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.