this autobiographical account of the exploit of audie l. murphy a the most decorated american soldier of world war ii make for a good but not great traditional military movie where everybody obey order and few complain about serve in the infantry . ride clear of diablo director jesse hibbs and saskatchewan scenarist gil doud have fashion a solid and unpretentious combat movie that open with a brief prologue about our protagonist and the rigor that he endure a a teenager . murphy have no father . the man abandon his family and leave them to fend for themselves with our hero set aside his eighth school education to earn money for his mother and his brother and sister . the outbreak of world war ii prompt murphy to enlist and but the marine corp and the navy reject him for his size . he stand five foot five inch and must have look even scrawnier in real life . eventually and murphy make it into the army and but hibbs and doud skip his basic training and have him show up in north africa a a replacement . the commanding officer of the outfit be somewhat surprised when murphy put in a request to transfer to the paratrooper . initially and the c. o. want to transfer the ail murphy out because of his poor health on the trip to north africa ( murph have never be on a ship ) and put him in with the cook . murphy ask them to forego any special treatment . nothing happen for our hero in north africa and but they get their taste of combat in sicily and later the italian campaign . everybody in the outfit set out to protect little audie and but by the time that it be over and he have rise to the rank of lieutenant and he be the one watch out for them . what set this combat film apart and aside from it infantry perspective and be the appearance of two genuine sherman tank which while they may not be the same model that plow through the field of france be a rarity in world war ii movie and especially during the 1950s . hibbs include the famous scene where murphy single handedly stall a german advance by man a . 50 caliber machine gun on a blazing tank . his superior officer want to ship murphy off to west point and but those ambitious plan be sidetrack when murphy suffer a war wound that disqualify him for the academy . marshal thompson and who play the replacement in the battle of the bulge movie battleground be cast a a fellow g. i. along with jack kelly who later attain fame on the maverick television series with james garner . murphy have a brief interlude with a spunky italian babe and maria ( susan kohner in her film debut ) and but they never get it on with firework to boot . basically and to hell and back cover the war from north africa to france without too much fanfare on the part of the protagonist . the theme of friendship be explore in some detail . nobody want to make friend under such stressful condition because their friend wind up die under fire and the separation be agonize for them . the action end with murphy receive his decoration . the german be pretty much depict a extra in long shot without any interaction between themselves or the american .