{"id":29005,"date":"2025-12-13T22:16:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T22:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=29005"},"modified":"2025-12-14T07:40:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T07:40:24","slug":"media-wheels-of-terror-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=29005","title":{"rendered":"MEDiA: Wheels of Terror, 1997"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This movie is about on a par with the book it\u2019s loosely based upon. Strangely enough, I only quite recently bought this very book, amongst several Hassel and Fleming (Bond) paperbacks. Or did I? I know I certainly have this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m actually quite enjoying this film. Even though it looks and feels rather low budget (stock footage is rather clumsily mixed in, occasionally). Sure, it\u2019s farcical in its machismo, just like Hassel\u2019s books. But it\u2019s also fairly unique, in all honesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main cast includes a bunch of quite familiar faces – e.g; Bruce Davison, David Patrick Kelly – who, I think, acquit themselves just fine. The big guns include David Carradine, as Col. Weisshagen, and Oliver Reed, in a brief cameo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Carradine, as Weisshagen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are several things I think make it worth watching: the mere fact that a film of a Sven Hassel book exists, at all, for starters. Then there\u2019s the portrayal of the action inside a tank, long before Fury<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central mission of the film – as described above in most movie \u2018blurbs\u2019 – doesn\u2019t get started until about an hour in. And that\u2019s some time after a rather lame-ass segment focusing on a visit to a brothel. I guess that part is in keeping with the book\/rest of the movie, but it feels a bit like a distraction\/waste of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wheels of Terror<\/em>, filmed on location in Yugoslavia, is also unusual in how it makes use of Russian materiel<\/em>, for both Russian and<\/em> German armour, etc. which is mildly galling to a buff like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
T55 as a Panzer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ok, this is along way from being classic. Or even very good. But, perhaps rather strangely, it\u2019s still worth watching. There are even a couple of half decent scenes, such as the attack on the munitions base, the encounter with beaucoup de<\/em> Russkis in the woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s another gratuitous nudity interlude, when they stumble on a crowd of Russo-German ex-military non-combatants, that\u2019s borderline surreal. But perhaps such things did occasionally occur?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing that grates slightly, like the Russian tanks passed off as Krauts, is the unvarnished American accents of the actors. I think some rudimentary nod towards Germanic accents would\u2019ve been nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The thing is, I stuck with it. And I enjoyed it. I\u2019ve bailed out of loads of crap modern movies. This is some slightly older crap. But it\u2019s nowhere near as crap as a lot of modern drivel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, this isn\u2019t a glowing recommendation. But on the other hand, if you like WWII movies, and perhaps even more so Eastern Front films, and better yet those from a German perspective\u2026 well, in several senses of the phrase, it\u2019s a no-brainer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Bruce Davison as Col. Porta.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This movie is about on a par with the book it\u2019s loosely based upon. Strangely enough, I only quite recently bought this very book, amongst several Hassel and Fleming (Bond) paperbacks. Or did I? I know I certainly have this one: I\u2019m actually quite enjoying this film. Even though it looks and feels rather low … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MEDiA: Wheels of Terror, 1997”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"MEDiA: Wheels of Terror, 1997","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-7xP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29005"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29005"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29015,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29005\/revisions\/29015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}