johntex9 I will keep this short and sweet. My father was a mortarman in the trenches during the last year of the Korean War. He said that this was one of the most realistic war movies ever made. The director got just about everything right.

georgewilliamnoble This is one of my very favourite war films. I count this movie in the same company as "All Quiet On The Western Front" (1930)"The Cruel Sea" (1953) "The Dam Busters" (1955)"Saving Private Ryan" (1998)And "The Thin Red Line" (Also 1998).These for me are all seriously esteemed and important films and i put "Pork Chop" (1959) right up there with the best.It has mood (Black & White photography) deep in shadows and drenched with the fear of the darkness, it has the fog and muddle of war, the random nature of death, where luck is as vital as the will to survive. The value of self, the nature of courage, the call of duty, and more than a fair semblance of authentic action and historical place time and location.Maybe "Pork Chop" is perhaps a simple justification of the cold war (then Raging)and the assertion of the American WAY superior to all others. The American civil war and the war of Independence is referenced early in case some in the audience might just be a communist sympathizer. Gregory Peck plays the authentically real Lt Joe Clemons, with the honest sincerity of American values only he could ever portray to such a degree of believability. Is this a film only of its time. Off coarse it is, but that is the very reason i find it so captivating.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Non stop action war movie that never lets up for a moment as the US Army and Chinese Communists square off on hill 255 also known as Pork Chop Hill in the spring of 1953. With peace or cease fire negotiations going nowhere at Panmujeom the Red Chinese open up a full scale attack, using ear splitting bugles and human wave assaults, on Pork Chop Hill trying to dislodge the US Army company, Company K, that's holding it. With the battered and pot marked, from artillery shelling, hill being of no real strategic significance to either sides it turns out to be a battle of wills between the two side with the Chinese Communists more then willing to sacrifice their men in order to win!With Lt. Joe Celmons', Gregory Peck, company trying to hold off the fanatical and suicidal Red Chinese attacks it's decided by his superiors safely behind the lines not to reinforce him and thus let him and his men, now down from 135 to just 25 men, to twist in the wind with the Red Chinese planning to launch a final do or die attack on his positions at dusk April 17, 1953. Digging in and waiting for the final curtain to fall Let. Clemons feels that he and his men have been deserted or sacrificed for political expediency in the name of "peace" in order to get the stalled cease fire talks re-started! Where at least with the Communist Chinese their losses will be rewarded with taking the hill, Pork Chop Hill, and using it as a bargaining chip in the Panmunjeom cease fire negations!One of he best movies about the Korean War ever made "Pork Chop Hill" shows the frustration that the GI's suffered in fighting in it. Like in the film there was no hope of winning on the part of the US with the war being fought mostly along the 38th Parallel with the front lines moving no more then ten miles on either direction for more then, From May 1951 to July 1953, two years! Gregory Peck who made only two war movies up until then as a Russian guerrilla fighter in "Days of Glory" in 1943 and a US Army Air Force General in "12 O'Clock high" in 1949 fits right in the part as a grunt down in the mud GI in the film who's sense of loyalty to is country made him forget that it was deserting him and his men at their most argent time of need. Happily the ending of the movie like the battle of "Pork Chop Hill" in real life restored Lt. Clemons' faith in his country even though most of the men under his command didn't live long enough to see or realize it! P.S One of the oddest as well as poignant scenes in the film was just before the final assault on the hill by the Red Chinese. That's when their radio propagandist commentator started playing the song "Autumn in New York", this in the spring in Korea, just in order to fry the GI's brains in order to get them to surrender.

Spikeopath It's the Korean War, Lt. Clemons and his company are ordered to retake from the Chinese a ridge known as Pork Chop Hill, it's a futile exercise as the hill itself has no significant tactical worth. Disillusioned about their superiors and frightened to the hilt, the men must battle for the hill knowing they could well be killed just because the top brass want to save face.Based on actual events and lifted from the story by S.L.A. Marshall, Pork Chop Hill is a poignantly effective drama that impacts hard about the grimness of war. Playing out (with some justification) as a paean to the wonderful infantrymen that fight the wars, it's an engrossing viewing that never feels preachy or self indulgent, a charge that sticks with many other acclaimed war dramas. Directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet On The Western Front), the picture benefits from a feeling of authenticity, a sense of desperation hangs heavy for those viewers willing to fully invest into the picture. Photography is expertly handled by Sam Leavitt, with the cast, led by a brilliant show from Gregory Peck as the compassionate Clemons, firing from the top draw. A powerful and memorable movie for sure and certainly an important one because the Korean War is largely forgotten these days, so Pork Chop Hill now stands proud for those that died during the conflict, for this is a wonderful testament to the brave fighting under stupid circumstances. 7.5/10