A quarter of a century later that piece of cloth from a dead Hun's hat had become famous all over the world. It was the insignia of the First Infantry
No 483 – The Big Red One Director – Samuel Fuller I went into this film with no expectations at all, in fact I couldn ’t really remember what I had read in Empire magazine – so I really had no idea what I was going to sit down and watch. I had hedged my bets and was pretty sure it was a war film. Turned out it WAS a war film! Hooray for me….. except…. I’m not the biggest fan of war films, they all have a similar message (War is horrible – a message I utterly believe) and they’re all very serious (again, entirely appropriate for the subject matter) which doesn ’t make it the most exciting genre in my books. It was therefore not a surprise to me when the film began with a beautiful, albeit somewhat self important, opening disclaimer (this is a fictional life based on factual death), an artistic palette (black and white and red – the War film colour scheme of choice ), religious iconography and a sense of po -faced fatalism on the battle ground of WWI. We follow a soldier as he hides behi...