The skills of Julius J. Epstein, Sam Peckinpah and James Coburn combined!

Rating: 9/10 (9 February 2003)

It is not difficult to make a good movie: take a good script, a good director and a good actor. This is what happened in this movie, you have three "best things" combined. Sam Peckinpah and James Coburn don't need to be introduced. Julius Epstein is (was) a very skilled script-writer and very respected for this in Hollywood. He wrote one of the best comedies of all time: "Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)". The script is not falling into the pitfalls of describing the Soviets as heros and the Germans as idiots who can be shot by ten in one machine-gun salvo. The historic context is correct (Kuban-peninsula retreat in 1943) and the battle-scenes are realistic. The Russians brought in an overwhelming battle-power of T34 tanks against the dispersed German infantry and nothing could stop the Russians until they conquered Berlin in 1945. In the heat of the movie you can easily imagine the fear that those tanks could give when you were hidden in a trench!