The Big Red One

The Big Red One
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Samuel Fuller
Produced by	Gene Corman
Written by	Samuel Fuller
Starring	Lee Marvin Mark Hamill Robert Carradine Bobby Di Cicco Kelly Ward Siegfried Rauch Marthe Villalonga Stéphane Audran
Music by	Dana Kaproff
Cinematography	Adam Greenberg
Edited by	Morton Tubor
Production company	Lorimar
Distributed by	United Artists (original release) Warner Bros. (reconstruction)
Release date	July 18, 1980
Running time	113 minutes (1980 Theatrical Version) 162 minutes (2004 Restored Version)
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$4,000,000
Box office	$7,206,220

The Big Red One is a 1980 epic war film starring Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill. It was written and directed by Samuel Fuller.

It was heavily cut on its original release, but a restored version, The Big Red One: The Reconstruction, premièred at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, seven years after Fuller's death. Fuller wrote a book, with the same title, which was more a companion novel than a novelization of the film, although it features many of the scenes that were originally cut.

Fuller was a World War II veteran and served with the 1st Infantry Division, which is nicknamed The Big Red One for the red numeral "1" on the Division's shoulder patch. He received the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart during his service. He was present at the liberation of the Falkenau concentration camp.

The film begins in black and white in November 1918 at the end of World War I. A private (Marvin), using his trench knife, kills a German soldier who was approaching with his arms raised and speaking in German. When he returns to his company's headquarters, the private is told that the "war's been over for four hours." The 1st Division patch is shown in color.

The film then moves to November 1942, when the soldier, now a sergeant in the "Big Red One", leads his squad of infantrymen through North Africa, where they are initially fired on by a Vichy French general, who is then overpowered by his French troops who are loyal to Free France. Over the next two years the squad serves in campaigns in Sicily, where they are given intelligence by a peasant boy, and are fed by grateful women, Omaha Beach at the start of the Normandy Campaign, the liberation of France where they battle Germans inside a mental asylum, and the invasion of western Germany.