1968 war, dir. Brian G. Hutton, Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood:
IMDb. The captured general
has to be got out of the impregnable fortress. Or does he?
This was, at least in my memory, one of those traditional "bank
holiday films" on British television in the days when that was still a
thing. Like The Guns of Navarone it's an Alistair MacLean
adaptation, but this was the first screenplay he wrote himself. (The
exact order of writing isn't clear, though the novel came out first.)
So it's interesting to see the differences between the two; the film
is more violent, while the novel has more humour and romance.
Some of that may be thanks to Clint Eastwood, at this point primarily
known for his westerns with Sergio Leone. (Who said "He only has two
expressions, with the hat and without the hat.") He was constantly
agitating for fewer lines and more action. His drug of choice seems
to have been adrenaline; he got a Norton P-11 racing motorcycle as
part of his payment, and went off with Ingrid Pitt to try it on the
track at Brands Hatch. Meanwhile Richard Burton is in his four bottles
of vodka a day phase, and apparently vanished from the set to go on a
bender with Peter O'Toole, Oliver Reed, Trevor Howard and Richard
Harris.
A small extra pleasure for me is Michael Hordern as the British
controller of the operation; I first encountered him reading M R James
ghost stories, and I love that voice.
All right, a little rant: you really don't have helicopters at this
date. There are a few early designs, dual intermeshing rotors with no
collective control (because Sikorsky's invention of it is still an
American secret), but they aren't commonplace and most people's
reaction would not be "oh, a helicopter" as it is here but "what on
earth is that"; in any case what we see here is a redressed Bell 47G
with the classic soap-bubble canopy, and that won't exist until 1953.
But there is nothing quite like real snow on film.
An extra bonus for me is Ingrid Pitt, who makes any film better, as
the local contact; as far as I can tell she was the only member of the
cast who had actually lived under Nazism, and indeed was in a
concentration camp with her mother until they escaped, so that may
bring some slightly edge to her performance here.
But the heart of this film is the dinner scene, with what was by now
MacLean's trademark, lots of twisting and turning and trying to work
out who's on which side. It may not be a terribly sensible plan, but
it does at least make some approximation of sense.
And from that point on it's pretty much a running fight. (You do not
shoot an MP40 on full automatic one-handed! Not more than once,
anyway.) In its day, this seems to have been regarded as unusually
violent even for a war film. But very popular even so.
Another small rant: there are some very convenient packaged explosives
here, with both tripwires and clockwork timers. The real ones of the
day were much less handy and reliable!
Like The Guns of Navarone this isn't claiming to be Great Film but
to deliver uncomplicated adventure with some twisty bits. And it does
it.
I talk about this film further on
Ribbon of Memes.
- Posted by Chris Suslowicz at
12:36pm on
15 August 2026
To add to the ranting, nitpicking, et cetera:
Back in the day, I had the opportunity to shoot a number of automatic weapons on various (military and one civilian) ranges. NONE of the SMGs are safe to fire one-handed due to the recoil forces being offset from the buttstock and the appalling "rate of climb" if you try it. Light (Bren and GPMG on bipod) and Medium (GPMG on tripod and Vickers, etc.) are fine - they're heavy enough to stay put on target.
The backpack wireless set (No.18) has a range of a couple of miles and wouldn't get out of the mountains.
The explosives... nothing like that would ever exist (on cost, efficiency, flexibility and above all SAFETY grounds).
State of the art was Switches No.1, 2 & 3 (pull, pressure, release), time pencils (not in cold weather), the "L Delay", and chunky brass Venner clockwork timers - all of which used standard crimp-on detonators and percussion caps (plus Bickford safety fuse if you wanted a delay between trip and boom. Explosives: Nobel's 808 (plastic), Dynamite/TNT sticks or cast blocks for special purposes.[1]
(But showing Joe Public a crash course in boobytraps was not in anybody's interest, and would severely derail the plot.)
But it was a fun watch, nonetheless.
The JU-88 pilot was a member of our Radio Society, and actually owned the aircraft. :-) (Said aircraft is no in a museum somewhere in The Netherlands after a forced landing made it uneconomic to recover/repair - it was in commercial use for many years, though not in its original paint scheme of course - and has now been restored for display.
Chris.
[1] I can thoroughly recommend reading "Winston Churchill's Toyshop" by R.S.MacRae for what they should have been using in the film. :-))>
- Posted by RogerBW at
12:57pm on
15 August 2026
My favourite of the ancillary explosives tech is definitely the time pencil, in part because of the compensation table included with each kit so that you know how much longer the internal corrosion will take in cold weather. As far as I've been able to tell, tripwires were usually used for alerting (cartridges, flares) rather than for setting off damaging explosive charges.
I continue to feel that the submachine gun was invented mostly because the fully automatic shotgun wasn't yet possible.
- Posted by Chris Suslowicz at
03:04pm on
15 August 2026
The "L Delay" (an MD1/Toyshop product) was far more accurate than any of the chemical action delay systems (10C rise in temperature doubles the rate of reaction, apparently). The " L Delay" worked by applying spring tension to a precision machined lead rod (from memory: lead from the Broken Hills mines (Australia) with its 5% Tellurium content made the most accurate delay elements) until it broke, releasing the needle striker. The detonator was a standard No.8 with a specific ICI detonator carefully crimped into the open end, which would fire if pricked by a needle.
SMGs were intended for street fighting and trench warfare where range and accuracy were less important and pistol ammunition (US .45ACP, German 9mm parabellum, etc.) was good enough and ideal from a logistics point of view.
Automatic (self-loading or otherwise) shotguns are difficult to make reliable enough for military purposes: you need cartridges that are robust and stay rigid, which meant full-length brass cases. The pump-action Winchester 1897 "Trench Gun" was extremely effective despite the limited magazine capacity. Fully automatic pretty much demands a high-capacity magazine or being belt-fed.
Why do I remember all this stuff? I haven't fired anything in over a decade now (due to the handgun ban and all the local ranges closing down, not to mention old age, etc.)
:-(
ObTime Delays: the RAF used acetone dissolving a plastic disc in some bomb fuzes, which is why some UXBs dug up in Europe are blown in-situ rather than being de-fused and hauled away for safe disposal. There have been incidents where uncovering/disturbing a bomb has started the reaction and caused the death of the disposal team (there's no clock you can hear running or stop with a big magnet).
- Posted by RogerBW at
05:17pm on
15 August 2026
I haven't shot anything since the early 1990s but I remain a gamer who likes to get details right.