The Films of Samuel Fuller. Lisa Dombrowski

bedraggled group footslog through the jungle to a Buddhist temple, where Joe is killed by a North Korean major (Harold Fong) whom the remainder capture as a POW. While the others rest, the North Korean questions first Thompson and then Tanaka regarding their loyalty to a country that doesn’t embrace them as equals. Zack snaps when a sniper kills Short Round, turning on the sneering POW and fatally shooting him. During an intense North Korean assault on the temple, Driscoll and Bronte prove themselves in battle and are killed, and Zack breaks down. Only Tanaka, Thompson, Baldy, and a dazed Zack walk out of the temple when reinforcements arrive.

      The overarching story of The Steel Helmet, the title, and many of the incidents that occur in the film originated in Fuller’s war diaries. On September 11, 1943, he wrote about what will become the first and last shots of The Steel Helmet:

      Fighting in Sicily strictly an inf. war. Up & down mountains, across ravines & draws, over terrain which could be negotiated only on foot. Emphasize this in story with dedication ‘to the United States infantry.’ Show them on footslog—just a patrol for opening and end same way.²⁷

      Sergeant Zack began in Fuller’s notebook as a battle-hardened veteran who hooks up with an untested patrol to capture a German operative in a monastery; when the Korean conflict broke out in 1950, Fuller quickly adapted the old plot to the new war. The title of the film came directly from another diary entry: “Everybody wants helmet with bullet hole in it for luck. Finke tells me get my own bullet hole in helmet.”²⁸ Even one of the film’s most shocking incidents was drawn from real life. Next to a diary entry, “Doggie booby trapped. W. killed examining him,” is the reminder: “Remember inc. this in Finke story. Found dead American—warned—but goddam green doggie went for dog tags and blown up—body booby trapped. Use this stupid character in ‘Steel Helmet’ story to show what not to do.”²⁹ As recorded in his diary, Fuller’s war experiences served as a primer for the writing of his combat pictures, providing lessons in how to survive and reminders of the physical and psychological toll taken on those who do.

      When sitting down to write The Steel Helmet, Fuller grafted his own war experiences onto a generic foundation provided by the WWII combat film, participating in a redirection of the genre toward darker themes. The opening dedication (“This story is dedicated to the U.S. Infantry”); gruff, experienced sergeant; scruffy, “mixed background” platoon; group on patrol; and defense of an outpost found in The Steel Helmet are all standard-issue elements in WWII combat films, as well as in later Korean War pictures.³⁰ By drawing on a set of characters and situations that were familiar to viewers, Fuller spared himself from having to provide detailed backstories and exposition, allowing him to focus more on the soldiers’ routines and the effects of war than on how they got there and where they were going. The film’s generic signposts also help to make otherwise implausible events that are not causally motivated appear more realistic to viewers.³¹ Within the context of the genre, then, Zack’s miraculous survival of the unseen massacre, his discovery by Short Round and their discovery of the medic, the lost patrol, and the lone Communist North Korean hiding in the temple all seem reasonable or likely, even though highly coincidental, as these are story elements that viewers recognize from previous combat pictures. The combat film genre thus provides Fuller not only with a broad outline of appropriate characters and situations, but also with a means of making the episodic events in the film appear unified and realistic.

      The Steel Helmet takes the combat film in a new direction, however, as Fuller tweaks some conventions, abandons others, and forces the viewer to consider unpleasant truths. Apart from the retread sergeant, the film’s protagonists are a bizarre collection of colorful characters atypical of the genre. It’s as if Fuller said, “You want a cross representation of America? I’ll show you America!” In place of the Italian from Brooklyn and the farm boy from Nebraska so often seen in earlier combat films, the “all-American” platoon of The Steel Helmet contains a silent mule herder and a bald man who rubs dirt on his head, both of whom provide strange scenes of comic relief. Also on the journey are an African-American and a Nisei, neither of whom would have shared a foxhole with Sergeant Zack in a WWII combat picture; along with the conscientious objector, these characters enable Fuller to address the paradoxes inherent in the choice to fight for one’s country. While the white soldier, Bronte, refused to fight in the last war, Tanaka and Thompson served their country, even though their country didn’t consider them as equals at the time. Even the platoon’s lieutenant defies convention. Rather than being presented as an experienced leader whom the men trust, Zack and several North Korean snipers discredit Driscoll almost as soon as he is introduced, elevating combat readiness over rank in the estimation of a soldier’s worth. While Driscoll redeems himself at the end of the picture, the scenario of enlisted men saddled with a green lieutenant highlights the need of soldiers to rely on themselves rather than on their officers, an emerging theme of the combat film genre that becomes particularly prominent in movies about the Vietnam War.

      Fuller’s representation of war is bleaker than most earlier combat films, highlighting the confusion, uncertainty, sudden death, and numbing fatigue characteristic of combat experience. From the opening sequence, which leads the viewer to anticipate Short Round will be Zack’s killer rather than his savior, Zack and his fellow soldiers are presented as existing in a world where little is as it seems. Every Korean must be mistrusted; nothing can be taken for granted. Lost in a fog-wrapped jungle, the soldiers even fire on each other, mistaking fellow Americans for the enemy. The group’s mission takes them into unfamiliar territory: a temple, dominated by a giant Buddha that ends up functioning in ways never intended by its builders—supporting IV bottles and protecting the men from artillery. When the soldiers have a moment to spare, they engage only in activities necessary to staying alive: eating and sleeping. No romantic subplots. No talk of Mom and God. Most of the time, they simply march and watch and wait. With only twelve minutes of battle footage in two scenes, The Steel Helmet presents actual warfare as a sudden break in the monotony, an intermittent obstacle to the soldiers’ primary goal—survival—rather than as the centerpiece of a narrative concerned with victory or defeat, such as in Air Force (1943), Guadalcanal Diary (1943), or Back to Bataan (1945).

      Even the final postscript of The Steel Helmet, “There is no end to this story,” differs significantly from the sentiments expressed at the end of previous combat films. Superimposed over a shot of the bedraggled remains of the platoon, the declaration lacks any triumphant or redeeming element; instead, it suggests weary resignation, in marked contrast to the emotional note hit at the end of most WWII combat pictures in which most of the unit is killed, such as Wake Island (1942) (“This is not the end. There are other leathernecks who will exact a just and terrible vengeance.”) or The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) (“I hope we can rejoice with victory … that all together we will try to reassemble our broken world.”). In The Steel Helmet, the survivors march toward a mission that will repeat the patterns of the last; their replacements will fight the same battle they just fought; whoever is alive at the end will return for the next war. Fuller suggests that from battle to battle and war to war, the burdens of the footsoldiers remain unchanged.

      Perhaps the most striking examples of Fuller’s reworking of genre conventions are the two scenes dedicated to the question of why we fight. Rather than presenting soldiers sitting around the campfire discussing the benefits of democracy, the defense of family, or service to God and country, Fuller gets to the heart of the question: why put your life on the line for a country that has never lived up to its ideals? As the Communist North Korean POW attempts to “turn” first the African-American medic and then the Japanese-American sergeant by asking why each fights for a country that treats him as a second-class citizen, the visual presentation of each point of view remains neutral, encouraging the viewer to favor neither one side nor the other. The logical reasoning of the POW creates ambiguity concerning who is actually the more rational thinker. Although the POW has just killed the likable mule tender Joe, his perspective is not demonized; rather, his character brings to light how far America has to go in fulfilling its promise.

      Both the pointed conversation and two singularly distinct visual styles differentiate these scenes from the rest of the film, setting them apart to encourage the contemplation of contemporary race relations. In his conversation with Thompson,