THE VICTORS (1963)

This is an anti-war film with contradictory themes in portraying an American platoon from England, Italy, and France, ending with one involved in the allied occupation of Berlin. It does not emphasize combat, Instead it juxtaposes victory marches, newsreels, and sentimental scenes with ones of degradation and horror, ending with an American and a Russian killing one another over a misunderstanding. While overdone and uneven in its treatment, THE VICTORS does make an impact on the viewer.
The story is told in a series of short vignettes, each having a beginning and an ending in itself, though all are connected to the others
A U.S. infantry squad is sent to Italy, including Sergeant Craig, and Corporals Trower and Chase, and GI Baker. The squad take possession of a small town in Sicily. Craig has to stop his men from looting. Baker strikes up a relationship with Maria, a young mother whose soldier husband is missing. They talk to a Sikh soldier who is lonely and misses his children. A group of white American soldiers find two black American soldiers in a bar and beat them until the MPs (Military Police) arrive; an Italian onlooker asks why Americans attack each other and gets no reply.
The squad are then sent to France. Craig spends the evening with a Frenchwoman who is terrified by bombing raids.
The men help liberate a concentration camp. In Belgium, Trower meets Regine, a violinist, and falls in love with her. However, when he sees her later she is working for a pimp, Eldridge, who tells Trower that she rents by the hour.

One truckload of GIs is chosen out of a convoy to supply witnesses to the execution by firing squad of a GI deserter in a huge, otherwise empty, snow-covered field near a chateau at Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines on Christmas Eve.
Chase has a relationship with Magda, who suggests he desert and join her in the black market. He refuses just as he learns that his unit is marching out of town in the rain. Some of his friends hide his gear under their rain ponchos, and he slips into formation. Back at the front he is wounded in the leg.
A newcomer to the squad, a misfit named Weaver, adopts a dog even though another man in the unit tells him that it is against regulations ("They're dirty and they make dirt"), and they can't take dogs with them when they redeploy at the front. Weaver keeps feeding the dog anyway, even after the other men kick him and his dog out of the tent. When the unit moves out, one of the other men in the unit, Grogan, tells Weaver to call his dog. Weaver thinks that the others have changed their minds and are letting him bring his dog with them, but Grover shoots the dog as it runs after the truck.

When Chase gets out of hospital in England, he is stuck at a bus stop in the rain. A man, Dennis, invites him to have tea with his family. He has a pleasant time, but when he visits Craig in the hospital, he discovers that most of Craig's face has been blown off.
The war in Europe ends. In 1946 Trower is still in the Army and stationed in Berlin. He is in love with Helga, a young German woman who was raped by the Russians during and after the Battle of Berlin. Trower brings her parents imported goods from the PX when he visits their apartment and has sex with Helga in their bedroom. Helga's sister has been sleeping with Russians; her current lover, a Russian officer, has given her an expensive fur coat that she flaunts in front of Helga, their parents, and Trower. Trower is returning to his base when he meets a drunken Russian soldier. He thinks of Russians raping Helga and provokes a fight with the ally. The two men pull knives and stab each other to death. As the camera pulls back to show seemingly endless ruins, we see that the position of the allies' bodies suggests the letter 'V' for Victory.