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The Steel Helmet
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Samuel Fuller
Initial release: February 2, 1951 (USA)
The Korean War broke out in June 1950 and would last for three years. On paper a civil war between North and South Korea, the causes of the war, though complex, can be boiled down to loose ends from World War II and unanswered questions at the outset of the Cold War. When fighting did break out, the United States got involved, largely to protect Japan in case the Communist north were to prevail over their southern neighbors. But what is regional geopolitics to the average GI? When you're fighting and dying over a scrap of land, against an enemy that at times must seem fanatical, what do you care the reason? Samuel Fuller may not have set out to make an anti-war movie in The Steel Helmet, and in truth, it somewhat fails at being so, but nonetheless, it has a lot to say about the pointlessness of war, especially one like the Korean conflict.
Sergeant Zack, a rough, bearded veteran of Normandy, is the sole survivor of a North Korean massacre, his helmet having miraculously protected him from a bullet to the head. He's found by a young South Korean orphan, whom he names "Short Round" and who insists on tagging along as Zack tries to link up with the army again. Over time he amasses a group of fellow soldiers, including a lone black medic (himself a World War II veteran) and even a Japanese Nisei who served in Europe. Together they occupy a Buddhist temple and use it as an observation post, but a North Korean major (himself a lone survivor) tries to pick them off one before being captured. An assault on the temple by the enemy winds up killing off all but a few soldiers, with even Short Round being shot by a sniper, much to Zack's grief, ultimately sending him into a flashback, looking for his corporal on Normandy Beach.
Fuller by most accounts was a bit of an oddball, preferring to shoot low-budget flicks outside of the traditional studio system well before that system eventually collapsed under its own weight. The Steel Helmet touches on themes of racism — the North Korean major futilely attempts to appeal to both the black medic and the Japanese rifleman by discussing the racism they face at home — and the obscenity of war, with the soldiers initially careful not to damage the temple they occupy it, only for a North Korean attack to defile it anyway. The captured officer, despite being Buddhist himself, even mocks the prayer Short Round wrote before he died, getting ventilated by Zack for the trouble (technically a war crime, but can you blame him?) The battle scenes are probably where most of the budget went, as it's clear the majority of the film was shot on a studio; it's obvious that "outside" from within the temple is just a blank wall. Nonetheless, it's a harrowing, bleak film, largely about Zack and the way two wars have shaped him, leaving the film's final moments a broken man.
The Steel Helmet was the first movie about the Korean War,
spawning a number of imitators. While today most people's exposure to
the war is probably watching old episodes of M*A*S*H with
their grandparents, the war itself largely didn't seem to make much of a
blip in American society, which at the time was more interested in sock
hops and hiding under their school desks. Even today it's largely
forgotten, just a weird DLC for World War II nobody really wants to
think about, including South Korea. Movies like The Steel Helmet aren't
intended to change the world, but they are a stark reminder of the
moral vagaries of war, the complex interplay of sacred and profane, of
heroic and despicable acts by ordinary people as the world seems to
explode around them at the whims of politicians. While Fuller was probably too much of a war hawk, and his attempts at racial commentary getting a little too weird, to fully realize what he was trying to do in The Steel Helmet, he nonetheless has crafted the rare 1950s war movie that steps away from jingoism and cliche and approaches the subject with a most terrible frankness.