By Lee Pfeiffer
Universally praised as one of the best films made about WWII during the era in which the War was ongoing, director Lewis Milestone's A Walk in the Sun was based on a popular novel by Harry Brown. Released a few months after the War had officially ended, Milestone's film has not fared well over the years. Originally an independent production, the budget ran dry several times before the movie was salvaged by an investor with deep pockets. Samuel Bronston, the future producer of epic movies, was integral to bringing the novel to the screen, though he never received a formal credit in the movie. Fox ultimately picked up the movie for distribution, though studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck almost changed the title to Salerno Beachead out of fear that A Walk in the Sun sounded too much like a love story. In the ensuing decades, the movie fell out of copyright and it was routinely found on bargain basement DVDs sold in "dollar stores". Now, VCI Entertainment, which specializes in restoring public domain films, has issued an impressive, first-class DVD edition.