Deep disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (29 November 2000)

I had looked forward to this movie for a long time, especially
as it was in the IMDB top 250, but I was aghast. It was
predictable, inane, and the acting, with the exception of
Holden, was atrocious. These were cartoon people living in a
world that ran on cartoon laws. For me this was a lame, dead
duck of a movie. If the prisoners had really been so boorish and
stupid, I would have gladly informed on them myself, if the
Germans had not been even worse; the Volley-ball playing guard
apparently had a mental age of four. This is an embarrassment
compared to the earlier The Grand Illusion by Renoir, also in
the IMDB top 250. Presumably, at the time this movie was made,
people wanted some light relief, including ex-POW's, but there
must have been many who suffered in these camps who were
mortified by this nonsense. Perhaps I was approaching it from a
wrong perspective. I've repeatedly enjoyed Benini's Life is
Beautiful while many have disliked it's humorous approach to the
holocaust. I was, however, able to suspend disbelief and enjoyed
the Betty Grable hallucination. Nevertheless, these prisoners
should not have been released even at the end of the war, for
the good of humanity who might have had to sit next to them on a
bus, but perhaps they were safely transferred to Sgt. Bilko's
platoon, which is where they deserved to be