The Hill

 If the First Great Train Robbery was a look at Victorian England warts and all. Then the Hill puts an uns discussed part of the British experience of WW2 under the microscope. Connery plays a former RSM busted down to the rank of private for busting a major's jaw. This is a reality of World War Two millions of men have been conscripted. The Army has to deal with deserters, spivs, and thieves

These men are  imprisoned. Made to run up and down a man made hill in the desert sun

We watch NCO's watching portly Arab women belly dance. Drinking contests between NCO's A Comadant leaving money on the dresser There is endless P.T, and an old fort reinforced with barbed wire. There are no Germans or Italians here in the Hill, not even aircraft. We are a long way from the enemy. So the enemy we see are the officers. The wardens of this jail. They are here to break down the bad characters, and rebuild them. The officers being absent or disintrested as in the case in Michael Regraves Medical officer.  Oh and this is fighting done by a multi racial army. King one of the prisoners is West Indian. We see other black faces. This film has a lot of racist abuse cast at King 

Not all soldiering is fighting. In Stevens we meet a desk clerk, who went AWOL and tried to get back to his wife. We have a hard drinking hard man in McGrath-who stuck one on a couple of red caps

Roy Kinnear plays a spiv- a fat man who can't climb the ropes. With cigarettes hidden in his boot. It is not a performance people will warm to, but he does a good job. I'm only looking out for number 1

Connery is great. He won a BAFTA for this, and he looks very different somehow. He seems younger in scenes. Connery is an old soldier trying to look after his men, but ultimately let down on him. Connery is singled out for extra punishment- he goes without grub on the first night

I had wanted to watch this for a while. Connery was an ex seaman and Harry Andrews is ex services. Interestingly Andrews was mentioned in dispatches during WW2. Indeed  Andrews was a gay man and the film was made before homosexuality was legal , and long before it was legal in the British Army. The film mentions a gay soldier being imprisoned - All human life is here.

Though this film will not pass the betchel test

We watch the cellmates struggle with their sadistic sgt. We see Steven break and die. We see people try and deal with it. This is a small perhaps even futile battle in a larger war. The stakes are still deadly. Men die, men are broken, trying to get up and over the hill