Lost Battalions, Last Stands and Lost Patrols

"They've seen our backs - let's show them our faces!"
- Errol Flynn in "Rocky Mountain" (1950)

What is it about last stands that pull so strongly on our emotions? From the 300 Spartans at the Thermopylae pass to the 13-day siege at the Alamo to Custer at the Little Bighorn to Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan, we experience a visceral thrill in the sagas of a handful of defiant heroes who bravely confront overwhelming odds. Motion pictures have, of course, fed the popular imagination.

One of the best is a little-seen gem, produced for the A&E network in 2001, titled “The Lost Battalion,” based on a true account of an American division that found itself cut off and surrounded by German forces during the Battle of the Argonne Forest in the First World War.

In early October 1918, nine companies of the United States Army 77^th Infantry Division, nicknamed “Statue of Liberty,” ventured from the trenches into the wild woodland of northeastern France. Led by Charles W. Whittlesey (pictured below), a 34-year-old major unkindly referred to by his commanders as a “New York lawyer,” the division was supposed to be part of a three-pronged offensive through German lines. The battalion was told another American force was on its right flank and a French force on its left, neither of which proved to be true.

After a week of repelling devastating attacks and enduring tragic “friendly” artillery fire, what remained of the division was finally relieved by reinforcements. Of the roughly 550 men Major Whittlesey led into the Argonne Forest, 194 marched out (197 had been killed, 150 were missing or taken prisoner). Although, onscreen, Whittlesey finds the losses “unacceptable,” historically, the battalion’s stance allowed American forces to break through the entire German line and sent the enemy into retreat. Just over a month later, Germany signed an armistice, veritably ending the Great War.

The 2001 film “The Lost Battalion” was directed by Russell Mulcahy, a highly stylistic filmmaker known for his flashy camerawork, unique lighting, fast cuts, and breakneck tracking shots. The Australian-born Mulcahy was one of the most prolific music video directors of the 1980s, including The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” (the first music video aired on MTV), several videos for Duran Duran, and 20 music videos for Elton John, all in all creating the visual sensibilities he brought to his breakthrough motion picture, “Highlander” (1986), starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery.

Director Russell Mulcahy ignites some pyrotechnics in "The Lost Battalion."
Also known for the 1994 film "The Shadow," starring Alec Baldwin, Mulcahy,
since 2011, has been the in-house director of the MTV series "Teen Wolf."

In 1998, director Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” not only inspired a resurgence of interest in war movies, but the film’s use of desaturated colors, handheld cameras and hyper-staccato photography had a profound, everlasting influence on how filmmakers depicted combat, Russell Mulcahy included. As a movie made for network television, “The Lost Battalion” could not, of course, indulge in explicit representations of bloodshed and carnage, but Mulcahy’s battle scenes still pack a jarring wallop.

 

The real-life Major Charles W. Whittlesey (left) is mirrored by Rick Schroeder.

Rick Schroeder, who matured into a formidable actor with acclaimed performances in the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove” and in the late ‘90s TV series “NYPD Blue,” paints a sincerely honest and emotionally stirring portrait of Major Whitllesey. Once Major-General Robert Alexander (a pompous presence as characterized by actor Michael Brandon) arrives with reinforcements, proclaiming “promotions and commendations for everybody,” a weary, battered Whittlesey sizes up what’s left of his division and tells the officer, “You’ll never know what they’ve been through, or what they can and can’t do. They’re better than you, General. They’re better than me. They always are.”

Actor Phil McKee's earnest performance in "The Lost Battalion" as Whittlesey's
stalwart second-in-command, Major George McMurtry (pictured above), invariably
calls to mind veteran character actor James Whitmore's Oscar-nominated role of
the grizzled Sergeant Kinnie (below) in the 1949 World War II film "Battleground." 

Major Charles Whittlesey and Major George McMurtry, along with a Captain Nelson M. Holderman, were awarded the Medal of Honor. In 1919, Major-General Robert Alexander, Whittlesey, McMurtry, and a number of soldiers from the 77^th Infantry Division portrayed themselves in a silent film, also called “The Lost Battalion.”

 

Major McMurtry, Major Whittlesey, and Captain William Cullen
play themselves in the 1919 silent film "The Lost Battalion."

On July 2, 1919, Major-General Alexander hosted a reception in New York City for survivors of the 77^th. “The entertainment, given in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton,” The New York Times reported, “included the first showing of the screen reproduction of ‘The Lost Battalion.’

 

According to The New York Times, the 1919 picture "seemed to please the many
notables who were present, with the thrills and smiles and tears of a retold story."

The similarly titled, and similarly themed, 1929 British silent picture “Lost Patrol” was a fictional account of a small, haggard British patrol in the Mesopotamia desert during World War I, unsure of their mission or whereabouts, which desperately fends off attacks by Arab snipers, only to be picked off one by one.

 

London-born actor Cyril McLaglen portrayed the lone surviving Sergeant in
the silent film "Lost Patrol" (left), and older brother Victor McLaglen reprised
the role (right) in the sound remake five years later, "The Lost Patrol."

In 1934, director John Ford and executive producer Merian C. Cooper (producer and director of 1933’s “King Kong”) remade “The Lost Patrol,” starring Victor McLaglen and Boris Karloff. Plot elements from “The Lost Patrol” were rehashed in countless movies. The script was the basis for the 1936 Soviet film “The Thirteen,” set in the wasteland of a central Asian desert during the Basmachi Revolt of Muslims against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule. “The Thirteen” itself was adapted into “Sahara,” a 1943 World War II adventure, starring Humphrey Bogart as a haggard tank commander separated from his unit in a retreat from German forces (pictured below).

The story was transplanted to the Pacific Theater that same year, 1943 (as the war was still being fought on two hemispheres), in “Bataan,” In the early months of 1942, American forces and Filipino allies retreated from Manila to the mountainous Bataan Peninsula for a futile last stand against the Japanese invasion. Starving and suffering from malaria, the surviving defenders surrendered and were forced on the infamous Bataan Death March.

Executive producer Dore Schary called “Bataan” a remake of 1934’s “The Lost Patrol,” and MGM paid $6500 for the right to use footage from John Ford’s film. Robert Taylor starred in a cast that included Robert Walker (best known as the glib psychopath in Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train”), in his first featured role, and Desi Arnaz, as a Mexican-American National Guardsman. Although American forces were still segregated, the rear guard includes an African-American demolitions expert, played by Kenneth Spencer, an acclaimed singer and opera bass-baritone. His presence in the movie stirred theaters in the South to refuse showing it.

In a 2006 review, critic Dennis Schwartz lauded “Bataan” as “an exciting flag-waving Alamo-esque suicide mission World War II film.” Which brings us to the 1977 film “Cross of Iron.” In this instance, instead of 260 Texians besieged by the Mexican army 1800-strong, a dwindling platoon of German soldiers on the Eastern Front of World War II is purposely abandoned by its battalion in a retreat from overpowering Soviet forces.

James Coburn, at age 49 (pictured above), may at first seem an unlikely casting choice for Sergeant Steiner, the sardonic platoon leader who hates all officers and affirms, “I believe God is a sadist but doesn’t even know it,” but the graying actor wears the role like a glove.  Confronted by the new battalion commander, Captain Stransky, a rich (and homophobic) Prussian aristocrat eager to attain the military decoration of the Iron Cross at any cost, Steiner dismisses the martinet with a curt, “A man is generally what he feels himself to be.”

Austrian-born Maximillian Schell (pictured above), who won a Best Actor Oscar for his breakout Hollywood role as German defense attorney Hans Rolfe in 1961’s  “Judgment at Nuremberg,” is exquisitely effete as the cowardly Prussian snob who betrays Steiner for not backing his deceitful bid for the titular German medal.

James Mason, as the world-weary German regimental commander, Colonel Brandt, and David Warner, as the colonel’s chain-smoking, wine-soaked adjutant, Captain Kiesel, play off each other sympathetically in an affectionate father-son relationship (pictured below). “What will we do when we lose the war?” Brandt sighs, to which Kiesel wryly replies, “Prepare for the next one.”

“Cross of Iron” was the only war movie directed by Sam Peckinpah, a filmmaker obviously known for westerns, among them “Ride the High Country,” “Major Dundee,” “The Wild Bunch,” and “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.” Although the tired and alcohol-ravaged auteur had two pictures left in him, namely the negligible “Convoy” and “The Osterman Weekend,” many have viewed “Cross of Iron” as his most personal film.

Writer Andrew Stimpson pointed out that Peckinpah’s movie is “about the fighting man, the universal soldier.” According to Stimpson, these soldiers aren’t “the clean-cut, handsome actors sporting serious expressions and fake thousand-yard stares that marred ‘Saving Private Ryan’…Steiner’s platoon is a motley collection of killers and survivors, combatants in a brutal campaign ingrained with the filth and trauma of years of fighting.” Noteworthy among the muddied and bloodied veterans is the unwashed, lice-infested Corporal Kruger, portrayed by Klaus Lowitsch (best known to American filmgoers as General Valdimirov in 1982’s “Firefox,” starring Clint Eastwood).

  

Corporal Kruger (Kurt Lowitsch): "Natural body oils,
combined with dirt, can keep you waterproof."

In the words of Andrew Stimpson, Sgt. Steiner’s “priorities are the men with whom he exists and bleeds on a daily basis.” When it’s made clear how much leeway the German brass has allowed Steiner, the sympathetic Col. Brandt is visibly shaken when the sergeant brazenly declares, “Do you know how much I hate this uniform and all it stands for?” Nonetheless, Brandt’s aide, Kiesel, who calls Steiner “a myth,” insists, “Men like him are our last hope, and in that sense, he is a truly dangerous man.”

Andrew Stimpson noted that in the bunker, "Steiner is a fatherly presence and
the relationships with and between the men are evidently deep, close and vital."
"Cross of Iron" was James Coburn's last starring role of note until his Best
Supporting Actor Oscar-winning performance in 1997's "Affliction," costarring
Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, and Willem Dafoe.

“As a war film,” Stimpson noted nearly 35 years after its release, “’Cross of Iron’ is authentic, violent, visceral and exciting. As an anti-war statement, it is moving, politically astute and increasingly relevant as we find ourselves in an era of ongoing conflict.”

Senta Berger, the voluptuous Austrian-born actress who played opposite Charlton
Heston in director Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western "Major Dundee" (pictured above
...yes, it was a western - this was a magazine snapshot taken between shots) has a
thankless cameo in "Cross of Iron" as a military hospital nurse with whom a wounded
James Coburn has a negligible fling. Coburn, who portrayed a one-armed half-Native
American scout in "Major Dundee," also played the New Meixcan sheriff in Peckinpah's
"Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973), costarring Kris Kristofferson as the frontier
outlaw. Kristofferson himself appeared in Peckinpah's "Bring Me the Head of
Alfredo Garcia" (1974) and "Convoy" (1978). During production of "Convoy,"
when director Sam Peckinpah was confined to his trailer due to his failing health,
James Coburn, who had been hired as an assistant director, would actually direct
much of the footage. According to Coburn, Kris Kristofferson was supposed to be
in "Cross of Iron" but couldn't due to scheduling conflicts.

At the time, "Cross of Iron's" competition in theaters was "A Bridge Too Far," director Richard Attenborough's all-star World War II extravaganza (featuring James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, and Maximillian Schell) depicting the Allies' failed Operation Market Garden.

 

Sean Connery, Dirk Bogarde, Edward Fox, Ryan O'Neal,
and Gene Hackman portray officers in "A Bridge Too Far."

While “A Bridge Too Far” acknowledged the undeniable follies of what Stimpson deemed "senior leadership,” the writer was convinced the star-studded epic “fell short of portraying the fighting men as anything other than caricatures, choosing instead to tell its story through the eyes of the officers.” Stimpson noted, “Peckinpah’s soldiers are engaged in a bromantic tragedy, and the overall theme is one of humanist regret.”

According to German actor Vadim Glowna (Private Kern), Sam Peckinpah was drinking four bottles of vodka or brandy every day of filming following three or four hours of nightly sleep. He encouraged improvisation on the set and rewrote the script as shooting progressed. Filmed in Yugoslavia, “Cross of Iron” was financed by Wolf Hartwig, a onetime adult movie producer (and self-proclaimed former Panzer tank commander). Apparently, the Yugoslavian crew, still sore over memories of the Second World War, hated the Teutonic Hartwig and did whatever they could do to sabotage the production.

“Throughout all of his films,” Andrew Stimpson observed, Sam Peckinpah “explored his belief that men revel in conflict, and…he expressed that only through violence can a man truly protect what he holds to be valuable.”

Where “Cross of Iron” comes up short, particularly when held up beside 2001’s “The Lost Battalion,” is the often-philosophical dialogue, lofty observations rarely encountered in the everyday conversation of entrenched foot soldiers. Upon releasing a captured Russian boy-soldier, Steiner tirelessly orates, “It’s all an accident of hands – mine, others – all without mind, one extreme to another, and neither works, nor will ever. And we stand in the middle, in no man’s land, you and I.” Come on, who really speaks like that?

 

(Above) No, this is not a wax museum exhibit of Richard Burton. It is, in fact,
the 54-year-old actor (four years short of his demise) starring at Sgt. Steiner in
the ill-advised sequel to "Cross of Iron," 1979's "Breakthrough," directed by
Andrew V. McLaglen, son of the star of the aforementioned "The Lost Patrol."

Other doddering actors in "Breakthrough" include Robert Mitchum,
Rod Steiger, and Curt Jurgens.

Bringing this account back full circle to the true story of Major Charles W. Whittlesey, the decorated hero of the Lost Battalion served as a pallbearer for the burial of the first Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery in November 1921. A few days later, he booked passage on a ship from New York to Havana. On November 26, the first night out of New York, after dining with the captain, Whittlesey, purportedly in good spirits, said he was retiring for the evening. He was never seen again.

Before departing New York, Whittlesey prepared a will, leaving his property to his mother. In his stateroom on the ship, he had left a note for the captain with instructions for the disposition of his baggage.

In his memorial address at the services for Major Charles W. Whittlesey, Colonel A.K. Averill said, “While at first we were stunned and could hardly credit the news, yet the more I think this case over the more firmly I am convinced that his death was in reality a battle casualty and that he met his end as much in the line of duty as if he had fallen by a German bullet…The scars of conflict or the wounds of battle are not always of the flesh.”

“His last answer to the call of duty was on November 11, 1921, when, with the other Medal of Honor men of the regiment…he attended the final ceremonies at Arlington for the Unknown Soldier. I think we can all see him standing there with these memories of the suffering and the pain of war surging through his mind. We know he suffered until at last that great heart broke.”

Survivors of the fabled Lost Battalion gather for a reunion
on September 24, 1939.