Special Events 2005 / The Big Red One: The Reconstruction / USA 2004
This gripping tale of an American army sergeant and his four charges, who travel across the European battlefields of the Second World War, was returned some of its original missing footage 25 years after its premiere; thus we now have the reconstruction of a cult war film, with legendary tough guy Lee Marvin in the role of a lifetime.
xOne of the most famous films in its genre, it was almost 25 years after the premiere that, thanks to film critic and documentarist Richard Schickel, the film finally received the reconstruction it deserved. Using director Samuel Fuller’s notes and complete screenplay, Schickle extended the shortened 113minute version to reflect the director’s original intensions. The film comprises various episodes in which a sergeant of the 1st Infantry Division (thus the film’s title - the insignia on the uniform’s sleeve), played by the legendary Lee Marvin, and four young men assigned to him travel across North Africa, Sicily, Omaha beach, Germany and from there to Czechoslovakia. Despite the sweeping geographical locations, Fuller, using his own experiences, reduces the Second World War to a mere five individuals, and their differing responses to the fact that, in war, one doesn’t murder, but ‘merely’ kills.
159 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Samuel Fuller
/ Screenplay Samuel Fuller
/ Dir. of Photography Adam Greenberg
/ Music Dana Kaproff
/ Editor Bryan McKenzie, Morton Tubor
/ Producer Richard Schickel
/ Production Lorac Productions
/ Cast Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Bobby Di Cicco, Kelly Ward
/ Contact Warner Bros. Entertainment - Czech Republic, Warner Bros London, Warner Home Video
Samuel Fuller (1912-1997). Before enlisting in the army at the age of 29, Samuel Fuller earned a living as a journalist. He began his own directing career, lasting over forty years, with the western I Shot Jesse James (1949). The following decade was crucial for his career when, together with Robert Aldrich and Nicholas Ray, he was part of a new generation of filmmakers who retuned the classic melodrama more in the direction of film noir poetics, emphasising the darkly romantic side with a tendency towards the lyricism of violence (e.g. Pickup on South Street, 1953). In the sixties, Fuller became celebrated for the films Shock Corridor (1963) and The Naked Kiss (1964), which are more Hollywood B movies, yet still remarkable works for their time, particularly thanks to the unconventional treatment of popular stories from cheap magazines. This was also why Fuller was considered by European critics as one of the pure auteurs.
Warner Bros. Entertainment - Czech Republic
Soukenická 13, 110 00, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 296 580 332
Fax: +420 296 580 343
E-mail: [email protected]
Warner Bros London
98 Theobald`s Road, Holborn, WC1X8WB, London
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 207 984 5816
Fax: +44 207 984 5811
E-mail: [email protected]
Warner Home Video
4000 Warner Blvd., CA 91522, Burbank
United States of America
Phone: +1 818 977 6855
Fax: +1 818 977 5606
E-mail: [email protected]
Michal Izakovič
Production Company
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