the film industry. Blacklisted for nearly a decade, he wrote numerous scripts under pseudonyms including Roman Holiday and Gun Crazy until he was finally credited for his work on Exodus and Spartacus in 1960.
Plot Synopsis:
A soldier emerges from World War I so horribly wounded and disfigured -- his legs and arms amputated, his sight and face destroyed -- that he wishes only to die.
Plot Keywords:
Cult Film |
Essential Cinema |
Tear Jerker |
Theatrical Release |
World War I
Film Collectors & Archivists: Alpha Video is actively looking for rare and
unusual pre-1943 motion pictures, in good condition, from Monogram, PRC,
Tiffany, Chesterfield, and other independent studios for release on DVD. We
are also interested in TV shows from the early 1950s. Share your passion
for films with a large audience.
Let us know what you have.
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