Home of the Brave (1949 film)

Home of the Brave
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Mark Robson
Screenplay by	Carl Foreman
Based on	Home of the Brave 1945 play by Arthur Laurents
Produced by	Stanley Kramer Robert Stillman
Starring	Douglas Dick Frank Lovejoy James Edwards Steve Brodie Jeff Corey Lloyd Bridges
Cinematography	Robert De Grasse
Edited by	Harry W. Gerstad
Music by	Dimitri Tiomkin
Production company	Stanley Kramer Productions
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	May 12, 1949 (1949-05-12) (United States)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$370,000[1] or $235,000[2]
Box office	$2.5 million[1][3]

Home of the Brave is a 1949 American

Home of the Brave managed to combine three of the top film genres of 1949: the war film, the psychological drama, and the problems of African-Americans. The film utilizes the recurrent theme of a diverse group of men being subjected to the horror of war and their individual reactions, in this case, to the hell of jungle combat against the Japanese in World War II.

Undergoing psychoanalysis by an Army psychiatrist (Corey), paralyzed Black war veteran Private Peter Moss (Edwards) begins to walk again only when he confronts his fear of forever being an "outsider".

The film uses

When the patrol is discovered, Finch is left behind and captured by the Japanese. They force Finch to cry out to the patrol. Finch later escapes but he dies in Moss's arms. In a firefight with the Japanese, Mingo is wounded in the arm, and Moss is unable to walk. T.J. carries Moss to the returning AVR boat that covers the men with its twin .50 caliber machine guns.

In the film's climax, the doctor forces Moss to overcome his paralysis by yelling a racial slur. From this point on, Moss will never again bow to prejudice. At the end of the movie, Mingo and Moss decide to go into business together as a civilians.

• Jeff Corey as Doctor
• James Edwards as Private Peter Moss
• Lloyd Bridges as Finch
• Douglas Dick as Major Robinson
• Frank Lovejoy as Sergeant Mingo
• Steve Brodie as T.J. Everett
• Cliff Clark as Colonel Baker

When Laurents sold the rights to Hollywood, he was told that the lead character would be turned from Jewish into black because "Jews have been done".[5]

Producer Stanley Kramer filmed in secrecy under the working title of High Noon. The film was completed in thirty days, for the cost of US$525,000, with Kramer using three different units at the same time.^[6] The majority of the film was made on indoor sets, jungle scenes in Baldwin Village, Los Angeles and the climax that took place on Malibu beach with a former navy PT boat.

Associate producer Robert Stillman financed the film with the help of his father, without the usual procedure of borrowing funds from banks.^[7]

The film was the motion picture debut of James Edwards and Frank Lovejoy.

The New York Herald Tribune reported that a man named Herbert Tweedy imitated the sound of twelve different birds native to the South Pacific for the film.^[8]

Director Robson, who had begun his directing career with several

After 53 minutes, of the 125 minute movie, Sergeant Mingo recites part of Eve Merriam's 1946 poem The Coward to Private Moss:--

We are only two, and yet our howling can
Encircle the world's end.
Frightened, you are my only friend.
And frightened, we are everyone.
Someone must make a stand.
Coward, take my coward's hand.

Home of the Brave received acclaim from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 98% from 40 reviews.^[9]

The film gained the prize of the

In 1959, famed stand-up comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce, as part of a monologue on The Steve Allen Show, criticized Hollywood for its exploitation of race relations just for the sake of exploiting and without really saying anything, but he singled out Home of the Brave as being a good picture that touched on racial issues that were important.^[12]

In a topical decision, President