Cheap To Hell and Back (Book) (Audie Murphy) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of To Hell and Back

very disappointed
I've seen my fair share of classic war movies: Kelly's Heroes/Guns of Navarone/Great Escape/Dirty Dozen are among my favorites; I've always heard good things about this movie so when my friend bought it for 15 bucks at Sam Goody we expected good things....what a waste of 15 bucks...I'm being completely honest with you when I say it is one of the worst movies I've ever seen...I don't even care that it was made in the 50's. <
> <
>Some of the scenes were extremely annoying and disappointing. For one, was when they were doing the beach landing. The only thing that got wet was their helmets...not even the inside of the boat. Instead of actually doing a landing they used war footage, which I found irritating. Another thing was in the beginning their uniforms were neatly pressed and clean even after digging a 5 foot foxhole. Thirdly, it looked like a lot of the areas where they did some scenes were obviously sets. The whole idea of it makes it look war look so happy-go-lucky. It seemed like you have 50 to 1 odds of getting shot in real war...wow, all I can say is that it was pretty terrible. The movie didn't really portray Audie Murphy as the hero he was, it just turns him into hero, he never really does anything particularly heroic and he seems to just be randomly promoted. The plot is so choppy it barely makes sense, and even if it does; it's so boring I guarantee you probably wont know or care to know what's going on...in some of the battles they win they don't even fight, they just...don't do anything. And the action is terrible...even for the 50's..read the book instead, don't waste your time. <
> <
>the only good that came from it was the laughs i had at how bad it was.. <
> <
>

---

Get the book
Get the book, this one covers off on some of what he went thru but falls flat on the time he spent in combat. I remember AMC showing this movie and the host commenting that Audie Murphy went thru a lot trying to get his book on the screen. Basically, they sanitized and cleaned everything up to the point where if you were young enough, you might think war is not that bad even if you get killed. I have had a copy of the book for about 20 years and have read it about 3 times, viewing the movie once ws enough for me. It is amazing how "all is quiet on the western front" made much earlier when standards were even more rigid was able to pack a bigger punch, make a point and be more satisifying than this watered-down mess. Get the book, wait for the movie to come on TV.

---

Seriously dated as a war movie, viewable mainly from a historical perspective
<
>OK, Audie Murphy fans, don't bash this review. Audie Murphy was a great man, and a true American hero. However, this much has to be said, all of the five star reviews of this movie here reflect a continuing admiration for the man, and not for the movie itself. <
> <
>As a child, I had often heard about Audie Murphy, about his status as "the most decorated soldier in America", and his later career as a B-movie star in Hollywood westerns. Whenever Audie Murphy was mentioned, "To Hell and Back", both the book and the movie, were usually also mentioned. <
> <
>And so for all these years, I knew that this movie existed, but had never seen it. One day, I finally read the book, and then checked out the movie at the local library. And then I read some of Audie Murphy's biographies. <
> <
>What to say about this movie except that it was almost certainly the high point in the life of Audie Murphy. Murphy was the sixth of twelve children of desperately poor Texas sharecroppers. The father would abandon the family and the mother would die when Audie was sixteen. World War II intervened, and Murphy's natural wholesomeness and survivalist skills as a hunter-warrior would provide him a route to become a national hero and a life as a movie star. <
> <
>"To Hell and Back" was Murphy's most successful movie. It was made in 1955, at a time when Americans wanted only to forget the dreadfully inconclusive Korean War, preferring to relive the simpler glories of WWII. As a war movie, it has all the typical characteristics of that era - an unquestioning respect for the military (and all authority in general), and an unspoken acceptance of the concept (totally foreign to us today) that soldiers' lives are by nature expendable in a war. Like other war movies of the 1950's, we never see any blood, nor are there guts spraying everywhere, and definitely no mortally wounded soldiers screaming in fear and agony. Enemy soldiers who are killed fall quickly, silently and bloodlessly to the ground, like dummies. American soldiers who are killed also fall silently and bloodlessly to the ground, but get more screen time - we get to see their faces contort in agony as they die from their phantom wounds. Realism having long ago been lost, the heavy equipment of war - the tanks and other weapons - are also not quite right. The burning M10 tank destroyer that Audie Murphy jumped on becomes a more readily procurable Sherman tank. German tanks are substituted by the then prevalent M41 Walker Bulldogs. <
> <
>No, this is not "Saving Private Ryan". Nor "Platoon". Nor "Apocalypse Now". This is not even "The Longest Day". War movies are never meant to be documentaries, and thus are always limited in their depiction of real war by the social constraints of the times, and the Hollywood need to put a spin on a story that will bring in the customers. <
> <
>What I find most sad about "To Hell and Back", having read Audie Murphy's biographies now, is that his real story was much better: Murphy's bravery, fighting skills, and exploits were even more astounding than what was depicted in this most sanitized and unrealistic of war movies. Achieving all of that in the context of the poverty that he grew up in was even more amazing. Much of this was because the ever modest Audie Murphy refused to allow his life and his exploits to be glamorized. <
> <
>Yes, Audie Murphy's story needs to be remade. But such a story would find no currency in today's Hollywood - imagine that, a movie about a young white man, pulling himself out of poverty by becoming a soldier for his country, fighting for over two years continuously, and excelling at the art of war. And then returning home as a hero, and finding even more success in life as a movie star, thanks to the help of many fellow Americans (James Cagney among them). "To Hell and Back" was indeed the product of a different time. <
> <
>