CLASSIC or ANTIQUE? Immortal Sergeant (1943)

            “Immortal Sergeant” was the first American WWII film set in North Africa.  It may be set there, but it was filmed on a sound stage.  It was directed by John Stahl and was based on the novel by John Brophy.  Although named after Sgt. Kelly (Thomas Mitchell), the main character is Cpl. Colin Spence (Henry Fonda).  Fonda hated the movie and looks miserable in it.  The 37 year old actor volunteered for the military and was set to go into the Navy when studio head Daryl Zanuck pulled strings to get his entry postponed so he could make one more film.  Fonda was pissed.  After the film, he served in Naval Intelligence and was awarded the Bronze Star (I’m sure he did something very brave to earn it).

                Kelly and Spence are in the British 8^th Army in the Libyan Desert.  Kelly is quickly canonized as emblematic of the greatness of the British Army.  Spence, on the other hand, is a milquetoast wuss who entered the Army to assuage the humiliation of losing his girl Valentine (Maureen O’Hara at her loveliest) to a cad named Benedict (more like Bene-dick!).  We know about this love triangle through frequent flashbacks that makes us want to slap the wimpy Spence across the face.  One reason Spence joined up was to grow a pair and a suicide mission seems to be the ticket.

                Spence and Kelly lead a patrol of fourteen (place your bets on how many will survive) behind enemy lines to blow stuff up.  Things do not go smoothly, naturally.  First, they come under attack from Italian fighter planes dropping bombs they do not have (how many times have I seen that in a war film?).  Spence tells one of the soldiers to “try for the pilot” and another to “go for the rear gunner” with their rifles!  LOL   But wait, I apologize because they shoot down one of the planes.  The plane makes a crash landing while aflame and proceeds to chase the patrols truck and ram into it killing eight of the men.  LOFL  This is one of the most hilarious scenes in war movie history.

                The remainder of the patrol continues on and receives a note sealed in a tin can dropped by a British plane.  The note warns them that there is an Italian armored car up ahead.  The note reads “Don’t worry, it’s only an Italian armored car”.  Just kidding.  They decide to take on the very fake looking vehicle.  In the ridiculous action scene, Sgt. Kelly gets wounded by a grenade even though he’s shielded by a sand dune.  Spence insists on dragging Kelly along so Kelly belies the title of the film by taking his own life.  He leaves behind his voice in Spence’s head.

                Kelly leaves some big shoes to fill (and a halo to wear), but Spence’s feet suddenly grow four sizes.  The remaining three soldiers find out quickly that Spence is channeling the tough sergeant.  It’s tough love as he shares his last cigarette.  They pass it around like a joint and then the last toker buries the butt because it could give away their position.  LOL   

                The quartet approach an oasis, but before they can reach it the Germans swoop in and take possession.  Spence goes to scout and it turns out he’s not alone.  Kelly is with him and they debate what to do.  Spence sneaks into the German camp and steals water and food.  He  convinces his mates to attack the Germans in a sand storm.  They kill all the Germans, use a grenade to blow up the German transport plane, and explode the ammunition dump.  Piece of cake.

                The film closes with Spence lying wounded in a hospital.  He is a hero now and when Benedict comes visit he gives him the old what-for.  Now Spence is going to fight for what he wants, just like America should.  Buy war bonds!!



a fiery redhead and her wimpy beau

                Even if you cut this movie some slack because of when it was made, you cannot get around the fact that it is atrocious.  I think Fonda hated it partly because of the circumstances he was forced to make it in and partly because he knew it would go on his resume.  The flashbacks are incredibly sappy and aggravating.  The Spence character is pitiful and his transformation into Rambo is ludicrous.  The acting is substandard.  What do you expect when your star is seething?  The sound stage is disconcertingly fake.  The music is hammy mood music.  The special effects are embarrassing, even for 1943.  The dialogue is corny and having Spence talk to Kelly in his head does not help matters.  The only positive thing I can say is the weaponry appeared to be realistic in the oasis attack scene.  I recognized bolt-action rifles, a Lewis gun, and Mills bombs.

                Classic or Antique?  Definitely an antique.  You should only watch this if you want to see what a 1943 propaganda film was like or if you want a good laugh.

grade =  F

WHERE DIRTY HEROES DARE: A Serial Satire

           Two years ago I participated in a fun thread on Arm Chair General's forums which involved writing a screenplay for a war movie.  The project was initiated by a bloke named Tommy Atkins and it was a lot of fun.  It turned into a parody of war movies, in particular the suicide mission subgenre.  It fizzled after a while and I always planned to revive it.  I have decided that rather than simply adding on to the last scene, to instead rework the screenplay and then carry it on to a conclusion, hopefully.
           Whenever you see a red number, it's a footnote referring to what movie is being satirized.
            I plan to post a new episode at the beginning of each week.
            Enjoy the ride!

EPISODE 1

 

Act I Scene 1
Somewhere in England - Summer 1942

Camera follows a pair of highly polished army brogues as they stride briskly down a corridor.

Martial music scored by Elmer Bernstein plays in tune to the footsteps. Lots of drums and some whistling.

Credits roll and conclude with “Based on a true story - sorta”.

The shoes enter the door and we see that they belong to British Army commando officer David Niven.

Niven waves his arms to cut through the cigarette smoke. In the room is an eclectic mix drawn from the allied forces. Most look tough, some look psychotic, some just look mysterious. One looks sexy.

Lieutenant Colonel Niven casts an eye over the crew and says: "Well chaps and chappette, I suppose you are wondering what this is all about."

Pre-war career criminal and ace safe-cracker U.S. Marine Corps NCO Steve McQueen removes the match he is chewing from his mouth and says: "I'm not your chap and I don't care what this is about. I only came because I heard the food would be better than the limey crap I've been having to eat. If I have to eat one more bite of mutton I’m going to strangle someone."

Pvt. Terry Thomas chirps up: "I say, Guv'na, why am I here with these Yanks? I'm just an orderly."

Niven looks over the group and says: "You each have a special talent that the Allies need for a very special mission. Pvt. Thomas, for instance, is able to mimic any voice."

Sgt. Aldo Ray stands up and growls: "What's the dame doing here? No dames on a mission. They are bad luck!"

He cast's a scornful look at Ava Gardner.

A sexy sultry voice comes back at him: "Sit down and stop talking out of your ass. And put your damned shirt on. Who do you think you are - Brad Pitt?" 1

Sgt. Ray glares at Ava Gardner and says: "That's no way for a lady to talk."

Ava glares back at him and says: "That wasn't me. It was Terry Thomas. And I’m no lady."

Niven interrupts the spat with a wave of his riding crop.

"Gentlemen, and lady [he bows to Gardner], we have a job to do and little time to plan it. I suggest we get down to business."

"And what, may I ask, is the nature of our business?" Thus questions PFC Burt Lancaster as he playfully twirls a vial of nitro-glycerine between his fingers.

"You must be the explosives expert" said Niven.

Lancaster pretends to fumble the nitro - "At your service, sir".

Niven gives him a cold glare and perpetual coward PFC Don Knotts throws himself on the floor and whines: "Excuse me, Mr. British officer, sir. I don’t think I’m cut out for anything strenuous. I have asthma, I’m allergic to face paint, I’m afraid of heights and loud noises like explosions, I can’t keep a secret, and I have pisciphilia."

Niven: “What in the hell is pisciphilia?”

Knotts: “It means I have a desire to be a fish. I don’t suppose this mission has anything to do with u-boats, does it?” 2
Corporal Michael Caine (the knife expert) shouts, "I've had just about as much as I can stomach from this little nutcase. If someone don't shut him up I'll gut him like a fish." He throws a switchblade that lodges in the chair inches from Knotts nuts (if he has any).

Niven stands between the two and says to the group "If you perform like this behind enemy lines you'll get us all killed! There’s no 'I' in camaraderie." A couple of the others look puzzled, but noone says anything.

The silence is broken by McQueen: "Say... what’s all this about going behind enemy lines?"

Niven takes his time about lighting a cigarette and says: "Now that I have your attention"... 3

1- "Inglourious Basterds"
2 - “The Incredible Mr. Limpet”
3 - The basic scenario is from “Guns of Navarone”

 

 

The Eagle Has Landed

                “The Eagle Has Landed” is an action/adventure war movie released in 1976  It is firmly in the suicide mission subgenre.  It was directed by John Sturges ("The Great Escape") and was his last film.  It is based on the novel by Jack Higgins.   It opens with a reference to Otto Skorzeny’s daring rescue of Mussolini from captivity.  This inspires Hitler to try to capture “his greatest enemy” – Churchill.

                The head of military intelligence, Admiral Canaris (Anthony Quayle), is assigned the task of implementing Hitler’s dream.  He meets with an officer named Radl (Robert Duvall), but denigrates the whole fantasy and wants to just go through the motions.  However, Himmler (Donald Pleasence) gets involved and green-lights the project.  Radl warms to the possibilities when information arrives that Churchill will be visiting an isolated British village.  Radl chooses a decorated war hero named Steiner (Michael Caine) to lead the mission.

Steiner does not like Nazis

       We meet Steiner (the same Steiner who appears in "Cross of Iron") as he bucks authority by trying to save a Jewish woman from the S.S.  Steiner is insubordinate, anti-Nazi, anti-brass, cynical, and worshiped by his men.  He ends up getting court-martialed and he and his men are sent to a penal colony.  Similar to the plot of “The Dirty Dozen”, they are promised forgiveness if they undertake the suicide mission.  Radl also recruits an IRA operative named Devlin (Donald Sutherland) to participate.  He considers himself an Irish patriot, not a traitor.

                Devlin goes on ahead and makes contact with a sleeper agent, a woman named Gray.  He also meets and charms a lass named Molly (Jenny Agutter) who inexplicably falls so hard and so quickly that she kills her beau when he is going to rat out Devlin.  Granted, he was a lummox, but her treason for love is a bit too pat.

                Steiner and his men parachute into England dressed as Polish soldiers.  The sleepy villagers are welcoming and then grateful when one of the Germans saves the life of a local girl.  Unfortunately, the gratefulness is short-lived as the incident results in discovery of their true identities.  The populace is quickly rounded up and held hostage in the local church.  One of the townspeople manages to escape and goes up the road to inform an American Rangers unit led by a buffoonish Colonel Pitt (Larry Hagman)  His daddy must be a general.  He looks at the situation as a chance for glory and disregards the sane Capt. Clark’s (Treat Williams) advice to go slow.

a bazooka in a cemetery - shame

                Pitt does his Custer imitation resulting in a nicely staged fire-fight that features graphic wounds and lots of fireworks including some nifty bazooka work.  It’s a disaster and Pitt can’t even defeat Mrs. Gray.  His encounter with the spy has a twisted ending that almost compensates for the tomfoolery.

                Capt. Clark arrives with reinforcements and a brain, so now the German’s are trapped with the hostages in the church.  Steiner, being a human being, not a Nazi, releases the hostages.  Molly shows him a secret passage out of the church so he can go kill Churchill (the things a British girl will do for an Irish spy she just met).  Steiner’s crew offer to stay behind to delay the Rangers and provide us with more violence.  Devlin also escapes.

the last thing Churchill saw?

                Steiner, now disguised as an American, manages to get to Churchill.  Does he win the war for Germany?  Hey, if the Inglorious Basterds can kill Hitler, why not?

                “The Eagle Has Landed” is not on a level with “Guns of Navarone” or “Where Eagles Dare”.  It is even more implausible than most of the suicide mission subgenre.  The romance that is thrown in is ridiculous as well.  The acting is a strength.  Caine ably fills James Coburn’s shoes as Steiner.  He has a lot of charisma and it is easy to see why his superiors are enraged by him and his subordinates are willing to die for him.  Paired with “Cross of Iron”, Steiner is one of the great anti-heroes of war movies.  Quayle is good as Canaris and accurately portrays his disgust with Nazi schemes.  Although the movie is pure imagination, Canaris was a leading figure in the resistance against Hitler and even collaborated with the Allies.  His involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler cost him his life.  Devlin is a nice addition and offers a different perspective.  Sutherland plays him as a charming rogue.  The one false note is Hagman as Pitt.  The sudden injection of comic relief is a bit jarring in an otherwise serious movie.

                The movie was filmed in an English village, so the setting is picturesque.  The action set pieces are well done, but too brief.  The weapons appear authentic except the bazooka is a later model..  The score is typical for this type of movie.  It is satisfactory, but does not stand out like in “Where Eagles Dare”.  The intrigue is also inferior to WED.  It lacks real suspense.  You know Steiner will not hurt the hostages, for instance.  One questionable element is the introduction of American Rangers into a story that should have been limited to Germans and British.  This seems to be a marketing decision to help with the box office.  It is reminiscent of Sturges’ “The Great Escape” where three Americans characters were inaccurately added.  Can’t the British defend their own Prime Minister?  I suspect American’s would have been upset if a plot against FDR was foiled by British forces.

               In conclusion, "The Eagle Has Landed" is entertaining, but certainly not one of the 100 Best War Movies.  Kurt Steiner will have to be content with his "Cross of Iron" making the list.  But then again, he probably would not give a damn about such a list.

Rating -  6/10

Here is my updated ranking of the great suicide mission movies:

       1.  Where Eagles Dare

                2.  Kelly’s Heroes

                3.  Inglorious Basterds

                4.  The Dirty Dozen

                5.  Guns of Navarone

                6.  The Eagle Has Landed

FORGOTTEN GEM? "The Secret Invasion"

    
     "The Secret Invasion" is a B war movie by Roger Corman that was released in 1964.  It is your basic suicide mission involving convicted criminals who will be pardoned if they survive.  The theme predates "The Dirty Dozen" by three years.  Although not in a league with the DD, it has its charms.
     The British recruit a heterogeneous crew which includes a forger, an explosives expert, a master of disguise, an assassin, and a master criminal.  They have various degrees of surliness and reluctance to go.  They are led by a proper British officer (Stewart Granger) who has an ulterior motive of revenge for the death of his brother on an earlier mission.  This mission involves freeing an Italian general from a fortress prison so he can get the Italian army to switch sides.
      In a scene similar to "Guns of Navarone", their fishing boat in stopped by a German patrol boat and guess who wins the confrontation.  They link up with partisans including a pretty widow with a baby  (Corman throws in a gratuitous breast-feeding).  The assassin and she hit it off, but in a scene I eerily remembered from childhood, he accidentally smothers the child while keeping it quiet when Germans are near.  The mom takes it stoically and the hardened criminal breaks down.  The asassin is played well by the usually evil Henry Silva, one of the great villain character actors of the 60s. 
     Mickey Rooney as the IRA explosives expert handles the comic relief better than you would expect.  When he is digging a tunnel under the fortress, he cracks "a few more days of this and I'll be able to get a card in the mole union."  As an Irishman, he naturally is always looking for his next drink.
     They get surrounded and allow themselves to be taken captive because that will get them into the fortress.  They each are tortured under the orders of your stereotypical urbane Nazi.  The torturing appears half-hearted and is just your basic beatings,so they have time to plot not only their escape, but the rescue of the Italian general.  They walk out in disguise and when they are discovered it initiates an extended fire-fight with a large German unit.  Luckily, a partisan army comes to their rescue and enough blanks are expended to make several war movies.  The submachine gun should have been given a credit in this movie.
     You probably can guess that not all of the team survives the escape. Here is the order of deaths: 1.  machine gunned while rear-guarding (redemption)  2.  catches a grenade to save the others (self-sacrifice)  3.  blows himself up using a grenade to take out a machine gun nest (live by the sword)  4.  dies from loss of blood after removing his tourniquet to lure the German bloodhounds away from the others (leadership)  5.  killed by Italian soldiers after he pretends to be a German soldier assassinating the Italian general (who turns out ot be loyal to the Germans) to get the Italian army fired up (thinking outside the box).  Mission accomplished!  If you are counting, that leaves only one survivor.  (Someone has to survive to tell the story so a historical movie can be made about it years later.)
     This is a fun movie.  Sometimes you just want to chill out and watch some fluff that is not pretending to be anything but.  Much of the plot is ridiculous, but what suicide mission movie does not rely on suspension of disbelief?  Corman is famous for doing a lot with a little and it shows here.  The cast is not all-star, but they are recognizable for my generation.  You even have teenage heartthrob Edd Byrnes (not surprisingly the weakest of the cast).  The action is entertaining and the dialogue is not too cringe-inducing.  Do not forget that it came out before "The Dirty Dozen" so I guess you could accuse the DD of  being a knock-off!