Robert Pirosh, who provided the pithy screenplay for William Wellman’s mighty Battleground (1949) and had an artful way of translating GI humour into screen-safe terms, wrote and directed this diverting little film about the 442nd Regiment, composed of Japanese-Americans, “Nisei”, who fought their way to a staggering number of citations and casualties during the Italian and French campaigns of WW2. It combines, then, two major ‘50s genres, the war flick and the social-problem drama, and succeeds through being relatively understated as it charts the conversion of Texan good ole boy Van Johnson from prejudiced martinet to stalwart defender of his charges, who don’t actually need much defending.
Pirosh almost completely resists speechifying, instead concentrating on convincingly portraying growing camaraderie, and noting the elisions of prejudiced mentalities. He (perhaps inevitably) romanticises the controversial action in the rescue of the “Lost” 36th Infantry Battalion at Biffontaine, where the Nisei suffered nearly 50% casualties, and offers some stock figures – e.g. the resentful roughneck, the likeable goofball trying to keep a pet (a pig, no less), etc – but resists forcing their individual arcs in any particular direction: only sudden death provides sure closure, without gung-ho heroics or foul-ups making good. Pirosh insists on restrained, humanist warmth, sparing a few thoughts for the intriguing spectacle of men with roots in Eastern culture but planted firmly in the American now immersed in a European landscape studded with remnants of yet another culture.
Pirosh furthermore essays a studiously sarcastic humour throughout, in observing the soldiers’ efforts to deal both with warfare and social tension, as in their extended riffing on their attachment to a Texan unit that sees them greeting each-other with endless ‘howdies’ and B-Western dialogue, a fair reminder moreover that today’s pop-culture-inflected humour derives a great deal from WW2-era infantry lingo and artworks inspired by it, from Bill Mauldin to Catch-22 to Spike Milligan’s works. The constant drollery keeps Go For Broke! from feeling heavy and dutiful, and distracts from Pirosh’s flat staging of action and the evidently low budget. The film also faces with surprising directness the Nisei’s anger over their family’s situations in the relocation camps and their own frustration in not being allowed to fight in the Pacific. Many of the “Buddha-Heads” are played by real veterans of the 442nd, with uneven performances, but they all radiate disingenuous appeal. Whilst nothing especially distinguished, Go For Broke! remains a worthy work precisely by not trying so hard to be worthy.
