The Victors (1963)

The Victors is a quite remarkable film to come out of the studio system in 1963, and is the only film directed by Carl Foreman, who also wrote and produced. With hardly a combat scene in its two-and-a-half-hour length, it follows an American platoon from Italy in 1942 to…

Fint

A war film that effectively deglamourises war by making it absent from the narrative. The Victors is a really bleak 2.5 hours that focuses on the scenes between the gunfights. It is about women in wartime from the perspective of the American soldier. It jumps through 4…

Wilson

Carl Foreman’s epic Second World War drama charts the adventures of a platoon of Allied soldiers in Europe. Starring Vince Edwards, Albert Finney, George Hamilton and George Peppard.  This World War II drama from director Carl Foreman definitely appeals thanks to having a…

Luke Thorne

World War Two as seen through the eyes of two friends and their Sergent. Peppard and Hamilton have never been better before or since. Loved the inter cut propoganda films. An impression of War and all its myriad complexities. Brilliant right you til the final scene where it…

Phillip Nicholson

The Victors is Carl Foreman's belated vision of World War II, and a film so destitute of merit as to qualify for emergency critical pity. The victors, according to Foreman, lose as much as the vanquired. This is true to a point, although the victors seem to be losing…

Not Andrew Sarris

Made up of a series of short vignettes, separated by ironically and propagandistic period newsreel footage, The Victors follows a squad of WWII soldiers through the unpleasant experience of serving far from home. Uses virtually no combat sequences to potentially glorify…

Jason

When I first saw this, I was probably too young to recognise its great power as a piece of anti-war propaganda. Written and directed by Carl Foreman, who had been briefly blacklisted as part of the film community's Red Scare, it is made up of a number of vignettes around a…

loureviews

So it's like a war drama laced with heavy newsreel footage and like 1/3 of the talking you'd expect from an early 60s US/UK war film. Wallach is front and center for a good chunk and uses the phrase "stupid idiots" no less than a dozen times as the main Sergeant in charge…

Loud_real_loud

“The Victors” came out at the same time as “Dr. Strangelove.” Both were given strong ad campaigns touting their anti-war messages. One film has become a classic, the other is almost completely forgotten. Sadly, for good reason. Carl Foreman was a fine screenwriter, best…

Alan Zachary