This war story opens with an introduction by Earle Partridge, an Air Force general, who starts telling the (true) story of Colonel Dean Hess in the Korean War. Hess had started out as a minister, but felt the need to contribute to the war effort, assigned to train the Korean fighter pilots. This assignment turned into a much bigger ordeal than anyone had planned on. This film is another project with Douglas Sirk directing Rock Hudson. Don DeFore is Major Skidmore. Viewers will know him from his roles on "Hazel" and Ozzie & Harriet. Pretty good entertainment... some religious discussions and lessons thrown in, as Hess had been a minister back home. This is based on Hess' autobiography, after all. Of course, either Alan Hale Senior or Alan Hale Junior has to be in every war movie made... in this one, it's Junior (Skipperrrrrr!) playing the Mess Sergeant. Also James Hong is in here somewhere as Major Chong. He was the maitre D in the Seinfeld Chinese restaurant episode... he would have been just 28 in "Hymn". Philip Ahn plays the old man "Lun"... he played the old, respected father or grandfather figure in MASH, Hawaii Five-O, and many many more films and TV series. For more details, see the entry on Dean Hess in Wikipedia.org. This is one of the four films on the Universal War Collection DVD set.
Review of Battle Hymn
