Hell Is for Heroes is a 1962 war film directed by Don Siegel and starring Steve McQueen. It tells the story of a squad of American soldiers, who in the fall of 1944 must hold off an entire German company for approximately 48 hours along the Siegfried Line until reinforcements reach them.
Plot
Squad leader Sergeant Larkin (Harry Guardino) and his men are getting ready to take a long deserved rest after being on the front-line for several weeks. During an interlude at a church and later at a tavern, the senior non-commissioned officer, Sergeant First Class Pike (Fess Parker), happens upon a former fellow sergeant, now Private, John Reese (Steve McQueen). Reese is the quintessential loner, managing to alienate himself from almost everyone in the squad right from the beginning. The company commander, Captain Loomis (Joseph Hoover), is worried because Reese goes crazy when there is no fighting, but Pike comments that he is a good soldier in combat.
Sergeant Pike informs the men that they will be going back on the line. After much complaining, the men get ready to move out. The remaining members of 2nd Squad include con-man/thief Corby (Bobby Darin), the mechanic-who-can-fix-anything Henshaw (James Coburn), the easy-going, somewhat-naive kid, Cumberly (Bill Mullikin), Polish refugee Homer (Nick Adams), and family man Kolinsky (Mike Kellin). The morning after they arrive at their appointed post and dig in, the men realize they are spread so thin that any reconnaissance by the Germans will quickly reveal how weak the American defenses are.
One stroke of good luck is the sudden and mistaken arrival of an Army company clerk, Driscoll (Bob Newhart in his first film role). Larkin quickly puts Driscoll’s jeep to use by having Henshaw rig it to backfire and sound like a tank. Driscoll himself is put to use improvising misleading radio messages for a hidden microphone left by the Germans in an abandoned pillbox (Newhart was noted for his telephone conversation skits in his stand-up comedy routines).
A German raid results in Cumberly's death, but Reese manages to kill three Germans in close combat. Reese, so wound up he can barely stand still, recommends hitting the German pillbox on the other side of a field filled with mines and barbed wire to make the enemy think the Americans are at normal strength. Larkin decides to go find some help and see if he can get permission from Pike for the attack, but is killed by artillery. Reese decides to proceed without orders and persuades the others to go along. The attack fails, with Henshaw fatally burned by his exploding flamethrower tanks and Kolinsky dying screaming from shrapnel through the back and abdomen.
Reinforcements do arrive soon thereafter, along with Sergeant Pike and Captain Loomis, who berates Reese and decides not to court-martial the insubordinate private only so he can be at the front of the American assault at dawn. The pillbox fires on the advancing Americans. Reese throws a satchel charge into the pillbox. When it is tossed out by the defenders, he grabs it and, by now gravely wounded, carries it in, blowing up the fortification and himself.
Cast
Production
Writer Robert Pirosh gained quite a name for himself after writing the script for the 1949 film Battleground, about the American 101st airborne paratroopers’ defending of Bastogne, and soon after Hell Is for Heroes, created the World War II TV series Combat!. Originally, Pirosh was also to have directed and produced the film as well, but he walked away from the project after trouble with McQueen.[1]
Many of the cast were angry over the studio's budget restrictions, which resulted in phony looking props, malfunctioning firearms, and the same German having to be killed three or four times. In the last battle scene, McQueen can be seen experiencing multiple failures firing the M3 Grease Gun. These malfunctions were due to problems with the blanks used.
McQueen was reportedly furious with his agent for having induced him to sign onto the film and not securing the fee that he had been promised up front and for passing on another movie that McQueen wanted. Thus, his angry, detached "loner" look may not have been entirely from his method acting. Columnist James Bacon visited the set and said that, "Steve McQueen is his own worst enemy". Bobby Darin overheard the remark and replied "Not while I'm still alive."[2]
Parker, Coburn, and others in the cast were doing other projects during the making of the film and would repeatedly show up in the nick of time and do their lines without makeup and little or no rehearsal (Coburn also appeared with McQueen in The Magnificent Seven and another World War II film, The Great Escape).
According to Bob Newhart's book, "I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This", his fee for night-club appearances increased during production and he really wanted to get back on the road. He would routinely go up to the director with ideas on how his character could be killed off. The director would respond, "You're in it to the end, Soldier."
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Several of the guest characters in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Siege of AR-558" are named after characters and actors from this film. These include Patrick Kilpatrick's character Reese, Annette Helde's character Larkin and Bill Mumy's character Kellin (named after the actor Mike Kellin). Other unseen characters to be named after characters from the film include Captain Loomis and Commander Parker. The episode has a similar plot, where Starfleet troops have been holding off multiple attacks from enemy forces for five months.
References
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