Dynamite!

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2013)

Of which Clint Eastwood had a seemingly endless supply, while the Nazis had none and were also poor shots to a man too. This is how to make a motion picture and entertain people; belief has to be suspended, because of course, all fictional motion pictures are fantasies and are the produce of many peoples imaginations. It's a relentless and engrossing action-packed ride - if some people can't like it they must analyse things too much and without a trace of a sense of humour.
Wartime British army special team are sent to rescue an American General confined by the Nazis in a supposedly impenetrable castle in cold and snowy Bavaria. Except as usual with the British secret services there are many traitors around who craggy Richard Burton has to unmask as well. It's all very stiff upper lip stuff, even the token Yank Eastwood (that's why the Hell he was there) appears as a semi-regal second-rate punk. Between the two of them they bring to their enemy widespread devastation and anachronisms and are totally unflappable while outstaring Death. It's obviously all the result of Burton's character possessing an innate seventh and eighth-sense for danger. Favourite bits: the multiple confrontation between the interested parties at the castle dinner table; the bloody escape from the castle (there were even people left alive!); Burton improbably jumping from one cable car to another; the explosive chasing of the bus to the impossible catching of the instant airplane; many others. How any film can leave in a shot of the entire camera crew reflected in a window and get away with it shows you how much panache this film had whatever the errors littered in it, and how literally escapist it was to make all errors, plot devices and plot holes completely forgivable.
It's so good it's still a regular slot filler on UK TV and one I've seen a shamelessly sad number of times now to know almost by heart. It helps that We Won, I think. But if you know something is enjoyable why dis it just because you've seen it before, why not enjoy it again and again? I've also liked Mars bars ever since the 1960's too. Fantastic entertainment clearly from the 1960's but not as dated as most of the tripey and trippy films made in that decade.