A savage critique with plot elements (necessarily) revealed

Rating: Null/10 (5 June 2003)

A movie so truly awful that its ranking in the canon of World War Two blockbusters is impossible to understand.
It's badly lit, the photography is poor, and the direction plodding. The shots of an obviously model castle wouldn't make the grade as a Muppets backdrop. The dialogue is as wooden as Burton's acting, and even by Alastair McLean's risible standards of plotting the scenario is ludicrous. Out of a seven man special operations team not one but three turn out to be German agents, and of course there is another master spy back at base controlling the show. The only believable line in the script comes from the German general who responds to Burton's explanation of what is going on with: "this is preposterous!".
Burton could teach Superman a trick or two about special powers. Machine gunned in the hand he merely looks at the blood and mutters: "damn". He then proceeds to fight two men simultaneously on the roof of a cable car before a spectacular mid-air leap to another cable car - to which he clings grimly with both hands. His stiff movements make clear he couldn't run across a room to the drinks cabinet, and the running shots (from behind) show an obvious stunt double with a noticeably different physique.
The only entertainment to be had lies in spotting the endless mistakes, continuity errors and nonsense.
When the team parachutes into German and the first fatality occurs, Burton says: "leave the body, the snow will cover it in a couple of hours." Yes, you guessed - it isn't snowing.
An auto crash so violent the car is badly smashed and the driver is thrown through the windshield to his death leaves Burton and Eastwood unscathed in their seats, not even winded.
Burton has an original approach to special operations. Hiding in a bush with an armed German approaching, he waits until he's spotted before raising his gun. He watches Eastwood creep towards a German, then waits until an alarm button is hit, setting off sirens all over the castle, before firing the shots he should have done all along. When he sets a booby trap, he does it from the wrong side so he has to step dangerously over the trip wire. The bombs themselves are unique in their operation. The wire pulls out for as many yards as you want - the bomb goes off when it's touched i.e. pulled out further. Think about that one.
Burton and Eastwood carry backpacks of infinite capacity. The sheer volume of dynamite and machine guns they produce from them would fight a fair sized war. The Germans, however, have no dynamite when they need it. Faced with a barred door, they waste valuable time beating it down with hammers. When they do get round to using dynamite it works in mysterious ways. A tree obstructing a road is blasted away with an almighty bang, a blinding flash and clouds of smoke. The smoke clears to reveal no hint of a crater and the snow lying just as before.
The intrepid team plunge from a cable car into an ice cold river. A couple of shots later they're bone dry and there hasn't been a shiver.
If you wonder why Burton and Eastwood greatly complicate their escape by taking the three double agents along instead of killing them - don't ask. It gets them into a mess so they can fight and use more explosives, that's why.
The best howlers come at the end. Burton radios from the castle for a plane to rescue them. In the few minutes it takes to get to the local airfield, the plane has flown from England to Bavaria. The master spy is, naturally, on board for a showdown. Burton explains they've known for months he was a spy - the point of the elaborate incursion into Germany was to be, well, sure. That's an Alastair McLean storyline for you, folks! The spy is then allowed to escape the hangman by leaping from the plane to his death - except, being a Major, it would, of course, have been a firing squad. Even in wartime, you see, Britain is incapable of a secret court martial for a military spy, and the bad publicity would be, well, embarrassing. Like the movie, really.
If you really must watch this stinker when it comes round yet again on TV do so only to marvel that Hollywood ever made it, that Burton was ever regarded as an A list star, and that so many people paid to see it in movie theaters.