The Story of G.I. Joe

The Story of G.I. Joe
Theatrical Eagle-Lion Films rerelease poster
Directed by	William Wellman
Produced by	Lester Cowan David Hall
Written by	Leopold Atlas Guy Endore Philip Stevenson
Starring	Burgess Meredith Robert Mitchum
Music by	Louis Applebaum Ann Ronell
Cinematography	Russell Metty
Edited by	Albrecht Joseph
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	June 18, 1945
Running time	108 min.
Country	United States
Language	English Italian
Budget	over $1 million

The Story of G.I. Joe, also credited in prints as Ernie Pyle's Story of G.I. Joe, is a 1945 American war film directed by William Wellman, starring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Mitchum's only nomination for Best Supporting Actor. This was the film that established him as one of the world's biggest movie stars.

The story is a tribute to the American infantryman ("G.I. Joe") during World War II, told through the eyes of Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle, with dialogue and narration lifted from Pyle's columns. The film concentrates on one company, ("C Company, 18th Infantry"), that Pyle accompanies into combat in Tunisia and Italy. The friendships that grow out of his coverage led Pyle to relate the misery and sacrifice inherent in their plight and their heroic endurance of it. Although the company has the designation of an actual unit, that unit did not participate in the combat in Italy that makes up the preponderance of the film, and actually stands in for the units of the 34th and 36th Infantry Divisions that Pyle did cover in Italy.

Although filmed with the cooperation of Pyle, the film premiered two months to the day after he was killed in action on Ie Shima during the invasion of Okinawa. In his February 14, 1945, posting entitled "In the Movies", Pyle commented: "They are still calling it The Story of G.I. Joe. I never did like the title, but nobody could think of a better one, and I was too lazy to try."