Line #32 Film/TheHill


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_hill_1200_1200_675_675_crop_000000_6.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:'''Roberts:''' "You'd stand up a dead man and inspect him if you was ordered to!" '''Wilson:''' ''"You're right!"'']]
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4	One of several military [[PrisonFilms prison films]], a genre that seemed to be popular in the 1960s, among a field including television series like [[Series/HogansHeroes Hogan's Heroes]] and Colditz and motion pictures like [[Film/Stalag17 Stalag 17]] and [[Film/TheGreatEscape The Great Escape]].
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6	Filmed in starkly lit black and white, this 1965 film directed by Creator/SidneyLumet is set in a British military prison in the Western Desert during World War II. The film opens with the arrival of five new prisoners including [[FallenHero fallen hero]] Trooper Roberts, formerly a sergeant major in a tank battalion, played by a young [[Creator/SeanConnery Sean Connery]].
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8	Creator/HarryAndrews plays Regimental Sergeant Major Bert Wilson, a military version of the ByTheBookCop who has been in the Army 25 years and who admits he would stand a dead man up and inspect him if he was ordered to. He takes pride in his ability to break prisoners down and build them back up again into soldiers. One of the main techniques is [[TrainingFromHell running men up and down over top of a large mound]] constructed in the middle of the prison camp, for which the film is named: The Hill. RSM Wilson firmly believes MiseryBuildsCharacter, and what can make you miserable better than running up and down a hill in 30 pounds of equipment and a gas mask, carrying full sandbags, under the noon hour heat of the Libyan desert?
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10	The film is a PsychologicalThriller studying the motivations of both the prison staff and the five new arrivals. As Roberts points out during a sun-baked outdoor inspection, "[[ASharedSuffering everyone is doing time here, even the screws]]." There is no mutual affection between the prisoners who present a diversity of backgrounds and experiences. George Stevens is a former office worker. Even RSM Wilson [[PetTheDog recognizes the soft-spoken Stevens shouldn't be there]]. Jacko King is a Black soldier from the West Indies who accepts the British Army's casual racism as just another part of his life. Monty Bartlett is a tubby, balding, petty criminal who "never quite got around" to seeing any action. Jock Mc Grath is a hard-drinking tough guy whose quick temper continually lands him in trouble.
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12	There is no solidarity among the prison staff, either, and the film explores the relationship between RSM Wilson and two of the non-commissioned officers. Staff Sergeant Charlie Harris has become [[HeroicFatigue weary]] of punishing mostly decent men who committed minor military infractions and is suspicious of the sergeant-major's methods. Wilson, knowing his own authority rests on the ability of his staff to keep the prisoners in line, realizes Harris has been kinder to the prisoners than he thinks proper. Wilson turns to Staff Sergeant Williams, a new prison guard, to carry out his program of ToughLove. Wilson is equally wary of Williams, suggesting that he volunteered for camp staff because the Germans were bombing England and it was ironically safer for Williams to volunteer for base duty in the desert. Wilson turns the five new arrivals over to Williams as a test of his abilities.
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14	Commissioned officers outranking Wilson are rarely seen. The prison camp commander lives off base, more interested in the local prostitutes, than his job. "He'd sign his own death warrant if I asked him to," Wilson remarks about the CO. The Medical Officer is also disinterested in thoroughly examining the prisoners to determine their fitness for life in the camp. Wilson uses their casual approach to their duties to his own advantage until a crisis occurs that threatens his position. The crisis is brought about by Williams, who quickly [[PoliceBrutality blurs the lines between harsh discipline and abuse]]. The five new arrivals, initially suspicious and hateful of each other, slowly realize their survival will require mutual co-operation against the excesses committed by Williams and endorsed by RSM Wilson who assures him he "has the back" of all his staff.
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16	The characters all have clashing motivations, heightened by each individual's desire simply to survive the camp to which they have all been consigned. Loyalties shift throughout the film as the characters clash in different ways, culminating in a [[spoiler: NoEnding which leaves the viewer unsure if anyone won or will ever leave the camp with career and sanity intact.]]
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19	!! This show provides examples of:
20	* ArmorPiercingQuestion: when the prisoners riot after [[spoiler: Steven's death]], RSM Wilson arrives in the cells to take charge. When he orders Staff Sergeant Harris to call in more guards, Harris asks if they should be armed, thinking there will be more heavy-handed discipline imposed by Wilson. Wilson's pithy response leaves Harris (and the viewer) confused: "Where do you think you are, Chicago?" Wilson not only doesn't permit firearms into the cells, he actually releases all the prisoners into the centre of the cell block and confronts them all, single-handedly draining away their anger. Harris is so obviously impressed that he permits himself to joke with Wilson in front of the prisoners and Wilson lets it happen.
21	* DeskJockey: Private Stevens is shown to be one of these immediately, a meek man who is out of place either in the infantry or in prison. The RSM [[PetTheDog kindly tells him to obey orders, do his time and get out as fast as he can]]. It's suggested Bartlett is one of these also, his unmilitary appearance coincides with his confession he never quite got around to serving in combat. His ability to sell motorcycle tires, the reason for being in prison, suggests he spent at least some time in the rear.
22	* DrillSergeantNasty: Staff Sergeant Williams, naturally, who spends the film shouting and occasionally beating whomever gets in his way. RSM Wilson also counts, though his own handling of troops is more subdued, he relies on the authority of his position rather than his voice, though he is not above shouting to make a point.
23	* FallenHero: Trooper Roberts used to be Squadron Sergeant Major Roberts. He was busted when he refused to continue a suicidal attack and assaulted the officer who ordered him back into a massacre.
24	* HellholePrison: TruthInTelevision, as British service prisons were notoriously nasty, the intention being to reduce recidivism by making a safe building with a comfy bed and regular food seem somehow worse than serving under fire in the front line. The prison in the film is in the middle of the desert, and the prisoners do everything "at the double" and usually with their full equipment strapped to them, including large pack, rain cape, gas mask, steel helmet, full water bottle, etc. The prisoners sleep on low slung cots in hot cells infested with cockroaches. Sent there for crimes like desertion and theft, the goal is not long term punishment but a short term refresher on the importance of obedience to orders and their sense of duty. "Refreshment" comes in the form of running up and down The Hill with some combination of full equipment, gas mask on, and carrying loaded sandbags.
25	* JadedWashout: This is Roberts in spades. He tells the RSM that like him, he was a regular army professional NCO before the war, but came to the conclusion that the rules and regulations that had him sending men to needless deaths were "stupid and out of date." He reveals through dialogue that the reason he is in prison was he pulled his men out of a failed attack and assaulted his commanding officer to try and stop him from sending them back in to certain death. [[spoiler: It didn't work, and Roberts later tells that the Troop Sergeant led the survivors back into the battle in Roberts' place. There were no survivors.]]
26	* LikableVillain: Slightly played with in that the characters are realistically complicated with varied motivations. Staff Sergeant Williams is the least likeable, showing very few traces of humour. RSM Wilson however starts the film with a touching speech to two men being released from the camp, congratulating them on surviving his imposed discipline and telling them they are true men once again. He affably inspects the new prisoners and even jokes with them, while nonetheless reinforcing the notion that humour is a privilege reserved for the staff. During a riot by the prisoners after [[spoiler: the death of Stevens]] he releases the prisoners from their cells to vent their rage, and ends up joking with the men and Staff Sergeant Harris. Even at the end of the film, as events threaten to overtake him, his reaction is one of disbelief that his authority had so thoroughly been wrecked without his knowledge and the audience can almost feel sympathy for him.
27	* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: What Sergeant Williams gets after pushing Private King and [=McGrath=] too far.
28	* NonActionBigBad: Sergeant-Major Wilson imagines himself to be running the camp in the absence of the disinterested CO. But as Staff Sergeant Harris tells him in the climax [[spoiler: Staff Sergeant Williams has been subverting his authority and "took over days ago - you just didn't notice!"]]
29	* PetTheDog: Major Sergeant Wilson tries to reassure Stevens that if he follows orders, his time at the camp will be over with before he knows it and he can return to a normal life. That might have been true if it weren't for Sergeant Williams' way of running things.
30	* PoliceBrutality: Staff Sergeant Williams is a RabidCop type in uniform who runs the men ragged on The Hill and beats up [[spoiler: Roberts]] when he doesn't give in to his authority fast enough.
31	* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: There's no music score in the movie, which Lumet had also done in ''Film/FailSafe'', nad would do in ''Film/DogDayAfternoon'' (except for the song that plays over the opening credits) and ''Film/{{Network}}'' (except for the music in the newscasts).
32	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Played with in the case of Sergeant Major Wilson. His rigid, by the book, authoritarian way of doing this seems very unreasonable, but in contrast to Sergeant Williams, he's not a power-hungry sadist and isn't motivated by any personal ill-will towards the prisoners. He also has several PetTheDog moments towards Stevens and some of the others.
33	* StaffOfAuthority: RSM Wilson naturally carries a swagger stick as a badge of office. Williams' efforts to subvert his authority come to a head when [[spoiler: Williams provokes Wilson into nearly striking him with the stick]].

Context Film / TheHill