Despite the title there is little action in this Korean War Drama. The focus is on the mobile army surgical hospitals that provided nearly front-line emergency medical attention to wounded soldiers. Our feature depicts the trials and tribulations of MASH unit #66, where surgeon Humphrey Bogart (Major Jed Webbe) and nurse June Allyson (Lt. Ruth McGara) are stationed. There are nice depictions of the difficulties in supply, transport, and component set-up. Those MASH units were really quite mobile after all, as they had to constantly shift their positions along the battle front. And those medical personal showed amazing courage in their efforts to save lives. Now Webbe, who is a woman-chaser, and Ruth are not supposed to fraternize too much, but of course they do. They fall in love. Bogie does show his war-weariness (age) in some scenes. Within a year, he would be stricken with the terrible cancer that would eventually take his life (1957). Anyway the performances are fine all around, and the film is decent. After all, there are not too many films wasted with Bogie in the cast. Although not a graphic portrayal, this movie is overall a more realistic and serious treatment of the subject than the future, popular, and satirical MASH feature (1970) and the TV series (1972-1983).
Review of Battle Circus
