HOLD BACK THE NIGHT

A war story out of Korea which stays out of the bitter, grim school with its underlying warmth and belief in human goodness. For Captain Mackenzie, commander of Dog Company, is cut off from his Marine outfit and tries to make his way back to the coast. Having learned the unorthodoxy of the new enemy, he knows caution in dealing with them and, wise in the ways of his own veteran fighters, uses an unopened bottle of Scotch as a lure to get his depleted company on their way. There are the individual stories of the men -- the coward, the juvenile delinquent, the traitor, and the others -- as they make their way past Mongol patrols; there is the big Brass trying to see a clear pattern in the foul-ups they have encountered; there are the ethal patrols, the threat of tanks, and always the attack from the rear to add to the little company's points of danger. And, with the saving of their youngest member, and the bluff that gets them past a tank block, Mackenzis is wounded and his men come through, a credit to him and themselves. The sentimental and the hardboed makes a good mixture.