Main Cast: Gregory Peck, Harry Guardino, Rip Torn, George Peppard, James Edwards, George Shibata
Release Year: 1959
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
Pork Chop Hill was based on the eyewitness essays of ex-soldier S. L. A. Marshall. The film is set during the Korean "police action." While diplomats argue pointlessly over the shape of the negotiation tables at Panmunjon, United Nations troops bleed and die. Lieutenant Gregory Peck leads a 135-man unit on the attack of the Chinese-held Pork Chop Hill. When reinforcements finally arrive, only 25 of Peck's men survive (and they aren't the usual survivors we've come to expect from earlier, cliché-ridden war films). Among the American troops are such dependable performers as Harry Guardino, Woody Strode, Rip Torn, Barry Atwater, George Peppard, Robert Blake and Martin Landau. Former cowboy-star Bob Steele also shows up briefly as an American general. According to director Lewis Milestone, Pork Chop Hill was cut by nearly twenty minutes because the wife of star Gregory Peck felt that her husband made his first entrance too late into the picture. True or not, the film does show signs of post-production tampering, with flashes of several excised scenes showing up under the main title credits. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Capt. Joseph G. Clemons, Jr. - Consultant/advisor, Edward Armand - Costume Designer, Eddie Armand - Costume Designer, Ray Gosnell, Jr. - First Assistant Director, Lewis Milestone - Director, George Boemler - Editor, Leonard Rosenman - Composer (Music Score), Frank Prehoda - Makeup, Nicolai Remisoff - Production Designer, Sam Leavitt - Cinematographer, Sy Bartlett - Producer, Edward Boyle - Set Designer, David Koehler - Special Effects, James R. Webb - Screenwriter, S.L.A. Marshall - Book Author
In April 1953, during the Korean War, a company of American infantry are to recapture Pork Chop Hill from a larger Communist Chinese army force; they recapture the hill, but are depleted. They ready for the large-scale Chinese counter-attack which they know will overwhelm and kill them in vicious fire fights and hand-to-hand fighting while the Panmunjeom cease-fire negotiations continued.
Pork Chop Hill suggests that the Chinese continued losing soldiers in battle for a militarily insignificant hill simply to demonstrate Communist political resolve in bargaining. The question is: How will the Americans respond?
