War comedy for older teens, adults - Some great moments.

Rating: 6/10 (29 September 2008)

I wanted to shout "The Battle of the Bulge is almost over. Next Christmas - HOME!".
Yes, this film is bit of a caricature. The hammy guy doing the mail delivery, the gags on the Germans (I love the "Many Adolfs" gag); Animal (Richard Strauss) slobbering over real-life WWII pinup photos of Betty Grable; the fake-jolly cutesy German guard (Sig Rumann); and the typical nasty Nazi (Otto Preminger) - all wisecrack their way thru this cold dreary December...You can see where Hogan's Heroes came from.
Septin (William Holden) is the POW shyster who runs his various businesses making money off his suspicious co-prisoners.
He has made so much off his fellow prisoners that he can even bribe the guards to let him go in and hook up with some Russian female prisoner in the next camp. This rather unbelievable event is part of the first part of the movie. Think 1960's Hogan's Heroes TV series! What's the crisis? A Traitor - a German soldier disguised as a fellow POW is in their midst.
Septin is their top suspect. Here, the movie gets serious (mostly).
The German spy (disguised as fellow POW)finds out how the new prisoner blew up a trainload of ammo. How will the POWs get the new prisoner away from the Nazis before the Gestapo gets the POW saboteur? How can they silence the German spy without getting shot by the Germans in reprisals??? It's not as good as THE GREAT ESCAPE, but is still worth watching.
Here, the parts are more than the whole. Various scenes will stick with you. Watch to see!