In Aachen, France of 1944 during the Allied drive into Germany, a National Guard Infantry company loses an entire platoon when cowardly Captain Cooney (Eddie Albert) refuses to send support for men pinned down by machine gun fire and mortars, even after he gave his word to a battle hardened lieutenant named Costa (Jack Palance). Cooney’s father is a judge, and Costa believes that despite the captain’s glaring incompetence, they’re stuck with him.

The idealistic Lieutenant Woodruff (William Smithers) states his case to Colonel Bartlett, played by the one and only Lee Marvin. But Bartlett – who has political aspirations – refuses to relieve Cooney. He’s promised Cooney’s connected father that he’ll make his disappointment of a son into a war hero. Instead, the colonel promises Woodruff that it’s “a hundred to one” the company will see combat again.

But the company is soon ordered to hold the town of L’Annelle. Not knowing if enemy forces are waiting there, Cooney hatches a plan to send a platoon into the town on reconnaissance. Costa is selected to lead the operation, but tells Cooney that if he bails out on him like he did in Aachen, he’ll come back and kill him.

The platoon discovers a German mechanized unit holds the town and gets cut to pieces. The survivors include Costa, Bernstein (Robert Strauss), Tolliver (Buddy Ebsen) and Snowden (Richard Jaeckel). They hold up in a house, waiting for their promised reinforcements, but Cooney again buckles under, eventually opting for an artillery strike. The men who make it back find themselves with no other choice but to relieve Cooney of command their own way.

Directed by Robert Aldrich, from a screenplay James Poe adapted from the play The Fragile Fox by Norman Brooks, Attack may have been tagged with a fairly lame title, but otherwise, this film is superb, one of the great gems of the World War II genre. It was one of the first true anti-war films to be produced by Hollywood.

Aldrich’s previous feature, The Big Knife, was also based on a play, but where that film featured all the confinements of staged drama and was tediously shot on one set, here, the action really opens up. Panzer tanks, mortar strikes and beautifully bombed out buildings designed by art director William Glasgow give the film the feeling of scope, despite the fact this was all shot on the RKO lot in a brisk 35 days.

Attack is brilliantly well cast all around, but Lee Marvin comes in and blows everyone off the screen. In a scene where he realizes Cooney’s latest foul-up has impacted his own political future, Marvin yanks Albert so hard his helmet goes flying off. The film stays true to its theatrical roots in its intense showdowns between Palance and Eddie Albert, and Smithers and Lee Marvin, without going over-the-top, as the case in many plays.

Aldrich seems drawn to material that places men in a moral vise and squeezes them until their true natures are revealed. The film was ahead of its time by actually suggesting that cronyism and weak leadership could kill American fighting men just as effectively as the enemy.

The filmmakers also demonstrate a command of staging and editing action sequences, vivid camerawork and lighting (by Joseph Biroc) and begin the film with a memorable credits sequence, set somberly to classical music the guardsmen listen to over Armed Services radio. If you’re in the mood for a great World War II title, check this one out.