Too Late the Hero

By 1970, the escalating carnage and moral ambiguities of the Vietnam War had begun to profoundly influence Hollywood’s portrayal of conflict, casting a pall even over narratives set during the Second World War—a conflict retrospectively idealised as “the Good War” by comparison. Robert Aldrich’s *Too Late the Hero* (1970) exemplifies this shift, offering a gritty, disillusioned take on wartime heroism that diverges…