Rating: NR
Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 05/25/2004
SubTitles: English/Espanol
Dubbed: English/Espanol
Sound: DD2/DD1
Run Time: 109 Minutes
Flags: Questionable for Children
Distributor/Studio: 20th Century Fox
James Cagney signed on to play
Captain Flagg in
20th Century Fox's 1952 remake of the 1926 classic
What Price Glory after being told that the old property was being converted into a
musical. By the time
Cagney learned that
Fox had no intention of adding songs and dances to the venerable
Maxwell Anderson/
Laurence Stallings stage piece, it was too late to pull out, so he decided to grin (sometimes) and bear it. Under the direction of
John Ford, the potent anti-war message of the original play is blunted, while the drunken rowdiness of
Capt. Flagg and his friendly enemy
Sergeant Quirt (
Dan Dailey) was played for all it was worth and then some. Much of the brawling is over the affections of vivacious barmaid
Charmaine, played by
Corinne Calvet. Contrasting the rough-hewn hijinks of
Flagg,
Quirt and their fellow Marines on the fields and in the villages of World War I-era France is the doomed romance between private
Robert Wagner and French lass
Marisa Pavan. (Why does
Wagner get to sing, while
Cagney and
Dailey do not?)
Barry Norton, who played
Wagner's role in the original
What Price Glory? appears in the remake as a priest.
Norton is unbilled, as are such familiar faces as
Harry Morgan,
Paul Fix,
Henry Kulky, and
John Ford "regulars"
Dan Borzage and
Bill Henry. Falling well short of classic status, the Technicolor remake of
What Price Glory? is kept alive by the marvelous roughneck rapport between
James Cagney and
Dan Dailey.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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