Upon returning home from a trip, small town doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) begins to suspect something is wrong. Whilst he was away, his nurse/receptionist informs Miles that he had a waiting room full of patients who all refused to tell her what was wrong, but now all these people are suddenly fine and well. Others complain that people they know aren’t whom they seem to be. On the outside everything looks fine, but there’s a feeling that something is missing. Then, one night whilst catching up with Becky (Dana Winter), an old flame back in town for the first time in 5 years, Miles is called out to an emergency. Friends of his, Jack and Teddy (King Donovan and Carolyn Jones), have found a body that seems to be in the process of forming an exact copy of Jack’s. Dun dun-duuuuuuuuun!
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Tag Archives: Don Siegel
Hell Is For Heroes
The action is widely spaced out, and when the big climactic advance takes places, it’s mostly in almost total darkness, until Coburn picks up a flamethrower and sets about with it, but even that’s not for long enough. The mine-sweeping scene is admittedly very tense, but alas the outcome is fairly predictable, and its just a matter of waiting for the inevitable to occur. There’s also a nice early scene in a bar between McQueen and a woman in a bar, but once over it’s forgotten, which is a shame as it’s probably the best scene in the film. The camera following a dying man on a stretcher as it’s bearers strive to reach safety for him was a nice touch too, but sadly was lost amidst a sea of unoriginality.
The main focus of the film was on a relatively interesting subject – a small group of men trying to convince a large unseen foe that there were far more of them than in actuality, and they used some ingenious methods to do it, but other than the actual ideas on display I was far from entertained or engrossed. There are far more, and far greater, war films in existence, and I’m hoping the remaining three on McQueen’s resume are superior (I know The Great Escape is).
Choose life 5/10