One of several World War II action films produced during the Korean conflict (June 1950-July 1953), The Tanks Are Coming (1951) was made in direct response to the success of Warner Brothers' Breakthrough (1950) a year earlier. Producer Bryan Foy had hoped to reunite the principals from Breakthrough for his new production, which concerned the efforts of the US Army's 3rd Armored Division (nicknamed "Spearhead" for its utility as an advance force for the First Army) to punch a hole through the Third Reich's defensive "Siegfried Line" of bunkers and anti-tank guns in Normandy into Germany in 1944. In late 1950, the Hollywood trades carried the announcement that Breakthrough stars David Brian, John Agar and Frank Lovejoy would again be donning combat fatigues for The Tanks Are Coming, which was based on a story by Breakthrough scribe Joseph Breen, Jr. , son and namesake of the author of Hollywood's Production Code. Also announced as a cast member was Eve Miller, second female lead of Ida Lupino's polio soap opera Never Fear (1949), and soon to be Kirk Douglas' leading lady in The Big Trees (1952).

When The Tanks Are Coming went into production in June of 1951, none of these names appeared on the studio call sheet although Paul Picerni, who had enjoyed a supporting role in Breakthrough, was among the contract players flown by Warners to the shooting location at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Also returning was director Lewis Seiler, though the film's original story was credited now to Sam Fuller, a former journalist who would turn his experiences as a rifleman in the US Army's 1st Infantry Division during WWII into a string of hard-hitting combat films, among them The Steel Helmet (1951), Fixed Bayonets! (1951), Merrill's Marauders (1962) and The Big Red One (1980). Replacing Eve Miller as the film's fleeting source of sex appeal was Lithuanian actress Mari Aldon, while Steve Cochran and Philip Carey provided the requisite testosterone as career soldiers who must overcome their personal differences to lead their men to victory.

The only feature film to focus on the wartime accomplishments of the 3rd Armored Division (to which Elvis Presley would be assigned in 1958), The Tanks Are Coming was drawn in large part from the exploits of Sherman tank commander Lafayette G. Pool (1919-1991), who had led Spearhead in Normandy during the war and lost a leg in combat. (The story goes that Pool, a notorious "hard charger" who hated the enemy more than he feared death, tried to cut off his own shattered leg in the field.) As an instructor at Fort Knox's Armored Force School in 1949, the Texas-born Pool had already signed a contract with Universal for the rights to dramatize his wartime experiences when he was approached by Warner Brothers to act as a technical advisor on the set of The Tanks Are Coming. Knox not only turned down Warners but sued to the tune of $1 million for infringement on his intellectual property. The court ruled in favor of the studio, which had protected its asset by changing the names of the dramatis personae. Universal eventually scrapped its plans for its own project, leaving Lafayette Pool soured more by his experiences with Hollywood than he had been by his interaction with the Nazis.

Producer: Bryan Foy
Director: D. Ross Lederman, Lewis Seiler
Screenplay: Robert Hardy Andrews, based on a story by Samuel Fuller
Cinematography: Edwin B. DuPar, Warren Lynch
Art Direction: Leo K. Kuter
Music: William Lava
Film Editing: James Moore
Cast: Steve Cochran (Francis Aloysius 'Sully' Sullivan), Philip Carey (Lt. Rawson), Mari Aldon (Patricia Kane), Paul Picerni (Danny Kolowicz), Harry Bellaver (Lemchek), John McGuire (Col. Matthews).
BW-90m.

by Richard Harland Smith

Sources:
A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking by Samuel Fuller, with Christa Lang Fuller and Jerome Henry Rudes (Applause Books, 2004)
The Films of Sam Fuller: If You Die, I'll Kill You by Lisa Dombrowski (Wesleyan University Press, 2008)
Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II by Belton Y. Cooper (Presidio Press, 2003)
The Tank Killers: A History of America's First World War II Tank Destroyer Force by Harry Yeide (Casemate Books, 2010
"Call Me Spearhead...!: The Association of 3rd Armored Division Veterans," www.3ad.org