Bitter Victory

Bitter Victory

Nicholas Ray's (REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE) masterpiece of anti-war sentiment is one of his lesser-known films, but it is nonetheless possessed of a subtle complexity and existential ambiguity that render it one of his most poignant. Set during WWII and unfolding mostly in the deserts of Libya, the film establishes a rivalry between its two main characters from the very beginning. The charismatic Captain James Leith (Richard Burton, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF) and his cowardly superior, Major David Brand (Curt Jurgens, AND GOD CREATED WOMAN), both accept a dangerous assignment to be sent to Libya to recover top-secret documents. Before they depart, Brand sees his wife Jane (Ruth Roman, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN) dancing with the Captain, and becomes enflamed with jealousy; it turns out that Leith and Jane were lovers before the war. The rest of the exposition traces the two men's journey, made even more perilous by their intense enmity, and moves toward a climactic ending that plays up the absurdity of war. Refusing to draw a clear division between hero and villain, Ray highlights the way war ultimately reduces everyone to the same petty motivations and empty rhetoric.