"Burton...Mitchum...Steiger...Enemies...Yet Allies In Combat With Destiny!"
Starting in late May 1944, during the German retreat on the Eastern Front, Captain Stransky (Helmut Griem) orders Sergeant Steiner (Richard Burton) to blow up a railway tunnel to prevent Russian forces from using it. Steiner's platoon fails in its mission by coming up against a Russian tank. Steiner then takes a furlough to Paris just as the Allies launch their invasion of Normandy.
Richard Burton
Sergeant Steiner
Rod Steiger
General Webster
Robert Mitchum
Colonel Rogers
Véronique Vendell
Yvette
Werner Pochath
Keppel
Klaus Löwitsch
Krüger
Michael Parks
Sergeant Anderson
Helmut Griem
Major Stransky
Curd Jürgens
General Hofmann
Starting in late May 1944, during the German retreat on the Eastern Front, Captain Stransky (Helmut Griem) orders Sergeant Steiner (Richard Burton) to blow up a railway tunnel to prevent Russian forces from using it. Steiner's platoon fails in its mission by coming up against a Russian tank. Steiner then takes a furlough to Paris just as the Allies launch their invasion of Normandy.
On paper, this ought to have been a belter. Andrew V. McLaglen being no stranger to grand scale cinema and a cast of Hollywood A-listers to deliver a story of wartime betrayal and courage. So what happened? Richard Burton dons a rather erratic German accent as the conspiring and rather hot-tempered sergeant "Steiner" who finds himself under the command of his own personal nemesis "Von Stransky" (Helmut Griem). Fortunately, for him, at the behest of his scheming general "Hofmann" (Curd Jürgens) he is despatched to try and make some sort of truce with the approaching allies at the height of the Wehrmacht's conspiracies to be rid of their Führer. Along the way he manages to help out American colonel "Rogers" (Robert Mitchum) but will that be enough to convince the sceptical "Gen. Webster" (Rod Steiger) that the approach isn't just a ploy to lure them into a trap, or buy more time, or both! Unfortunately, neither Burton not Mitchum are anywhere near their best here and though the director does his best to keep the film moving along with plenty of action and battle scenes, there are still too many flawed sub-plots, a weak and rather verbose script and multiple shallow characterisations to make the film flow well or engagingly. Steiger features much too sparingly to make much of a contribution and after about an hour I felt that I was watching an hybrid of half a dozen other, better, WWII adventures. I'm sure it was an useful payday for all concerned, but as a piece of cinema it's pretty disappointing.
In WWII Western Germany, Private David Manning reluctantly leaves behind a mortally wounded fellow soldier and searches for survivors from his platoon, only to learn from commanding officer Captain Pritchett that they have all been killed in action. Despite requesting a discharge on the grounds of mental disability, Manning is promoted to sergeant and assigned to lead a new platoon of young inductees.
April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.
The breathtaking story of a man who nearly would have changed the world. In 1939, when Hitler tricked millions of people at the height of his power, radical Georg Elser — disparaged as an assassin — is one of the greatest resistance fighters.
It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralised—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich is still vastly superior to the Russian army. However, within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors.
As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.
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The story of the final seven months in the life of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.