Ski Troop Attack: Roger Corman

Roger Corman's Ski Troop Attack has a surprisingly cynical view of American soldiers in World War Two. The story of a group of American ski troopers behind enemy lines during a conflict loosely based on the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, Corman includes a truly unsettling sequence where the soldiers invade a German woman's cabin. By the time they leave, her chickens have been devoured and her dead body lies riddled with bullets in the floor. In all fairness, she did try to pull a gun on them. But again, in all fairness, they had been making her life miserable. Predictably, the film is full of World War Two stock footage. But to Corman's credit, he comes up with a plausible explanation for these sequences: the troopers have been ordered to perform reconnaissance on the advancing German forces. It's amazing what a few quick shots of his actors looking through binoculars and speaking into radios can do to add credibility to a stock footage extravaganza. Corman also gives his already short narrative -- the film is barely over an hour long -- breathing room in dialogue scenes where the soldiers discuss things like the meaning of life and the nature of warfare. It's hokey and about as tonally ridiculous as the infamous speech that closes out Corman's earlier film It Conquered the World (1956). But the character development is appreciated. The last twenty minutes or so are quite chaotic and it is easy to lose track of what's happening onscreen. But to enjoy the climax, you just have to remember that Americans are fighting and Nazis are dying. There's not much more to it than that.

6/10