Battle Flame (1959)

In 1950, at the onset of the Korean War, the US Marines land on an enemy-controlled beach. Among the American units is a platoon commanded by 1st Lt. Frank Davis (Scott Brady).

After the beach is secured, Davis is ordered to capture an enemy village.

After taking the village, Frank reminisces about his recent past and the circumstances of his first meeting with American nurse Mary Ferguson (Elaine Edwards) in a military hospital in Japan where he was convalescing.

His recollections are interrupted by an enemy attack, after which the wounded men are cared for by a group of army nurses. Frank is pleasantly surprised to see Mary among them. Since they met in Japan, though, Mary has become engaged to Navy surgeon, Commander Bill Stoddard (Richard Crane), and Frank vows to try to win her back.

The nurses and wounded men leave the area on a transport plane while Davis and his men engage the Communist Forces threatening to surround the area.

After several exhausting battles, Davis and his men are sent to search behind enemy lines for a downed American transport plane. His worst fears are realised when his platoon locates the plane’s wreckage, and the severely-wounded pilot tells him that Mary and other nurses were on the plane.

The Communist Forces have captured the surviving nurses and taken them to a makeshift POW camp in nearby Chinyong. Determined to rescue them, Frank orders his platoon to capture the town.

After freeing the nurses, Frank’s unit retreats to the beach at Hungnam, where the US Navy is evacuating all American forces. But to reach Hungnam, Frank and his men – with five nurses in tow – must cross rugged snow-covered terrain swarming with Communist troops.

Battle Flame is obviously filmed on a very limited budget – mostly in a studio with many backdrops – and Scott Brady speaks his lines as though reading them from cue cards. Elaine Edwards gives an equally wooden performance. The battle footage is mostly stock newsreel footage from WW II and the Korean War.

1st Lt. Frank Davis
Scott Brady
Lt. Mary Ferguson
Elaine Edwards
Cpl. Jake Pacheco
Robert Blake
Teach
Wayne Heffley
Sgt. McKelvey
Gordon Jones
Orlando
Ken Miller
Nawlins
Arthur Walsh
2nd Lt. Wechsler
Richard Harrison
Gilcrist
Gary Kent
Nurse Fisher
Peggy Moffitt
Nurse Claycomb
Jean Robbins
Commander Bill Stoddard
Richard Crane
Lt. Norris
Robert Shayne
Lt. Col. Struthers
Guy Prescott
Capt. Herndon
Robert Christopher
Maj. Dowling
John Mitchum

Director
R.G. Springsteen