War Devils (1969)

Director: Bitto Albertini

Starring: Guy Madison, Venantino Venantini, Anthony Steel, Pascale Petit, Enrique Avila, Raf Baldassarre, Claudio Biava, Federico Boido, Luis Induni

More info: IMDb

Plot: A German Captain and American Captain help each other survive the North African desert during WWII. They meet again a year later during combat operations in France.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Funny thing.  I'm watching the movie and it's moving along nicely in the African desert when it suddenly seems to end.  I'm only 40 minutes in and there's still like another 40 to go but it feels like it's completely over.  Then it shifts to the European campaign of WWII one year later in France, 1944 and now it's like another movie.  The first half was more interesting with the American & German soldiers working together to survive the brutal desert.  There were some scenes that seemed like cheats like the extraordinary amount of casualties in a single blast of a mine field.  It was convenient because it left the two leads (a German Colonel and an American Colonel) plus one more American alive to finish the story.  The other cats weren't needed I guess so they killed them off.

The second half of the show was more by the numbers, get ready for the raid sort of thing.  The action was OK.  The big rescue mission at the end showed the two leads meeting after going their separate ways one year ago with tragic results for one of them. That felt like a cheap shot, too, in an effort to give you that 'war is hell' message.  It's not a bad flick but it's not really all that good, either.