Hmmm… pretty lame. I like to watch as many WWII movies as I can. This was a bit of a stretch.
An Italian ‘macaroni combat’ movie – the military or WWII equivalent of a ‘spaghetti western’ – it’s directed by ‘Frank Kramer’ (real name Gianfranco Parolini), with a mostly Italian cast and crew.
All these Italians pretending to be Americans, dubbed – horrendously woodenly (as was the norm it seems, in this era) – into English, makes for a disembodied and weird feel. The biggest name familiar to me here is Klaus Kinski, cast as a stereotypically loathsome SS officer.
Mixed in with the mostly Italian meatballs, is the really rather gorgeous English actress, Margaret Lee, who made her career working mostly (perhaps entirely?) in Italy.
There’s no point synopsising the plot. It’s a complete muddle. And if ever there were a less interesting McGuffin… I’ve not encountered it.
The whole tenor of the movie is – to contemporary eyes (or mine, at any rate) – quite strange. The music, and even a good deal of the action, are more than a little tongue in cheek.
It’s probably somewhat ‘grindhouse’. I can imagine QT quite liking it. But for me it’s just off on too many notes. The music particularly so. Possibly making for a whole that’s some kind of celluloid analogue of Sven Hassel meets Benny Hill?
I left off after 50 minutes, with 40 minutes to go (had to pick up my wife). I’ll poss’ watch the whole thing, I s’pose? So’s I can tick it off my ‘list’. But it’s an hour and a half I won’t be getting back. Can’t say I’d recommend this one…
PS – Some days later… Haven’t gone back to finish this turkey. Doubt I ever will.