The ultimate Nazi turkey shoot - what's not to like?

Rating: 9/10 (3 June 2008)

Along with Aldrich's superlative "The Dirty Dozen" this is the ultimate boy's own wish-fulfilment Second World War Nazi turkey shoot. And one of coolest war movies of all time. I make no bones here  I love it.
Alistair MacLean's convoluted and twisty original script (he turned it into a novel at pretty much the same time) is designed to shift like an over-fuelled V2 rocket on nitroglicerine steroids. The plot is a vaguely labyrinthine vehicle for the pyrotechnics and mayhem; it drives the action without begging too much thought.
A group of crack Brit paratroops (and one American) are dropped into snow-swept Bavaria to rescue an American General who is being held captive by Fritz in the impenetrable Schlos Adler  reachable only by cable car and helicopter. General Carnaby is, however, a fake  an American actor impersonating the real article. From then on in it gets increasingly more complicated, but, what the hell, who really cares?
The two male leads, sixties movie icons in their own distinct ways, are unlikely bedfellows to say the least - Shakespearean Welsh actor Richard Burton and sardonic, minimalist American anti-hero Clint Eastwood. Yet, the way in which their polar opposite acting styles compliment each other is a rare surprise. Both stars seem to be having a ball, and neither overshadows the other. It makes for intriguing if not compelling viewing.
This film has an almost Biblical disregard for human life and revels in arbitrary death and destruction. The sardonic and self-satisfied laughter of Burton as he and Eastwood blow up half a Bavarian village as a distraction and flee on a motorcycle and sidecar gives a clear hint at the gratuitous lack of conscience. Indeed, Nazis are shot, strangled, stabbed, blown-up, incinerated, hurled through car windscreens, kicked off cable cars, thrown down mountainous drops, etc, with a frivolous sense of cruel glee. Eastwood's special-forces assassin is as blackly humorous as he is cold and lethal. His stock greeting of "Hello" just before he shoots someone point blank or machine-guns a stairwell full of Germans somehow (strangely) helps make him a likable character. He kills more people in this film than he has in any other to date.
The dialogue is littered with sharp witticisms and memorable catchphrases:
(After Shaffer/Eastwood has just killed a German with a knife) Smith: "That was quick." Shaffer: "Fear lent him wings, as the saying goes."
Smith: "Broadsword calling Danny Boy."
Mary: "You're too old for this." Smith: "Thank you for those few kind words."
In the end, though, the aim of the film is to cram as much non-stop action into it's running time as it can and waste as many sons of the Fatherland as possible in the process.
Technically, it is a product of it's time. The back-projection on the cable car scenes is shockingly poor by today's standards, and in many other respects it shows it's age. Also, Eastwood's resolutely sixties hairstyle and cynically hip demeanour places him incongruously in a whole different time frame.
Yet it continues to remain a ripping yarn and a terrific thrill ride with a cracking cast. I've watched it dozens of times over the years and something always seems to draw me back to it. I've seen what are considered to be more "worthy" and meaningful war movies a mere once or twice and probably never will again. That's entertainment for you.