Editing Lewis Milestone (section)

=== ''A Walk in the Sun'' (1945) ===
Milestone's second collaboration with screenwriter [[Robert Rossen]] ''[[A Walk in the Sun (1945 film)|A Walk in the Sun]]'' (1945) is based on [[Harry Joe Brown]]'s 1944 eponymous novel. Milestone invested $30,000 of his own savings, a measure of his enthusiasm for the novel and its cinematic potential.<ref>Millichap, 1981 p. 130: "the film was another labor of love" and "the book was my script" and pp. 130&ndash;131: "Rossen and Milestone relied heavily on [Brown's] novel" and "Milestone realized the work in strong visual terms"</ref> ''A Walk in the Sun'' takes place during the 1943 [[Allied invasion of Italy]]; a platoon of American soldiers are tasked with advancing inland {{convert|6|miles|abbr=out|spell=in}} from [[Salerno]] to take a German-held bridge and farmhouse.<ref>Barson, 2020: "A Walk in the Sun (1945) was a stylistically adventurous war drama, adapted by Robert Rossen from the novel by Harry Brown. The film focuses almost entirely on the states of mind of several soldiers (Andrews, Conte, and John Ireland) as they try to take a Nazi-held farmhouse in Italy."</ref> Milestone's perspective on war as depicted in ''A Walk in the Sun'' differs with that of ''All Quiet on the Western Front'', a moving indictment of war.<ref>Canham, 1974 p. 96: The moral outlook of the soldiers "imply a structural and moral change by [the characters] tacit acceptance of the conditions of war."</ref> According to biographer Joseph Millichap:

{{blockquote| ''All Quiet on the Western Front'', both the novel and the film, used the microcosm of one platoon to make a major thematic statement about the macrocosm of war. ''A Walk in the Sun''{{'}}s thematic statement is muted by the demands of propaganda and the studio system in the film.<ref>Millichap, 1981 p. 131</ref>}}

According to Millichap (1981), despite these limitations, Milestone avoided the "set hero and mock heroics" typical of Hollywood war movies, allowing for a measure of genuine realism reminiscent of his 1930 masterwork [''All Quiet on the Western Front'']. Milestone's trademark handling of tracking shots is evident in the action scenes.<ref>Millichap, 1981 p. 130: "realistically portrays the effects of war" on combat soldiers. And p. 132: Milestone "avoids melodramatic and cliches" and All Quiet "his earlier masterpiece"<br />Canham, 1974 pp. 95&ndash;96: The film "synthesized his reappraisal of men in war. The plot was sparse, but tightly constructed in a series of episodes (all containing underlying melancholia). The dialogue was deliberately stylized: repetition, catch phrases and obsessional figures produced as effect of blank verse, the rhythm of which heightened the sense of fear and isolation"<br />Barson, 2020: "The effect is closer to the antiwar message of ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' than to the gung-ho heroics of most World War II pictures."<br />Steffen, 2007 TCM: "the cinematographer Russell Harlan handles ''A Walk in the Sun'' with great skill{{nbsp}}... Also striking is Milestone's frequent use of lateral tracking shots during the combat scenes, directly recalling ''All Quiet on the Western Front''.</ref>