'70s stars go to war

Rating: 5/10 (11 September 2017)

William Goldman adapted Cornelius Ryan's non-fiction WWII book from 1974 detailing Operation Market Garden, wherein 35,000 men were dropped behind enemy lines in the Netherlands: two divisions of U.S. paratroopers were responsible for securing the single road (a sticking point) and bridges up to the city of Nijmegen, while a British division was to land near Arnhem and hold both sides of the bridge, supported by a brigade of Polish paratroopers. The operation, a failure, was intended to allow the Allies to break through German lines and seize the bridges in the occupied Netherlands. Extraordinarily detailed and well-researched document, somewhat hindered by the sudden appearances of Elliott Gould or Robert Redford or James Caan. All-star films (particularly disaster movies or large-scale epics) were commonplace in the 1970s, but today the anachronistic appearances of so many famous faces works against the film's seriousness as a document of wartime. Technical aspects are all first-rate. Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography is wonderfully vivid in the outdoor scenes of strategy and battle, but he can't do much with the classroom sequences of various major generals studying the plan of attack laid out by the commanding general of the British Airborne Forces Corps (Dirk Bogarde), who acts sinister although he isn't intended to be. Worthwhile for historians, yet director Richard Attenborough's attempt to give personality to as many of the players as possible stretches out the running time for a war-movie too long. ** from ****