All Hell.

Rating: 6/10 (5 November 2013)

Sam Pekinpaugh has given us a big war-time movie situated on the Russian front, starring James Coburn as the savvy and taciturn Sgt. Steiner and Maximilian Schell as the newly arrived, dapper, Junker aristo, eager for the Iron Cross, the decoration given only for heroism in battle. It has Pekinpaugh's signature on it -- an abundance of painful deaths, more explosions than have ever before been committed to celluloid, and all in slow motion. The story is such that, if it weren't for some cogent lines, it could have been directed by Sam Fuller.
I'll give one example of what I thought was a good line. At the end, both Coburn and Schell stand face to face, armed, and about to be overwhelmed and killed by the onrushing Russians. It's only a brief pause, but Schell admits his status still requires the winning of the Iron Cross. "You come with me," says Coburn, "and I'll show you where the crosses of iron are." It's neat because by a simple transposition of words within the phrase, Coburn has turned a medal (the Iron Cross) into a grave marker (crosses of iron).
It has its weaknesses. It's really too long and too loose-limbed for what it has to say. As Steiner, Coburn is a monument to military perfection, while Schell is a stereotypical cowardly and spiteful traitor. Coburn does well enough by the role of the humanitarian but dedicated sergeant.
Schell is a marvelous actor but he has only one scene in which he's able to put his chops on display -- when he tricks a subordinate into admitting that he prefers the company of men to women. "He said YES! He said YES!" Schell is in a transport of delight at having finagled his subordinate into a possible admission of homosexuality which, as far as we can tell, isn't true. The effect, though, is to make the subordinate a compliant slave.
It's not a bad film in any way but it lacks poetry of any kind. Pekinpah by this time in his career was describing himself as "a functioning alcoholic." He's lucky he got it out at all.