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MOVIE REVIEW:
"THE TANKS ARE COMING"

By Web Staff - July, 2004

  Bottom Line for 3AD vets: Available on VHS video only, this film is a two-thumbs-up "buy" - even with major historical inaccuracies & a cast of unknowns. The 90 min. cassette is available on Amazon.com, MoviesUnlimited.com, and other retailers.

 

REVIEW: "The Tanks Are Coming," released in 1951 (b&w) by Warner Brothers, is a movie that 3rd Armored veterans from any era should find sometimes gripping, sometimes humorous, and overall entertaining. The only Hollywood film ever produced about the 3AD in WWII, it was re-released on VHS video in 1979 and again in 1995. It's not yet sold in DVD format.

While the film has some serious shortcomings (major historical inaccuracies and sometimes dreary or hokey dialogue, for example), it more than compensates with a powerful blend of authentic WWII movie clips and generally realistic Hollywood action scenes with a first-class sound track. The cast of relatively unknown actors does a fine job of creating tanker personalities and their wartime bonding. The showing of military vehicles in the clips and production scenes is very impressive. (See staffer Dan Fong's list of the film's vehicles and equipment in this web section.)

The film depicts the 3AD from St. Lo, France (Normandy), to the Siegfried Line and into Stolberg, Germany. Unfortunately, the 90 min. video is missing about 20 minutes of the original 1951 theater version, to include virtually all romantic scenes, such as the passionate embrace (involving female war correspondent "Pat Cane") which is depicted in a lobby poster in this web section.

Lafayette Pool Loses Out

If there is a tragedy associated with "The Tanks Are Coming," it is the fact that the film makes no mention by name of SSGT Lafayette Pool, the 3AD's real life, daring and legendary WWII tank ace from Texas. Pool is arguably the most accomplished tank-crew and tank-platoon commander in U.S. military history. The main character of the plot, in fact the star of the movie, is none other than a daring SSGT tanker ("Frances 'Sully' Sullivan" played by actor Steve Cochran), a platoon SGT with a curious, nondescript accent that seems "Country" or a possible derivation of classic "Texan."

Lafayette Pool, and to some extent the Division itself, lost out in the Warner Brothers production due to a contract that Pool had signed with Universal Studios in 1948 for his life story. According to author's Dean and Nan Kleffman, who did extensive research in the 1990's on his life, Pool was offered the job by Warner as technical advisor on the film. At the time, apparently 1949, he was a tank instructor at Fort Knox, KY. But Pool refused the job offer. While his contract with Universal did not preclude his taking the job, he felt that Warner had plagiarized much of the script of his life story.

The Kleffman's have written that Pool then went so far as to file a one million dollar suit against Warner. The judge in the case, however, ruled that Warner had changed the characters' names and the plot sufficiently to where it was not an infringement. The Kleffman's do not explain whether Warner made these charges prior to the suit or during litigation, but in any case the end result was that Pool lost out on considerable national celebrity, and many (but not all) of the 3AD's exploits were distorted by Warner into inaccuracy. Not even the Division's 2-star commander (played by a near look-alike of Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose) was given a name in the film, except "The General." Further disappointment for Pool came when Universal eventually dropped any plans to film his life story.

Powerful Narration

"The Tanks Are Coming" focuses almost exclusively on one tank platoon, and, to a minor extent, its company. It is only though the authentic WWII film clips (many of which are not actually of the 3AD) that there's any sense that a full division is involved in "the mission." That mission, according to the script and the narrator at the start of the film, was assigned at a staging area at St. Lo in July, 1944, where "the Spearhead Division America's Iron Fist, poised and ready for the Sunday punch, the knock-out blow ... Command had chosen them to be the stabbing spearhead in the drive to reach the Siegfried Line ... the lead tank 'Californian Jane' [a Sherman] ... five men chosen to lead the way into Germany, if they could make it." This kind of powerful but melodramatic narration would occasionally appear throughout the film.

It is on the 3AD's advance somewhere in Northern France that the tank commander of Californian Jane dies from a hit by a German tank. And it is at that point that SSGT Sullivan or "Sully" - brash, cocky, and unlikable - arrives at the Division to take over that commander's job and to guide the platoon. What follows are a series of combat actions where Sully's platoon and his company gradually come to accept, admire, and even like him as the daring combat genius that he is.

Remarkably only three Spearhead soldiers are shown as being killed in the film - two tankers and an engineer. Horror and death on the battlefield, and even as hundreds of Germans were shown being killed in various actions, was portrayed in a sanitized and largely non-traumatic way. But this was the practice of virtually all American war filmmakers until the 1960's. Warner Brother was not about to set a new standard in 1950-51, particularly with grim news coming from Korea as the film was under production.

Sullivan & 3AD at Siegfried

The script includes several actions - completely preposterous from a factual standpoint - where (1) Sully single-handedly informs "The General" [Rose] that the Germans will be coming through Mons, Belgium; (2) Sully takes over the role [yes, as an SSGT] of orchestrating the ambush of the Germans near Mons, and even directing the artillery; and (3) Sully charges across the German border in his newly arrived M-26 Pershing 90mm tank and makes the first attempt to breach the Siegfried Line. That attempt failed as Sully's Pershing became impaled on the concrete barriers. (In reality, the M-26 did not arrive at the 3AD until March, 1945, over five months after the Siegfried was breached.)

But with his tank stuck on the barriers, a continued assault would be no problem for Sully. He simply commandeers a nearby Sherman-bulldozer and proceeds, while under fire, to construct an earthen mound over the barriers, allowing the 3AD to pour across the Siegfried and advance into Germany. Of course, nothing remotely similar to that ever happened.

Fortunately, most movie goers in 1951 and video viewers today, unless history buffs, would not notice the film's occasional plunge into these kinds of ludicrous fantasy. And who cares? This is Hollywood! With the dramatic music, the spoken mention of "Spearhead" and "3rd Armored Division," and the inspiring clanking of those tanks, this film is a glorious escape for any 3AD veteran. Now if we could just find out what went on between Sully and the blond war correspondent "Pat Cane." As mentioned, that has been cut from the video. But you can still glimpse her in the film driving in the battlegrounds alone in her jeep, apparently invisible to all German gunners. Ah, Hollywood.

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