None But The Brave - Critical Response

Critical Response

Upon release, The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther ignored the film's anti-war overtones and gave the production a largely negative review, writing, "A minimum show of creative invention and a maximum use of cinema clichés are evident in the staging of this war film," and "Mr. Sinatra, as producer and director, as well as actor of the secondary role of the booze-guzzling medical corpsman, displays distinction only in the latter job. Being his own director, he has no trouble stealing scenes, especially the one in which he burbles boozy wisecracks while preparing to saw off the shivering Japanese's leg. Mr. Sinatra is crashingly casual when it comes to keeping the Japanese in their place." Crowther also noted "Clint Walker … Tommy Sands … Brad Dexter … and Tony Bill … make over-acting—phony acting—the trademark of the film. What with incredible color and the incredible screenplay of Katsuya Susaki and John Twist, this adds up to quite a fake concoction."

Current critic Robert Horton (of Washington’s The Herald) calls None But the Brave “a 1965 anti-war picture that turns out to be much more interesting and compelling than its reputation would suggest,” that “predates the rash of anti-war counterculture movies by a few years,” also noting that it “bears the influence of Bridge on the River Kwai with a little Mister Roberts thrown in, but it has a bitterness about war that goes all the way through to the forceful final title, a reflection of Sinatra's liberal views at the time.” Horton points out that Clint Eastwood received a lot of credit for making two films that showed World War II from the American and the Japanese sides (Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima), but that “in a way, Sinatra had already done it, and in one movie.”