The War Lover

'Lady, I'm part of the most destructive group of men the world has ever known. That's my work!' - Buzz Rickson (Steve McQueen)

The primary thing I took from The War Lover was to wonder if Steve McQueen ever played a serial killer. He usually has that charm, half-boyish, half-roguish, but he also tends to have a lot of intensity. Depending on where that intensity is directed, it can be pretty terrifying, or creepy.

McQueen plays Buzz Rickson, a hotshot bomber pilot, and guess what? He's doesn't play by the rules! I know, a real stretch for McQueen, but the movie does try to avoid glorifying him too much. His bomber crew loves him, and his co-pilot admires his skill, but the longer the movie goes the more you see the other side of it. That total confidence in his superiority in every facet of his life could make him kind of a pill to deal with. He's always trying to prove something, so nothing is off limits to him, which is where the shift to creepy comes in. As his co-pilot, Bolland (Robert Wagner), starts to see Buzz more clearly, Buzz starts trying to prove his superiority over Bolland, and that turns especially creepy when he tries to woo Daphne (Shirley Anne Field), the young Englishwoman Bo's smitten with. There are more and more shots of Buzz standing in the background, watching them intently, either gauging something, or silently challenging Bo.

The movie is pretty predictable overall. You can see most of the specific beats and the ending coming a ways off. There is an effective scene in a tavern midway through the movie, probably the point where the bad side of Buzz' personality starts coming through. There's an air raid, the rest of the flight crew has gone to find a shelter, but Buzz stays, helping himself to free booze, and regaling the one member of the crew who stayed with a story of his childhood (a story of a 13 year old Buzz' very eventful 72 hours with a woman old enough to be his mother, as he put it). The bombs start falling, but Buzz ignores them. He's in his own world, and they might as well not even be falling. At that point, it's kind of impressive, admirable even, the refusal to let them dictate how he lives his life. Doesn't excuse the abominable way he treated the serving girl just before it, but it at least seems like a positive quality. Then he barges outside and shouts at the sky, telling them to come back when they have a bomb big enough to kill him. Which is the point the confidence becomes bravado, and it's just ugly. But it's good to have, because it keeps the audience from liking or admiring Buzz as much, which is key because it makes more certain that our sympathies lie with Bo and Daphne later.