Battleground (LXRT)

This is the story of "the Battered Bastards Of Bastogne," the second squad of the third platoon of "I" company, 101st airborne division. The script follows the squad in the final days of WWII, getting a sampling of their thoughts, feelings, trials, and relationships.

I randomly caught this movie some years ago on late night TCM and was really impressed. It kind of blew my mind that the movie was made in 1949, only four years after the end of the war. America must have still been struggling to absorb what it all meant – the deaths and the victories, the changing political and social landscapes. For that reason, I think it is a very different kind of movie than the war movies made in the ensuing decades. It assumes that movie audiences know the general events of the war and doesn't bother to instruct them much in what is going on, but rather dives straight into a "slice of life" look at the American rank-and-file soldier in Europe.

Most of these Lux Radio productions fall a little short of the corresponding film experiences and this one is no different. One of my favorite scenes from the movie is missing (hint: snowballs). Even so, I listened to it twice. It felt like time traveling in the way that old radio shows often do.

Lux Radio Theater #733
Battleground
12 February 1951
19510212(733)_LXRT_Battleground.mp3
Sponsored by: Lux. The story was subsequently produced on The Lux Radio Theatre on December 7, 1954. George Murphy, Marshall Thompson, James Whitmore, Ricardo Montalban, William Keighley (host), John Milton Kennedy (announcer), Rudy Schrager (music director), Wally Maher, Gladys Holland, George Neise, Gil Stratton, Henry Rowland, Paul Dubov, Lawrence Dobkin, William Johnstone, Harold Dryanforth, Van Johnson, Edward Marr, Shepard Menken, John Hodiak, Howard McNear, Herb Ellis, Isa Ashdown, Dorothy Lovett (commercial spokesman: as "Libby"), Sally Forrest (intermission guest), Dore Schary (intermission guest: MGM head of production), Robert Pirosh (author, screenwriter), Earl Ebi (director), Sanford Barnett (adaptor), Charlie Forsyth (sound effects).

Battleground, 1949