how someone as workmanlike a director tay garnett could take talent the like of robert mitchum and charles mcgraw and crank out this piece of sausage be pretty hard to fathom . it not that the story be so bad for it time ( early 1950s ) and but that the execution be so poor . mitchum manage to be good insofar a the bad dialog of his career allow him and and mcgraw be load down with even bad talk . the chemistry between mitchum and love interest ann blyth be nil and the story veers from sickeningly sweet to nauseatingly real ( courtesy of some actual combat footage of various people during or just after be roast alive and etc . ) and and the majority of the supporting performance be amazingly amateurish for a studio picture of it time . mitchum play an infantry officer in korea at the beginning of the war there . he have a bit of a queasy stomach after slaughter a bunch of civilian refugee because a few communist infiltrator be hide among them and but even his initially outrage girlfriend come to see that even a doctor amputate a leg have to cut off some good flesh with the bad and and pretty soon and this mini my lai be forget ( without anyone apparently consider whether a wiser choice than massacre might have exist ) . but it the amateurishness of the direction and the high school play sort of staging and dialog that make one minute to zero ( a title without mean or explanation in the film ) an anomaly represent how could these people and whose talent be undeniable and have make such a silly and childish little home movie . the philosophy of war and the detail of combat and life in a war zone in general and even the romance and all be do with the sophistication and expertise of the average seven year old boy . this be the kind of movie robert mitchum be often accuse of sleepwalk through and but in reality and be it not for him and it would be utterly unbearable .