Tough, gritty WWII drama...one of the best of the 70's

Rating: 8/10 (2 September 2007)

Cross of Iron is truly one of the great war films. The battle scenes are filmed with an intensity that you rarely see in films like this. The cast is first rate and Coburn is especially hypnotic as the heroic Steiner, the war-torn soldier who gets involved in a bitter feud with the newly transferred Captain Stransky (played with grim authority by Maximillian Schell). Stransky is obsessed with being awarded the Iron Cross and tries to bribe Steiner into signing a reference for him by promoting Steiner to a Sergeant. Steiner is a complete rebel in as much as he hates authority in the German Army so his promotion does little for him. He is admired by senior officers for his impressive soldiering and his leadership of his platoon so his shortcomings in his behaviour causes them 'to look the other way'. Stransky on the other hand is a wealthy man with Prussian blood and one suspects his Captain's rank came from his higher class background rather than his soldiering skills (as indicated in a bloody battle scene where he cowers away in his bunker, and the real soldiers are out in the trenches fighting at close quarters). These are two totally different men and the conversations indicating their bitter rivalry are fascinating. Coburn and Schell are perfectly cast, but the support is top-notch too with James Mason as the old-school type Colonel and David Warner as a slobbish Captain who seems to have given up hope on everything in general. Peckinpah is one of the few directors who can handle confusing battle scenes with such masterly control(check out the first shoot-out in 'The Wild Bunch') and was definitely the right man for the job here. The film puts an unromantic point of view on war as having the heroic soldiers on the retreat and losing big time - there's no flag-waving patriotic rubbish here - just a good, honest tough war drama. A terrific film which is generally overlooked in a lot of top ten war lists.