''Darby's Rangers'' (released in the UK as ''The Young Invaders'') is a 1958 American
war film
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...
starring
James Garner as
William Orlando Darby, who organizes and leads the first units of
United States Army Rangers during World War II. Directed by
William Wellman, the picture was shot by
Warner Brothers Studios in
black and white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
, to match wartime
stock footage included in the production. It was inspired by the 1945 book ''Darby's Rangers: An Illustrated Portrayal of the Original Rangers'', by Major James J. Altieri, himself a veteran of Darby's force.
The leading role was Garner’s first.
Jack Warden and
Stuart Whitman appear in support.
Plot
In the spring of 1942 the
US Army decides to form an elite strike force similar to the heralded
British Commandos. Led by
Major William Darby, a former staff officer, the
1st Ranger Battalion is formed on June 19, 1942. He and
Master Sergeant Saul Rosen, who narrates the film, recruit a variety of men who train under veteran Commando units in Dundee,
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
. Darby tells his men that the Commandos are the best soldiers in the world, but in time the Rangers will own that distinction.
The American trainees are quartered in Scottish homes and several of the Rangers pair off with local lassies: Rollo Burns with Peggy McTavish, the daughter of the fearsome but humorous Scottish Commando instructor, Sergeant McTavish; and vagabond Hank Bishop, with prim and proper, Wendy Hollister.
The Rangers prove their worth in
Operation Torch during the invasion of
French North Africa, and two more battalions are formed. Darby is promoted to
colonel
Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...
.
He is a strong leader, who accepts certain informalities in his units as the means of getting the most out of his men and their special tactics. Joining the Rangers is
Second Lieutenant Arnold Dittmann, a by-the-book stickler straight out of
West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...
.
The Rangers fight successfully in heavy, often close-quarter combat in the
Allied invasion of Sicily. Lt. Dittmann is humanized not by the fighting or his grizzled veterans, but by an encounter with the beautiful and strong willed Angelina De Lotta.
Darby confides to Rosen a recurring dream of being run over by an oncoming train; he seems certain he will be killed in combat. During the
Battle of Anzio, the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions are sent on a dangerous mission, and are ambushed by the Germans in the
Battle of Cisterna. Darby leads his
4th Ranger Battalion in an unsuccessful rescue attempt. Few men make it back, with the majority being captured. Burns, who had promised MacTavish he would marry his daughter if he came back alive, is among the dead.
After the heavy losses at Cisterna, the Ranger units are disbanded. Brief vignettes show Bishop on leave with Wendy and her family, and Dittman reunited with Angelina.
Darby is ordered to report to Army HQ at the Pentagon. At the Anzio beachhead, Rosen bids him goodbye. As Darby walks alone down the beach to board a landing craft he perfunctorily waves his arm at salutes from newly arrived troops. When a soldier excitedly calls out, “Look at that Ranger patch!” Darby straightens up and snaps off his salutes with pride, and continues to do so until the boarding ramp is lifted.
A postscript adds that the Rangers’ “rugged hard-hitting methods of training inspired techniques now employed by all fighting units of the United States Army.”
Darby later returned to Italy, and was killed in action with the
10th Mountain Division just days before the end of the war in 1945. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigadier general.
Cast
*
James Garner as
William Orlando Darby
*
Etchika Choureau as Angelina De Lotta
*
Jack Warden as M/Sgt. Saul Rosen
*
Edward Byrnes as Lt. Arnold Dittman
*
Venetia Stevenson as Peggy McTavish
*
Torin Thatcher as Sgt. McTavish
*
Peter Brown as Rollo Burns
*
Joan Elan as Wendy Hollister
*
Corey Allen as Tony Sutherland
*
Stuart Whitman as Hank Bishop
*
Murray Hamilton as Sims Delancey
*
Bill Wellman, Jr. as Eli Clatworthy
*
Andrea King as Sheilah Andrews
*
Adam Williams as Heavy Hall
*
Frieda Inescort as Lady Hollister
*
Reginald Owen as Sir Arthur Hollister
*
Philip Tonge as John Andrews
*
Edward Ashley as Lt. Dave Manson
*
Raymond Bailey as Brig. Gen. W.A. Wise
*
Willis Bouchey as Gen.
Lucian Truscott
General (United States), General Lucian King Truscott Jr. (9 January 1895 – 12 September 1965) was a highly decorated senior United States Army Officer (armed forces), officer, who saw distinguished Active duty, active service during World War ...
*
Sean Garrison as Young Soldier (film debut, uncredited)
*
Norm Grabowski as a Squad member
Production
Warner Brothers had produced a financial and critical hit in 1955’s ''
Battle Cry
A battle cry or war cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same combatant group.
Battle cries are not necessarily articulate (e.g. "Eulaliaaaa!", "Alala"..), although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religio ...
'', and was anxious to repeat the success with a film based on Major James Altieri's novel "Darby's Rangers". Altieri was known to Warner Brothers, as he had been
technical advisor on ''
Force of Arms'' (1951). Director
William Wellman had established a reputation for turning out top war films with ''
The Story of G.I. Joe'' and ''
Battleground''. He agreed to the film on the condition that Warner Brothers finance his dream project, ''
Lafayette Escadrille'', about his experience as a pilot in the famed World War I
French Foreign Legion air squadron. Warner Brothers insisted on emphasizing the romantic pairings of most of the leads to emulate its success doing so in ''Battle Cry''.
A problem arose with the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
. The
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionar ...
had enthusiastically lent bases, Marine extras, and film of its campaigns to Hollywood films to
boost its public image. While the Army had as well, it was not so keen on this project, reflecting its feeling that Ranger operations had led to heavy losses of excellent soldiers it thought would have been better employed leading regular infantry units. By the 1950s, rather than the separate Ranger units shown in the movie, the Army preferred training individual officers and
NCOs at the
Ranger School, who then returned to their units and trained them in Ranger tactics and military values. Thus, the U.S. Army's co-operation was limited to training the actors and providing black-and-white stock footage.
Tab Hunter says Wellman offered him the lead role, the director hoping to reunite the stars of ''Lafayette Escadrille'' (
Etchika Choureau would co star and the director's son
William Wellman Jr. also appeared in both films) but Hunter was tired of war films and turned him down. He was replaced by
Edd Byrnes.
Originally,
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008) was an American actor. He gained stardom for his leading man roles in numerous Cinema of the United States, Hollywood films including biblical epics, science-fiction f ...
was cast as
William O. Darby. He was enthusiastic about portraying a recent historical figure; he could interview people who knew Darby in creating his characterization. However, he asked for five percent of the profits.
Jack L. Warner
Jack Leonard Warner (born Jacob Warner; August 2, 1892 – September 9, 1978) was a Canadian-born American film executive, who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros., Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Warner's ca ...
thought he was joking, until just before filming. (Heston later sued Warner Bros for $250,000 – $100,000 fee, $50,000 further earnings, and $100,000 damage to his career.)
Warner looked to his studio's contracted actors and chose thirty-year-old
Korean War
The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
veteran
James Garner, already slated to appear in a featured part. He had the proper appearance and age to play Darby, who was killed in battle at age thirty-four. It was his first leading film role. His place in the film was taken by
Stuart Whitman. (Garner too would later sue Warner Brothers).
Garner later wrote in his memoirs that he did not feel Wellman "wanted me in the part... and I don't blame him: I was too young for it and he deserved a bigger star. But we got along fine because we respected each other."
By extensively using original World War II film footage and
black and white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
cinematography
Cinematography () is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography.
Cinematographers use a lens (optics), lens to focus reflected light from objects into a real image that is transferred to some image sen ...
, ''Darby's Rangers'' was able to be filmed economically on the studio
backlot.
Promotion
The premiere showing in several major US cities was preceded by a banquet where James Garner sat side by side at the head table with the highest-ranking Darby Ranger in that city still in the service.
Reception
In his February 13, 1958 review in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'',
Bosley Crowther wryly observed that viewers “ might gather… that the major interest and pursuit of the special combat force of American soldiers that bore that tag in World War II was chasing after women. Virtually every conspicuous Ranger in this film, with the exception of the stalwart commander, runs down and catches himself a dame… the conduct of military affairs, including training and combat encounters, is given secondary emphasis in this film. The founding and the fighting of the Rangers are sketched along the way, but even those are described in such fashions as to cloak them in an aura of romance. The adventures presented in this war film constitute a recruiting officer's dream.” Crowther added that James Garner's fans “should be completely satisfied…. William Wellman directed. He's the man who directed much better the memorable ''Battleground''.”
Writing for the ''Sarasota Herald Tribune'' on June 11, 2011, Christopher Lloyd offered an alternative title for the “alleged war film.. ''The Star-Crossed Love Lives of Darby’s Rangers''.
“Never have I seen a military drama so done in by sex. It’s not enough to say that romance is a recurring distraction in this film; it would be more accurate to describe the battle scenes as interrupting all the mush.”
He praised two combat sequences as “notable because the movie makes extensive use of stock footage from the war, so these are some of the few combat scenes that were actually shot for the movie.” he then cites a scene where groups of soldiers scurry unnoticed in small groups past the treads of a convoy of German tanks, and the climactic battle fought in a “pea soup thick” fog.
References
External links
*
*
*
James Garner interview on the ''Charlie Rose Show''James Garner interviewat
Archive of American Television
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darby's Rangers (1958 Film)
1958 films
American black-and-white films
American World War II films
1950s English-language films
Warner Bros. films
North African campaign films
Films set in deserts
Italian Campaign of World War II films
Films directed by William A. Wellman
Films scored by Max Steiner
Films about United States Army Rangers
1950s American films