Cease Fire. 1954. USA. Directed by Owen Crump. Screenplay by Walter Doniger. With Capt. Roy Thompson Jr., Cpl. Henry Gozskowski, Sgt. Richard Karl Elliott. DCP. 75 min.
A rare, if not unique, attempt to use 3-D in a realist context, Cease Fire was filmed on location in Korea in the waning days of the Korean War, with soldiers drawn from actual combat re-enacting their experiences for director Owen Crump (a veteran of the US Army Signal Corps). Hauling the bulky Paravision 3-D rig across actual battlefields, Crump encouraged his nonprofessional cast to improvise following the outlines of a script by Walter Doniger, about a 13-man patrol sent to reconnoiter a mountaintop held by Chinese snipers. “A robust, hair-raising realization of the ruggedness of the foot soldiers’ war in the ugly hills of Korea” (Bosley Crowther, The New York Times).