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The extended version of director Sam Fuller's epic war film The Big Red One. Working with 70,000 feet of vault materials and Fuller's shooting script, critic/filmmaker Richard Schickel headed a reconstruction that adds over 40 minutes and transforms a truncated but admired war film into an epic masterwork. Lee Marvin, in a richly layered performance now revealed as one of his finest, stars as the sergeant of peach-fuzzed riflemen fighting from North Africa to Normandy and across Europe. The film is the squad's combat diary, war as it's fought and sweated and bled, and, maybe, survived. This full-length version, which is close to the late director's original cut, is one of American cinema's great war movies.
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