MacArthur is mostly a replica of World War II (Pacific theater) and Korea. Grenades boom and flare and bodies somersault limply in the air. Machine guns sow quick deadly rows in the earth, and soldiers caught in them wince and flop down. Cannons cough dreadful fire; soaring planes gracefully drop death on vainly scampering homunculi below. And in close-up, bloody bandaged stumps of legs.
An orgy, in short, of Authentic Detail. Some of the action looks too authentic: apparently some real footage from the War has been spliced in, distractingly grainy. When MacArthur comes home, yanked from Korea by Harry Truman, original film clips of the huge parade are likewise interspersed with the close-ups of Gregory Peck as the hero. The viewer is thus made fatally conscious of legerdemain in the cutting room.
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