Impressionistic and moving, The Story of G.I. Joe is a war film with the kind of hard-won poignancy that could only come from the brusque romanticism of a war vet filmmaker like William A. Wellman. Released in June 1945 - a month after V-E day but before the war in the Pacific had finished, American audiences and critics alike responded to this tough-but-sensitive portrayal of the grim realities of the combat soldier, particularly given that many of the real infantrymen sent to the Pacific shortly after production ended did not live to see the finished picture. That sad fact was...

    A personal, poetic reflection on a personal, poetic movie by programmer, director, and critic Gina Telaroli. Based on the writings of Ernie Pyle, an Americana columnist turned World War II correspondent, and specifically adapted from Pyle’s writings about his time following US infantrymen in in Italy and North Africa, William A. Wellman’s Story of G.I. Joe (1945) starts slowly and cryptically as a group of soldiers in an unidentified landscape load onto the back of a truck and drive towards what could very likely be their death. As they drive away, truck after truck after truck filled with...

By Caden Mark Gardner   William A. Wellman’s best-known World War II pictures, The Story of G.I. Joe and Battleground remain touchstones in his prolific filmography.  While many wartime and postwar films on World War II have faded from public memory, what gives these films a sense of timelessness is the fact beyond the action sequences of each there is a specific attention paid to lived experiences of these men in battle.  The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) and Battleground (1949) are defined by the films being ensemble pieces about a collective, united front that spotlights the lives of these...

The following is an essay by once-a-generation film critic poet Fernando F. Croce, enormously respected writer from Mubi Notebook and Cinepassion with a bit of William A. Wellman 101. Read Fernando’s inimitable take on the director of The Story of G.I. Joe, told in his signature linguistic curlicues, the authorial equivalent of a Thanksgiving feast for a starving man. Read how Wellman set himself apart from peers John Ford, Raoul Walsh, and Fritz Lang and made a name for himself before the advent and enforcement of the production code, the censorship system imposed on Hollywood product by the notorious Will...

To kick off our release of The Story of G.I. Joe here’s an exclusive video essay by Scout Tafoya, Editor-in-chief of The Maze, about how the film has reverberated down the corridors of cultural history. Here’s everything you need to know about how the film has made its impact.      

  We caught up with writer, historian, actor and producer Alan Rode following his recording of a new audio commentary for The Story of G.I. Joe. Here’s a sneak peek of what fans can expect!  IGNITE: What were your thoughts when Ignite Films approached you about recording an audio commentary for its new release of The Story of G.I. Joe? ALAN K. RODE: I jumped at it because this is a film that for some reason has been difficult to see, but it's a picture that made a distinct impression on me. And I think the way that the film...