The Mountain Road (1960)
In 1944, in eastern part of China, U.S.Army Major Baldwin and his volunteer team of demolition engineers are left behind the retreating Chinese forces. Their task is to slow down the Japanese advance into eastern China by blowing up bridges, roads, airfields and munitions dumps. They start by blowing up an American airfield and ammo dump. They receive the order to destroy a vital bridge over a mountain pass.The team uses a few army trucks to move around. At the bridge, they encounter a Nationalist Chinese Army unit in charge of guarding the bridge. Thanks to an American soldier who speaks some Chinese, Major Baldwin requests the permission, from the Chinese commander, to blow up the bridge.The Chinese colonel agrees but asks the American Major to do him a favor by also destroying a munitions dump located at some distance away.He also requests that Madame Sue-Mei Hung, the widow of a Chinese colonel, be transported by the American demolition team to the nearest major town.
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Simply A Masterpiece
Am i the only one who thinks........Average?
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
The gangly James Stewart doesn't seem to understand anything or anyone other than his own culture, and how to treat ladies in this film. His character is despicable, and there are times when he is downright racist saying 'I don't take advice from Chinese people any more'. He fails to take you on the journey with him, and you get the feeling that in 1960 at the age of 52, he is growing old and getting set in his ways. His characters seems to be fixed at this point in his career which is why there is very little room for him to grow as an actor. Only John Ford would take him to the next level in 'The Man who shot Liberty Valance' two years later.
I am a huge Jimmy Stewart fan. Yet this film left me cold. I think that the director and the screenplay conspire to not let him develop as a character. One time he is doing some poignant scene, where one thinks he has turned a corner in his short-sighted racist view of the larger world, and in moment, he goes right back to where he was. There's no carry-over. This film takes place in 1944 as the U. S. forces are in Chine, looking out for a tenuous ally. This particular group is a demolitions team whose purpose is to blow up roads and bridges and move on. The Japanese are very formidable and have decimated the Chinese people. Stewart expects the Chinese to act like Americans (Sound familiar?) but can't get them to follow his lead. Starvation and pain have a way of doing that. His relationship with a Chinese woman is the most interesting. I'm sure the cowardly film boards kept anything from happening. Once that factor in the film is thrown out, there is a skeleton left and it's not a very interesting one.
Legendary American reporter Theodore H. White covered China in the 1940s, and he wrote the novel on which this unusual James Stewart feature is based. It's not quite anti-war, but it's a very long way from the flag-waving military movies that Stewart made in the 1950s.Stewart's character is a U.S. military engineer working with a small team trying to slow a Japanese advance in China. Though there's plenty of action (especially explosions), the emphasis is on the Americans' interaction with their Chinese allies -- which is fraught with problems. Stewart's character has a local love interest, played by Lisa Lu, but their relationship is nothing like a conventional GI romance."The Mountain Road" was obviously meant to be a thought-provoking look back at World War II, and to audiences in the early 1960s it probably was. The climax may have been almost shocking. In today's more jaded world, the movie is likely to strike many viewers as dull, with an ending that resolves very little. But it you still have a rose-colored view of the "Greatest War," and think it was less morally messy than our current conflicts, this could be enlightening.
I have seen practically every film Jimmy Stewart made in his long and wonderful career. Somehow or other, I never saw this film and was surprised to see it was coming on--especially as I've never heard of it. Well, after seeing it, I can clearly see why this film is rarely seen or talked about, as it stinks.Up until the amazingly confusing ending, it still wasn't a good film but at least was passable entertainment. Stewart plays a major who's in charge of a small group of demolitions experts whose mission is to slow down the Japanese invasion. Despite the importance of the mission, I was surprised how many of Stewart's men seemed like unprofessional whiners. I would think that anyone who really did this job would be offended by this far less than heroic image--and these men must have been very brave and dedicated in real life.Into this motley crew comes a Chinese colonel and the wife of an executed Chinese general--who tag along for part of the mission. Having the lady there in the middle of war and with a group of desperate men seemed to make little sense. It made even less sense when inexplicably, she and Stewart completely out of the blue are in a bit of a romance. And it made yet less sense when she behaved the way she did late in the film, as she came off as sanctimonious and confusing. Stewart's character also made little sense late in the film, as he went from being a decent leader to Captain Ahab's less stable brother!! In fact, by the end of the film, the whole thing just degenerated into a mess--with everyone bickering and killing and complaining. Wow, how inspiring!! My advice is that unless you are a completist who wants to see every one of Stewart's films, this one is amazingly skip-able. Also in this same category would be POT 'O GOLD, THE MAGIC OF LASSIE and AN American TALE: FIVEL GOES WEST. Even great actors can't win 'em all!