Up Front

Up Front (1951)

Willie and Joe are on the screen!

Military comedy set during WWII, inspired by Bill Mauldin's popular newspaper cartoons of soldiers "Willie" and "Joe".

Date of release
1951-03-05
TMDB
7.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
1h 32m
Genres
War, Comedy
Director
Alexander Hall

Casting

Interesting facts

Up Front is a 1951 American comedy film directed by Alexander Hall and starring Tom Ewell and David Wayne. The script is very loosely based on Bill Mauldin's World War II characters Willie and Joe. Mauldin repudiated the film and refused his advising fee, and he claimed never to have seen the film. It takes place during the Italian campaign of World War II.

Production

Editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin sold the film rights for Up Front to International Pictures in 1945, receiving assurance from producer William Goetz that he would maintain creative control. Frustrated with the quality of Hollywood war films, Mauldin was determined for Up Front to be "the first honest war picture." Brothers John and Ring Lardner Jr. were hired to write the screenplay.

Production was restarted in 1949, but Lardner's involvement as one of the Hollywood Ten posed a political risk for the studio. The script was rewritten by Stanley Roberts and the promise of Mauldin's creative role was rescinded.

David Wayne was loaned from Twentieth Century-Fox for his role.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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