The Steel Helmet (Steel Helmet) “The Steel Helmet” is another sad example of a jingoistic movie from S. Fuller, this time dedicated to the US infantry, as the opening credits indicate. Praising no less shameful than the Vietnam War, the Korean War and extolling the “feats” of American soldiers, the film is an inverted version of “Shock Corridor”: we also have an allegory of America, but this time united and overcame racial and national differentiation in the name of a common cause.
A black nurse, a Japanese, a boy-Korean, several Yankees with different characters - all this motley company is not only heroically fighting against North Korean communism (the only enemy appearing in the frame kills an American soldier, of course, in the back and subsequently does not cease to demonstrate his cowardice and meanness, already as a prisoner of war inciting soldiers to betrayal in every possible way, leads ideological conversations with them, driving a wedge between representatives of the "valent American nation"), but also hides from the enemy in a Buddhist temple, thereby demonstrating his cowardice and cowardice, defending his religious culture.
Fuller demonstrates in his picture a real “gentleman’s set” of “hawkish” views: militant militarism, a reactionary understanding of patriotism that justifies any evil in the name of the nation, aggressive anti-communism that demonizes its enemy.
In the film there is not only outstanding acting, but also full-fledged characters, only types: a military commander who does not take cigars out of his mouth, a hundred percent American, rude and straightforward, African-American, in conversation with a prisoner justifying racial segregation, a Japanese who does not feel post-war discrimination, a coward soldier, whom the commander strengthens in battle.
At the editing level, the picture cheerfully begins with a sharply mounted scene of the rescue of the main character, but after half an hour the pace is noticeably lost due to a long show of relations between the soldiers, apparently to create the illusion of an objective analysis of the situation in the country in a parable form.
And compositionally, and dramatically, and visually, the tape is not able to captivate any critically thinking viewer. After a number of great pacifist paintings, such as “Platoon”, “Apocalypse Now”, “All Metal Shell”, strengthened the viewer in the negative perception of the war, the scene of the final battle looks comical because of its almost inflated patheticness and declarative pathos in glorifying the exploits of soldiers.
Filmed in 1951 in the era of incipient paranoia of "McCarthyism" tape could not be better came to court, because quite sincerely (after all, Fuller was not only the director, but also the author of the script, which no one imposed on him) defended reactionary views, which makes it much more vile morally than most of the commissioned pro-American films of the Cold War era.