The muddy switchback that leads up to the bunker, the wind-blown snow, the scraggly pine trees, and the frigid, shell-pocked bunker make for a highly atmospheric setting. Inside the pillbox, inhabited by tired infantrymen trying to grab some shuteye, one can almost smell the burning pine wood in the old stove, hear the big band Christmas music on the radio, and taste the whiskey-spiked coffee that Wolenski offers to Kiley to drive away the chill. Robert Montgomery excels as a veteran infantry sergeant who pulls out the blankets stuffed in the pillbox's gun slit so he can take target practice at the Germans across the valley. All the other men complain that he's letting the cold in ("close the pneumonia hole") and his own lieutenant (James MacArthur, a typical "90-day wonder") tells him to "go outside if you want to play with that popgun." Of course, many American GIs, as well as their commanders, were convinced the war would be over by Christmas and were mesmerized by the unreal quiet and lack of action that characterized this part of the front. The Ardennes, in fact, was considered a rest area for the units that had been bled in the hard fighting in the Hürtgen Forest. Just a few kilometers away, however, three of Hitler's armies were preparing for what would ultimately be the last great Wehrmacht counterattack in the West.

Sgt. Guffy (Telly Savalas) in the cupola of his Sherman. Savalas' portrayal of a colorful hustler who peddles black market merchandise to his fellow GIs was on target and easily surpassed the wooden performances of such past-their-prime actors as Robert Ryan and Dana Andrews.

Also notable for color and comic relief in the same scene is Kiley's encounter on the road with a Sherman tank commanded by Sgt. Guffy (Telly Savalas), a self-styled hustler who has various items of contraband lashed to the engine deck and sides of his tank. Cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes, duffelbag-fulls of French perfume, champagne, and silk stockings constitute the goods that Guffy plans to sell to the GIs preparing for both the assault on Germany and on "German broads." How many vets remember guys just like Guffy hawking fresh eggs, watches, Zeiss binoculars, Iron Cross medals, and other stuff no matter what the battefield conditions.