Rating: - A little Heresy here.....
"He was the best soldier. Hell, he was the only soldier."

Okay, I'm not going to go so far as to say this version of the James Jones novel is better than the 1954 "classic" movie, although in some respects I do think it is superior, in others not, I believe its merits make it the equal of the celebrated film.

The greatest strength this miniseries has for lovers of the novel is having the time to tell the full story, fleshing out several of the subplots, most especially Maggio's ordeal in the stockade, while also having time to more deeply examine the relationships between Warden and Karen Holmes and Prewitt and Loreen. So much of the story was necessarily truncated in the film that much of what was loved in the novel was missing.

Next of course, the miniseries could be more honest about the sexuality of the relationships, and more graphic about the brutality visited upon Prew in "the treatment" and, again, Judsen's persecution and torture of Maggio.

Finally, casting. And here the heresy. I find this cast in some ways superior to the film. Although she displayed a harder edge, it was a bit of a stretch buying Donna Reed as a prostitute. The very young Kim Bassinger, though inexperienced as an actress, brings the right beauty and youth to the role and the depiction does not have to be sanitized as it was in the 1950's film. I know Sinatra won the Oscar for his Maggio, and he was fine. But I think a very young Joe Pantalione did just as well, and had the benefit of more screen time, especially in his brutal descent into madness. I am fond of Deborah Kerr in many of her roles, but quite frankly for my money she can't hold a candle to Natalie Wood's Karen Holmes for pure sexual heat coupled with vulnerability. I think Monty Clift was one of our greatest actors, but I don't think he came as close to embodying the Kentucky hillbilly of Steve Railsback's Prewitt. Clift is always a tremendous screen presence, and Railsback might have not fared as well on the big screen, but I never believed Clift was a Kentucky coalminer's son, but I did believe Railsback. Finally, Burt Lancaster again had the big screen presence and was an athletic Warden, but I am very fond of William Devane's cynical and knowing Top Sgt. and we get more of him and some of his better dialogue with the extended format. Oh, and Peter Boyle makes a nasty Fatso Judsen to equal Ernie Borgnine's.

So, I believe the expanded story is better, deepening the characters and giving us more of the stories that made the novel beloved by many. It is at least on a par as far as cast. It obviously does not have the precision of the film and Fred Zinneman's excellent direction, but Buzz Kulik handles the bigger story well. It suffers from the lower production standards of TV films, but manages to get a credible Pearl Harbor attack by incorporating some Tora Tora Tora footage.

All in all, the update allows Jones's sexy, funny, complex and tragic story a full-telling without the prudery and reticence of the 50's, and without emulating the earlier film but rather re-imagining the novel on film with an excellent cast. And no, they don't duplicate the celebrated dopey beach scene, but instead depict the novel's more explicit interlude.

All in all, well worthwhile, and I wish it was on DVD because it is going to be hard to find this one.