304 STORY OF G.I. JOE, THE
one marking the grave. Instead of the standard closing title, “The End,” the film
concludes with “ There is no end to this story,” a somber avowal that the human
race is hopelessly addicted to war.Reception
In Sam Fuller’s words, “all hell broke loose” when The Steel Helmet opened nationally
in January 1951, at the height of the second “Red Scare.” Victor Riesel, a nation-
ally syndicated columnist and a staunch anti- communist crusader, denounced
the film as pro- communist and anti- American. Fuller also noted that “One of the
country’s most reactionary newspapermen, Westford Pedravy [i.e., Westbrook
Pegler] wrote that I was secretly financed by the Reds and should be investigated
thoroughly by the Pentagon” (Fuller, 2002, p. 262). On the far Left, The Daily Worker
characterized Sgt. Zack as a bloodthirsty “beast” and labeled Fuller a “reactionary”
for making him the hero of the movie. For its part, the DOD strenuously objected
to the scene in the movie that has Zack killing a POW, an act of freelance sav-
agery expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Called on the carpet, Fuller
pointed out that he had personally witnessed such war crimes in WWII. Fuller
then phoned General George A. Taylor, his former regimental commander, who
verified the truth of Fuller’s claim. Despite or perhaps because of all the contro-
versy it generated, The Steel Helmet produced phenomenal box office results for a
bare- bones in de pen dent production: $2 million in receipts—20 times more than
it cost to make.Reel History Versus Real History
Small- scaled and localized, The Steel Helmut does not attempt to represent any spe-
cific battles or incidents related to the actual history of the Korean War, of which
Fuller knew little beyond con temporary newspaper accounts. What the film gets
right is more generalized and perennial: American racism and xenophobia (e.g.,
antipathy toward nonwhite U.S. soldiers, calling Koreans “gooks”); the fatalistic sto-
icism of the American foot soldier; the gritty, exhausting life of the G.I., a life
marked by filth, boredom, and the occasional experience of abject terror and death
in combat. The superstitious fixation with Zack’s helmet as a lucky talisman and
the death of a soldier killed by a booby- trapped corpse were plot ele ments derived
from real incidents that Fuller recorded in his WWII diary.Story of G.I. Joe, The (1945)
Synopsis
The Story of G.I. Joe is an American war film directed by William Wellman, star-
ring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum, and based on the newspaper columns
of Pulitzer Prize– winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle. The film, a tribute to the
American infantryman (aka “G.I. Joe”) during World War II concentrates on one
unit (C Com pany, 18th Regiment, 1st Infantry Division) that Pyle accompanies into
combat in Tunisia and Italy.