One of the best war films from my high-school years

Rating: 8/10 (29 June 2004)

This 1968 actioner featuring a younger, slenderer but always
sneering and shooting Clint Eastwood, was one of the most
talked-about films during break at my high school. Especially the
hair-raising scene with Richard Burton clinging onto the top of an
ice-caked cable car about 400 feet in the air. A lot of things stretch
its credibility, such as a 44-year-old man (Burton) doing stunts that
would scare the wits out of a 20-year-old extreme sports champ.
Also, how two men who've been freezing their tails off for more
than 24 hours could still kill half the German soldiers in a heavily
fortified compound, and how Major Smith (Burton) could get shot in
the hand and still carry on like Tarzan. Another scene had five
people jumping into a stream in the Alps in the middle of winter.
Then they climb into a bus and not one of them is shivering or
sneezing, and their clothes are even dry. In real life they would've
frozen to death in that water. Its number-one flaw: I couldn't at 16
figure out exactly why Major Smith (Burton) was going after the bad
guys, and I only figured it out when I watched it again at 43. Nevertheless, it's still fun to watch after more than 30 years.
There's a lot of comic relief, such as when Smith pretends to get
fresh with a fellow agent played by the lovely Ingrid Pitt. Brits
Patrick Wymark and Michael Hordern have good supporting roles
as senior British intelligence officers. Plenty to keep your hair
standing on end.