Most (1969)

AKA: The Bridge

Director: Hajrudin Krvavac

Writers: Predrag Golubovic, Djordje Lebovic

Composer: ???

Starring: Velimir 'Bata' Zivojinovic, Slobodan 'Cica' Perovic, Boris Dvornik, Relja Basic, Sibina Mijatovic, Boro Begovic, Jovan Janicijevic-Burdus, Igor Galo, Wilhelm Koch-Hooge, Hannjo Hasse

More info: IMDb

Plot: In order to check German offensive, Partizans send elite team of explosive experts to blow up strategically important bridge. Besides being heavily guarded, that bridge is almost indestructible and the only man who knows weak spots in the construction is the architect who built it. He is, however, reluctant to cooperate because he doesn't want to see his masterpiece destroyed.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

This is probably the first Yugoslavian war movie I've ever seen.  I'm not going to go out and have a beer and some pie or anything.  I just don't have a frame of reference for what the output quality was from there around this time.  That might help.  Still, it's an OK WWII action flick.  The version I saw was a pretty good anamorphic widescreen print nicely dubbed in English.  The flick offers some decent WWII action with the small demolition team.  The best of which is in the marsh, but here's the deal.  It's one of those pictures where the good guys gun down hundreds of Nazis over the course of the movie.  The grenades kill 8 guys, every bullet finds its target and so on.  It's as ridiculous as one guy out in the open guns down 20 guys from his far left to his far right.  It's ludicrous.  Along the way they pick up the architect of the bridge and he doesn't want to play.  You can easily figure out what's going to happen well before the end credits roll.  The ridiculousness of preparing the bridge for demolition took me out of the film, too.  It's clumsy action in an attempt to mimic a big Hollywood production.  The scenery is nice but you need more than that.

Hell In Normandy (1968)

Original title: Testa di Sbarco per Otto Implacabili

Director: Alfonso Brescia

Writers: Maurice De Vries, Lorenzo Gicca Palli

Composers: Giorgio Fabor, Italo Fischetti

Starring: Guy Madison, Peter Lee Lawrence, Erika Blanc, Philippe Hersent, Massimo Carocci, George F. Salvage, Perre Richard, Antonio Monselesan, Max Turilli, Giuseppe Castellano, Renato Pinciroli, R.O. Mantovani

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Search, find and destroy!

Plot:  In the days prior to D-Day in WWII, a special parachute unit is sent to destroy a German flame thrower installation on Omaha Beach.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Mabye, if a better print shows up.

If you dig on classic Euro War films made in Italy with lots of bad guys getting shot but no blood then this is right up your ally.  There's some laughably cheesy dialogue like when Strobel (Lawrence) is making the moves on Denise (Blanc) and he says, "...that sounds like a line from a play.", the she passionately says, "I was in a play in school once." and he follows it with, "Well, honey, this is dress rehearsal." and then starts mackin'.  Talk about corny.  To make it worse (or better) you've got some lush orchestral strings on the soundtrack for added effect.

On the macho side one American G.I. states he came here to kill him some Nazis.  I'm probably being generous by giving it a 6.5 out of 10 but I had fun and it's not a bad way to kill an hour and a half on some lazy afternoon.  The print I watched was widescreen but it wasn't as clear as it should be.  It looked like a poor-to-decent VHS TV print but it was dubbed in English. I'm sure a pristine DVD quality print would improve one's viewing experience.  Much of the action is reserved for the last twenty minutes and it's at night so having a good print is important if you don't like looking at silhouettes, wondering who is who.

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.

Eagles Over London (1969)

Director: Enzo G. Castellari

Starring: Frederick Stafford, Van Johnson, Francisco Rabal

More info: IMDB

Plot: When Nazi saboteurs murder several of his soldiers and steal their identities, British Army Capt. Paul Stevens (Frederick Stafford) leaps into action on the home front to stop the stealthy spies before they can disable British defense installations. But as he and air marshal George Taylor (Van Johnson) go on the hunt, they discover that the German plan was more devious than they suspected.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Yes!

When I watch a Euro-anything (EuroSpy, EuroWar, Euro/Spaghetti Western, etc) I go in with plenty of excitement and anticipation yet expect the worst. I'm usually satisfied but with this one I was pleasantly surprised. The budget is considerably more than most, especially for Italian standards of the day. There's a SHITLOAD of extras, some great location shooting, bridges being blown up, German fighter planes strafing a massive retreat on a beach, the works!



But what really struck me was the neat story, the suspense and intrigue and the camerawork. Holy shit were there some cool ass camera moves, and not just showy shit, either. There were some fantastic shots where the camera would move from one side to another, twisting and covering the actors' movements seamlessly and almost magically. Yeah, it brought attention to itself on more than one occasion but it was fantastic and it added to the whole spectacle of the film. The shots where the camera left the cockpit of airborne planes and moved around the outside were most impressive. It's the kind of shots you are seeing these days but are done digitally. You damn sure don't expect this from 1969!


And the splitscreen work is amazingly different!





If I do have a beef, it's the same beef I have with sooooooo many WWII flicks and that's the stereotypical 'good' Nazi. You know, the one who doesn't like what's going on and does the right thing in the end (or something to that effect)? I know they existed but it's such a cliche and I wish they'd stop it as that lousy plot device is still used today.


Anyway, back to this fantastic WWII flick...check it out. Netflix it if you digs this kind of movie. If you liked BATTLE OF BRITAIN (1969) then you will love this one. I think it's a lot more entertaining. It's got plenty of action and intrigue to keep you entertained for a couple of hours. It really is one of the best EuroWar films out there and it deserves to be seen.

Heroes Without Glory (1971)

Director: Alfredo Rizzo

Starring: Jeff Cameron and desert full of Italians

More Info: IMDB

Plot: 1942. The Anglo-American Army and the Africa Corps are face-to-face in the desert, separated by some mine-fields which the soldiers have named "the devil's garden". A huge German fuel deposit supplies Rommel's army in North Africa and an allied "commando" has to blow it up. Commanded by an English major, the patrol, after various ups and downs, is reduced to only six men and three prisoners: a chaplain, a Red Cross nurse both German, and an Italian Lieutenant. These three persuade the others to give up their task and follow them in search of the tomb of Pharaoh Cambyse and its fabulous treasure. But an ancient curse lies on the gold, which causes the death of whoever finds it.

My Rating: 4/10

Would I watch it again? ONLY if a nice, widescreen print surfaced


I watched a VHS copy with Greek subs hard-coded and it's a shitty pan & scan print at that. A nice widescreen print would have helped but not much. This one's not good. It's silly and amateurish.

I don't know what it is but it seems that even the Italians make the Arabs into buffoons. I've watched quite a few WWII North African campaign movies this year, made from the 1940s on up, and most of them turn the Arabs into comic relief. I could seriously do without that. These films don't need the "funny" and it's rarely ever funny anyway.

"Laaaaaadyyyyy"

Back to the shitty film...so we're following these guys through the desert for about 45 minutes when they come across a small oasis and, after yet another firefight, they find three survivors, one priest, nurse and a wounded Italian soldier. They're all phonies as they're looking for treasure. WTF? Yup. But we don't know that yet.


It's nearly an hour into the 92 minute picture that the jig is up. Now all of the commandos are on a treasure hunt. They come across an important landmark - a rock bridge! The only rock in a sea of sand! Yeah, great fucking way to hide your treasure. Whatever.


At this point the film shifts. It's now a treasure hunt and everyone turns on the British commanding officer to go after the treasure instead of completing their mission. 15 minutes later they've got all the treasure they can carry when they're attacked by non-funny Arabs (a nice change of pace). Now that that's over with, it's time to relax at the nearest oasis and dream of spending all that newly-found loot and booty.


Say, speaking of booty, the nurse gives us a nice WTF moment by doing what any lone woman would do in a situation like this...get naked and bathe in the water supply just yards from battle-worn soldiers.


Don't get me wrong. At this point it's a nice WTF diversion. I'm ready for this turd to end, and for them to throw this into the mix 15 minutes before it's over was welcomed indeed.


Oh, the priest (who's not a priest we soon discover - but we kind of figured that anyway) is eying her as she bathes, can't take it any longer and tries to slip her his own brand of communion. Big fight and once the dust settles they're attacked by more Arabs. I guess these guys are pissed at how they were portrayed at the start of the picture. Geez. Talk about holding a grudge.


By now the squad is reduced to the British Major, the nurse and some soldier whose name I've forgotten but he's been a HUGE pain in the ass for the Major and he tried to kill the Major at some point. I bring this up because...


They reach the fuel depot they're supposed to blow up and the Major sacrifices himself for the mission and the other cat with the nurse go riding off into the sunset. Well, there's not really a sunset because it's dark but we know they make it because as soon as the depot is kaput, there's a shot of a sub surfacing in the darkness. I assume the two kids make it. Great! Asshole gets the girl and I just lost 92 minutes of my life.


Coriolano Gori's score fits the bill nicely even if sounding an awful lot like John Barry's main theme from ZULU (1964). The direction is sloppy and, for the most part, I just didn't care about hardly any of the characters. The action is OK at best with everyone being shot throwing their arms in the air as they die. Typical low budget WWII fare. It's sad my little Euro WWII binge ended with this one. Almost. I did redeem myself with an amazing British picture called, ICE-COLD IN ALEX (1958). It turned out to be the best WWII film I've seen in a long time. But HEROES WITHOUT GLORY stinks on ice. Pee-yew.

Battle of the Commandos (1969)

Director: Umberto Lenzi

Starring: Jack Palance, Wolfgang Preiss, Thomas Hunter & Curd Jurgens

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: They Challenged the Devil... and Won!

Plot: The story focuses on a band of British ex-cons, who are recruited by Scottish Colonel MacPherson (Jack Palance) to clear a path for British commandos through a minefield off the Normandy coast on the night of June 4th, 1944. When the commando force is ambushed by a German PT Boat, MacPherson becomes obsessed with taking on their mission: destroy a huge railroad gun which threatens the imminent Allied landings, which happens to be commanded by his nemesis, Colonel Ackerman (Wolfgang Preiss), much to the dismay of his men.

My Rating: 7/10

Would I watch it again? Oh, yeah!

And here's the second of three Italian WWII pictures I watched this week...and it's fun! I'm a huge Palance fan to begin with so toss him into a cheesy Italian WWII picture and I'm all over it. Fortunately, it's quite good despite the low rating on IMDB.


The oddest thing about the film is Palance plays a Scot, so hearing him with a Scottish accent is a odd and fun. He's got a beef with the general who's maneuver got all but two of Palance's men killed on their latest mission. Palance's German counterpart, Col. Ackerman was the one who did the killing. The opening of the film has Palance burst into HQ all huffing and puffing, making his way to the general's office. When he gets to the general's secretary who says he can't see the general, Palance slams the guy's forehead and goes in anyway. Classic.


The general's slick. He's got a new mission for Palance who's got a huge "Fuck You" for the general. The general name drops Ackerman as someone who'll be in the vicinity of Palance's mission. Sold. Now he needs a team and there's no one around but these criminals. It sounds like THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967) but it's not. Sure, it's a men-on-a-mission with criminals but that's about where it ends, really. There's no training - just the mission, an unexpected change of plans and Palance's need for revenge.

Palance's nemesis, Nazi baddie Col. Ackerman (Wolfgang Preiss)

Hey, kids! It's Curd Jurgens! You know, the villain in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME!

There was a choice bit of dialogue when the sole American of the bunch is alone with a "lady". The gang had come across a French farmhouse inhabited by a young woman and an older man, her lover. He's shot trying to escape and they take her with them. Anyway, the Yank is alone with her and he wants to know the story on the older man...


Janine: Have you ever been so hungry that you faint from the pain of the cramps in your stomach? I have.

Burke (Hunter): You'd better get out of here.

Janine: No. Listen to me. The first time, it was not like it was in books. It was not romantic. No lovely moonlight. No beautiful words. He was a pig, but I knew afterwards he'd give me a dozen tins of food.

Burke: And then?

Janine: Eating becomes a habit.

Nice...

It's fun. I enjoyed it. I was never bored once. I found Palance to be fun and his mission filled with plenty of action thrown in; enough to certainly feel like you got your money's worth.


Oh, and Marcello Giombini's score with its lighthearted marches just didn't work for me. It's the kind of score that asks the question, "Did you even see the film?"



Don't look for historical accuracy or much of an attempt to make this film stand up to the scrutiny of a larger budget, more detail-minded production. I'm not looking for that in a picture like this. I'm just looking to be entertained and BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS did just that. Thank you Umberto Lenzi. Thank you Jack Palance!

Kill Rommel! (1969)

Director: Alfonso Brescia

Starring: Anton Diffring, Carl Parker and a crapload of Italians

More Info: IMDB

Plot: During WWII, US Lieutenant Morris and British captain Hull are assigned in a mission to kill Rommel.

My Rating: 6.5

Would I watch it again? I could see that happening if I've exhausted all other Italian WWII films

Outside of the US (if not more so), Italy is my favorite country for film output. They exploited everything in the 60s and 70s. Eurowar is a great example. It wasn't until THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), easily one of the greatest WWII films of...all...time, came out and became an international success that the Italians dove into the WWII action genre head first. I have no idea how many were made but the genre lasted only a few years into the early 70s but they raped and pillaged those years until there wasn't much left.


This is the third night in a row that I've watched an Italian WWII actioner and KILL ROMMEL! is the least of the three. That's not saying it isn't good. It is for the most part. It's the acting (could be the dubbing, too, but there are scenes where, dubbing or not, he's pretty bad) by the lead, Carl Parker as the sole American - Lt. George Morris. He's pretty lousy and it brings down most scenes where he's doing some 'acting'. It's no shock to see by his credits on IMDB that this is his first of 4 films he's acted in. Outside of that, it's quite a good picture.


The story's about Morris joining a British "Rat Patrol-esqe" force in Africa during WWII. There's just a handful of them and Morris, a Texan (we're told), wants to do things his own way and has a complete distaste for his British commanding officer, Captain Richard Hull (very nicely played by Anton Diffring). That's all fine and dandy if Morris weren't such a fucking baby about everything. He bitches about shit almost as much as Anakin Skywalker in ATTACK OF THE CLONES. His inability to obey orders gets him and his comrades into some shitty situations.


After the first quarter of the film Morris court martialed for disobeying orders. The Lt. gets him off the hook so he can join his team on a plan to kill Rommel. Intelligence (bad intelligence...bad) has it that Rommel will be arriving at a small air field. The boys tear through the town, killing everyone in sight, hauling ass to the air field on the outskirts. Killing Germans left and right they end up in pursuit of the general, eventually killing all passengers including the decoy. WTF? He's a decoy? It's not the real Rommel? That's right. Shit. Now they're doing their best to get the fuck out of Dodge 'cause the Jerrys are hot on their tail. What follows is a series of action sequences that end up killing off some of the men leaving Morris and Howell left along with an Italian prisoner they picked up along the way. Will they make it back to HQ across the unflinching desert?




It's really got a lot of action and some terrific location shooting. I love this shit. Lots of great WWII desert fights with the usual machine guns, tanks, planes and so on. Really fun stuff. But goddamnit! Parker is bad. His character doesn't really have much of an arc, either, although they try. He's just at a point where he's doing what he can to survive. That'll change anyone in some way. I will say that his acting improves 'slightly' in the second half of the film since he's not complaining much and in the final minutes of the movie he's got that Harrison Ford look going for him.


In all, it's definitely worth a look. The copy I watched was a TV rip from where I don't know but it's letterboxed and a good print. I'd hate to think of how shitty this would be in a full screen, pan & scan version. The wide shots of the terrain in KILL ROMMEL! are fantastic. Don't cry yourself to sleep if you can't find it. It'll turn up somewhere and when it does, you'll have fun.