War Correspondent has always been a dangerous job. While they’re just a civilian, the enemy doesn’t view the reporter as off-limits. They are as much a target as the troops they are covering. They also have to find ways to write a story without giving out any information that might tip off enemy intelligence that are reading the newspapers for a stray detail that might reveal a location or strategy. They don’t want to be accused of being a traitor by their own troops. A war correspondent is there to observe in the chaos of bullets and bombs exploding everywhere. They’re not supposed to pick up a gun and join in the battle. The Story of G.I. Joe follows Ernie Pyle, a press reporter that doesn’t make him so much the hero of the movie as the observer of others in the movie. He took a manual typewriter into the action to let folks back home know what their sons, friends and neighbors were doing across the Atlantic to battle the Axis forces.
Ernie Pyle (Rocky’s Burgess Meredith) meets up with Company C of the 18th Infantry while they are fighting in North Africa. They are a new unit led by Lt. Bill Walker (The Friends of Eddie Coyle‘s Robert Mitchum). Ernie doesn’t just report the action in the field. He’s interested in the men that have been called to fight back against the Axis including Sgt. Warnicki (Hail the Conquering Hero‘s Freddie Steele), Pvt. Dondaro (The Postman Only Rings Twice‘s Wally Cassell) and Pvt. Spencer (G.I. Jane‘s Jimmy Lloyd). Pyle recounts how one of them travelled with a record featuring the voice of his child. He desperately wanted to find a record player in the debris to get a sense of what he’s fighting for. Things go bad for Company C during the Battle of Kasserine Pass. Unlike the surviving troops who must keep on marching, Ernie goes off on another assignment. Eventually he meets up with the unit when they are seasoned vets after the invasion of Italy. The film captures their march towards Rome.
Burgess Meredith captures Ernie Pyle’s work in the field. He’s always observing the men around him. He is not there to lionize himself and his daring life. The same goes for Robert Mitchum when he leads Company C. His shaggy beard appearance helps define what it means to be dogface. No one here is doing this for glory even with Ernie writing them up in his column. They want to win and go home. Director William A. Wellman gives us a sense of what went on with these men that’s next minute can be their last. You see the moments of joy that are sprinkled with the horror of bullets flying around. There’s even a wedding in the midst of the campaign. The Story of G.I. Joe is one of the best military films to be produced while World War II was still ongoing. The movie opened on June 18, 1945 while Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. Audiences in theaters didn’t have to worry about the ending of the film.
Ernie Pyle never got to see the premier of The Story of G.I. Joe. While he worked with Wellman during production, he hadn’t quit his day job to go Hollywood. He went to the Pacific Theater to keep covering the action and the troops. He died during a firefight at the Battle of Okinawa in April of 1945. The veteran reporter was only 45. The Story of G.I. Joe is the perfect way to remember Pyle as not the hero, but the reporter getting to know the heroes.
The Video is 1.33:1 full frame. The black and white picture looks great from the restoration. The Audio is LPCM 1.0 mono. The sound is full as you hear the troops and the rousing score. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by Alan K. Rode gets into the various titles. He points out that this was the only time Robert Mitchum was nominated for an Oscar. Rode points out that a moment of a soldier scratching his ass, was almost cut out by the Hayes Office censor.
Wild Bill’s Dog Face Blues (16:15) is a video essay by Scout Tafoya about Wild Bill Wellman who went from troubled teen to World War I fighter pilot who was notorious for landing near the German he shot down to collect souvenirs of his kill. He was able to turn his time in the air into the first Oscar winner Wings. He eventually makes The Story of G.I. Joe which is about the writings of Ernie Pyle.
New interview with Bill Wellman Jr. (16:20) has him talk about hiding in the background of the sets as a kid. This was a difficult production that was shut down a few times. He talks about how his parents were different in temperament. We learn how his dad dropped in to say hello to Douglas Fairbanks at a polo field. The mavericks bonded. Fairbanks helped him become a director by starting him out as an assistant editor since that is where the film takes hold. He gets into how his father worked with actors.
The Story of The Story of G.I. Joe (7:00) gets into how the film was made and restored. Ernie Pyle wrote stories about the soldiers and not just lionizing the generals. Wellman met Pyle to talk about the film. They couldn’t use the original camera negative since it had rotted. Thye went with other film elements. They have a split screen to show the differences of before and after.
Original Nitrate Trailer (2:32) shows how rough things got for the trailer over the year with both sound and picture deterioration.
Re-construction of the original 1945 trailer (2:55) has been fixed up using the restored footage and audio.
Photo Gallery has 34 images of Ernie Pyle, press photos, behind the scenes, lobby cards, posters and the exhibitionists’ kit.
Ignite Films presents The Story of G.I. Joe: Special Edition. Directed by William A. Wellman. Script by Leopold Atlas, Guy Endore & Philip Stevenson. Starring Burgess Meredith, Robert Mitchum, Freddie Steele, Wally Cassell, Jimmy Lloyd, John R. Reilly, William Murphy, William Self and Dorothy Coonan Wellman. Rating: Unrated. Running Time: 110 minutes. Release Date: December 10, 2024.
