Castle Keep

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with long, beautiful shots of ancient European art and sculptures being blown to pieces amidst the sounds of war and dissonant screams; a lone narrator begins his tale of "eight American soldiers" as the scene abruptly flashes back to a few weeks beforehand. Prior to the Battle of the Bulge, a ragtag squad of American soldiers (strongly implied to be some sort of replacement outfit), led by one-eyed Major Falconer (Burt Lancaster) and including Sgt. Rossi (Peter Falk), art expert Captain Beckman (Patrick O'Neal), and the highly intelligent narrator and sole African-American, Pvt. Allistair Benjamin (Al Freeman, Jr.), takes shelter in an ancient Belgian castle, the Maldorais, containing many priceless and irreplaceable art treasures. Although Falconer begins an affair with the young and beautiful Countess, he is surprised to find the Count (Jean-Pierre Aumont) encouraging him; in fact, the impotent nobleman hopes the Major will impregnate the Countess so that his line may continue. Meanwhile, Beckman begins to butt heads with Falconer over both the value of the art (in the context of either saving or destroying it in the event of a German assault) as well as Beckman's own unrequited attraction to the Countess, who seems to symbolize the beauty and majesty of the European art he studied before the war. The enlisted men seek their own pleasures in the brothel of the nearby town, the psychedelic "Reine Rouge" (Red Queen) run by a mystical madam, whilst Beckman marvels at the castle's artworks, many of which are stored beneath the castle for safekeeping. Sgt. Rossi, a baker before the war, falls in love with a baker's widow and decides to go AWOL, resuming his pre-war life; another soldier falls in love with a Volkswagen Beetle; his affection for the foreign vehicle borders on paraphilia and becomes a long running and anachronistic gag throughout the entire movie.
The film from this point on begins to reach a surreal climax, as the soldiers' days of leisure and peace threaten to undermine the very reality of the war itself. A recurring theme throughout their escapades is the very idea of eternal recurrence itself, as one soldier drunkenly ponders out loud if maybe he's "been here before". Although the men are eager to sit out the war that they feel will soon end, the experienced Major Falconer predicts that Germans will attack the thin American positions in the Ardennes and that the castle is a strategic point in the Germans advance towards the crossroads of Bastogne. The Major's theories are confirmed when he sees German star shell signals and successfully ambushes a German reconnaissance patrol led by a German officer who was once billeted in the castle and was a lover of the Countess as well.
Captain Beckman and the Count are horrified that the Major will not abandon the castle, a decision that will surely lead to its destruction; Falconer, however, is adamant that to give the Germans one thing means that they'll just end up "taking everything" later on (see appeasement). Falconer prepares defensive positions around the castle and sends his unit into town. The Germans are initially taken by surprise, as Falconer directs the local sex workers at the "Reine Rouge" to draw them into a trap with Molotov cocktails; however, the defenders soon find themselves outnumbered and outgunned (although two GIs manage to steal and repurpose a working German tank, which they jokingly claim is "better than ours"). Seeing no other choice but to retreat to the safety of the castle, Falconer attempts to rally shell shocked American troops retreating from the Ardennes into the Maldorais, forcing (at gunpoint) a band of zealous, hymn-singing conscientious objectors, led by Lt. Billy Byron Bixto Bruce Dern, to lead the dazed survivors in a bizarre Pied Piper-esque procession; symbolically, they are all mostly killed by an exploding shell, all except for Falconer, who stoically returns to the castle for his last stand astride a pale white horse. He returns to find that the Count has run over to the German lines; Beckman thinks he has a scheme to betray them and let the Germans seize the castle by using the underground storage tunnels to gain access; however, it is soon revealed that the Count was really only trying to buy as much time for the Americans as possible so that they could make it to the castle and strengthen their defenses. As soon as his ruse is discovered, he is gunned down trying to run from the Germans. Falconer and Beckman put aside their personal and ideological differences and grimly prepare for the oncoming assault with a .50 caliber machine gun pointed across the castle grounds.
At the conclusion of the film, everyone defending the castle—with the exception of Pvt. Benjamin and the pregnant Countess, who escape to safety using the art storage tunnels, following the last, direct orders of Maj. Falconer—is killed by waves upon waves of besieging Germans in an absurd battle scene featuring the enemy storming the gates using the ladder carrying fire trucks, and much of the castle (along with its art treasures) is eventually obliterated by artillery, incendiaries and other modern day weapons. Falconer, the last defender left alive, begins to think of all of the people whom he has killed or have died because of his actions as well as the Countess as he guns down the rapidly approaching swarms of German soldiers, implying that he did indeed feel guilty about their deaths and that he had indeed loved the Countess much more than he had ever let on; a shell finally lands on top of his position and explodes as the screen goes white. The film ends where it began, echoing the theme of eternal recurrence, with more long shots of the undemolished Maldorais as it once stood as well as a voice-over of Benjamin's narration from the very beginning before the scene fades to black.

Tags: tragedy, anti war, psychedelic, satire, violence

Review:
Now that I've watched CASTLE KEEP for myself, all I can say is that it's arguably the strangest mainstream war movie ever and decidedly not for all tastes!The relatively large cast (for what turns out to be an introspective film) is uniformly excellent and is well up to the requirements of the brilliantly surreal, funny and literate script; Burt Lancaster, wearing an eye-patch throughout, has an unsympathetic role as the formidable leader of a group of misfit soldiers taking over a Belgian castle against unseen invading German troops.
He is skillfully abetted by Peter Falk (as a soldier who abandons his post to indulge in his vocation as a baker), Jean-Pierre Aumont (as the "degenerate" owner of the titular castle), Patrick O'Neal (as a celebrated art historian all at sea on the battleground but well in his element surrounded by the castle's objets d' art), Scott Wilson (as a soldier who gets into quite a unique relationship  more on this later), Tony Bill (as the most spiritual of the men) and, the other side of the coin, Bruce Dern as a Bible-thumping conscientious objector who walks the Belgian rubbles with his ragged band of revivalist deserters-followers.
The terrific cinematography of the awesome European locations  courtesy of Henri Decae  is complimented by a fine Michel Legrand score and, when they finally come, spectacular battle sequences.But it's the odd, surreal touches  including Scott Wilson falling in love with a Volkswagen, the same car rising from the sea after it has been drowned by his envious companions and floating ashore all by itself, the moving sequence between Tony Bill and an unseen German soldier (subsequently needlessly shot by Peter Falk) where the latter teaches the former how to play the flute correctly, the unusually realistic talk of fornication, sexual organs, impotence, the ambiguous (perhaps ghostly) nature of the characters involved and the events being enacted, etc.
The theme of the relevance of art in times of war brings forth comparisons to John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN (1964), also starring Burt Lancaster, whose third (and final) collaboration with director Sydney Pollack  after the previous year's THE SCALPHUNTERS and THE SWIMMER (where Pollack replaced original director Frank Perry but goes uncredited)  this proved to beperhaps as a result of the critical beating the film received upon its original release!.
War is hell and war is insane, we've been told many times before, but rather than a bitter, angry polemic, this film is a surreal, dark-humored allegory that is as light as a fairy tale at times but ends up being the movie 'Apocalypse Now' wanted to be.
Their commander (Burt Lancaster) stubbornly decides to fortify the ancient treasurehouse and put up resistance to the enemy rather than passing it by, risking the castle's destruction along with a millennium's worth of acquired art.It's impossible to imagine this movie being made even five years before it was, but by 1969 the Vietnam War had done a number on a lot of people's thinking and provided some different perspectives.
The squad, led by an eye-patched Burt Lancaster, try to halt the German advance by hunkering down in a medieval castle that has been miraculously unaffected by the tribulations of the war.
Unusual (more realistic - and surrealistic - than in other films) point of view on horrors of war, good directing and a strong cast.
Very unusual films for Hollywood standards, very brave, and as it seems timeless.In an interview Mr. Pollack once said that he thinks Castle Keep was way ahead of its time.
The film is nominally about a group of American soldiers who are making a stand at a Belgian castle--waiting for the inevitable attack from the Germans around the time of the Battle of the Bulge (December, 1944).
There's the wife of the castle who sleeps with various men because her husband is impotent and he wants a son, there's an art historian(!) who gives lectures to men who have zero interest--but who LOVE to hang out at a brothel filled with 1960s-style prostitutes, a guy who is in love with a VW and predicts it's the car of the future, a guy who wants to do nothing but bake--so he hangs out in town and bakes bread, a group of religious freaks who are pretty much guaranteed to offend and folks talking about the meaning of life.
A cult film that Columbia Pictures has done the devil to bury, keeps resurfacing because of it's exceptional poetry, invention, and flawless execution - on the part of director, editor, and camera crew, but also thanks to some of the most powerful acting on film, especially from Lancaster and Falk.The writers and the director have striven hard to push the boundaries of cinematic story telling, and to do so without looking 'low budget', as many other more intellectually advanced films of the period did.In the last analysis, calling this film 'anti-war' is as inappropriate as saying that of Sam Fuller's "Big Red One".
But as Fuller made plain in his wholly realistic film, war creates just the sort of environment where the surreal happens.BTW, what made this a cult film in the first place is not any 'anti-war' message (the message is actually more 'anti-European' if you follow the dialog closely), but rather its remarkable comedic sense of the absurd, made most famous by the affair with the Volkswagen, but actually more impressive with Falk's baker (who moves in with the Belgian town's baker's wife, because, well, that's what bakers do, they live with baker's wives).All this adds up to a stunning, even shocking film, that is still highly entertaining.
Travelling through Ardennes forest, American Major Falconer leads his small rag-tag platoon to the medieval castle that belongs to the Count of Maldorais, so they can use it as a stronghold against the German soldiers.
Adapted from William Eastlake's novel, this is pretty much a calm conversational piece that likes to philosophically reflect on itself with a haunting and decisive charge, before it changes pace (and somewhat direction) to actually lead up to a loud, chaotic, brutal and taut action climax in the dying stages of the film.Pollacks' smooth n' breezy execution leads the way to a slow plodding pace, where it's a clash of personalities and a lot little trivia set in motion.
Burt Lancaster's stoically dominating portrayal, with a smart slight tongue is excellently delivered and Peter Falk's no-nonsense, grounded to reality performance is superb as the baker at heart Sergeant Rossi.
It took me a long while to think of it, but he's almost like the Eleanor character in The Haunting, because of the way he's taken over by the castle completely, and his "private war" with the major because of it.
Burt Lancaster is a Major with an eye patch in the U.S. army commanding a squad of men charged with protecting a medieval castle.
Then the Germans arrive and the action begins in this last stand film as the Battle of the Bulge gets started.This was director Sydney Pollack's second film with Burt Lancaster and he was something of a protégé for Lancaster.
There's good reason for this.THE PLOT: The Germans are marching on a Belgium village in the Ardennes where a squad of American soldiers makes a stand at a 10th century castle."Castle Keep" has a lot going for it: a great cast, including Burt Lancaster, Peter Falk, Bruce Dern & more; fabulous Yugoslavian Winter locations & castle; thrilling action scenes; it's well-made on a technical level by renowned director Sydney Pollack; and it hardly comes across dated, even though it's fifty years old (as of this writing).
Fans of the film describe it as "poetic" & "haunting" and it's obvious the filmmakers were shooting for something groundbreaking, meaningful, artistic and amusing.Unfortunately "Castle Keep" is mostly uninteresting until well into the second half, which is when the great action scenes start.
I busted out laughing!Speaking of which, I busted out laughing quite a bit throughout, which shows that the movie works as a satire or low-key war comedy.A reviewer offered the interpretation that one soldier, the writer, is simply remembering how it was, not how it really was, and that's why it comes across so dreamlike and bizarre.
Starring Burt Lancaster, Bruce Dern, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Peter Falk.
The action when it comes is savage and colourful, and Lancaster's one eyed Major is good fun, it's just everything else is masquerading as a near hallucinogenic anti-war movie mixed with euro pontifications.
Set during the time of The famous Battle of the Bulge, this war film will stand the test of time and become part of Lancaster's greats.
The story concerns a war weary company of U.S. soldiers who have been ordered to hold a particular crossroads near a 10th century pristine Castle.
Though the heart of the movie concerns the holding of the Castle, the story also delves into the personal thoughts and feelings of the Major's men.
The amount of drama and exciting war time action is enough for any viewer who enjoys films of military conflicts.
A group of American soldiers defend an isolated castle against German soldiers.Castle Keep (1969) is an anti-war film directed by Syndey Pollack.The cast list looks quite handsome, starting from Burt Lancaster, who plays the one-eyed Major Falconer.Then we have Peter Falk playing Sergeant Rossi.Sadly we lost Peter, the great actor, last June at the age of 84.Patrick O'Neal plays Captain Lionel Beckman.Jean-Pierre Aumont is The Count of Maldorais.Scott Wilson is Corporal Clearboy.Tony Bill plays Lieutenant Amberjack.Al Freeman Jr. is Private Allistair Piersall Benjamin.Bruce Dern plays the part of pacifist Lieutenant Billy Byron Bix.This movie is quite surreal, maybe even to the point it turns against it.But there was something I liked in this movie.One quite interesting scene was the German flute expert in the bushes.
And man's undying love for Volkswagen is something I can't remember seeing in any other movies.Not to forget Peter Falk and the breads.If you have seen many war films, and you want to see something different, then you should watch this..
Almost incidentally about war, it features a delightful supporting role by Falk, a subdued and powerful Lancaster, a literate script and Sydney Pollack's sure hand at quirky story telling.
But let's not forget the strong performances delivered by Peter Falk (as a private who prefers to bake fresh bread, rather than fight a dirty war) and Bruce Dern (as a sort of conscience objector of the times).The landscape, the scenery, are magic to say the least.
These soldiers, all want a spot in which to be at peace, and thought they have found it, are then suddenly, brought back to reality through the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes.Most of the movie, is a consideration on what a folly war is in the face of so simple realities of everyday life, such as indeed, baking bread, early in the morning and smelling its fresh and "clean" scent.
What matters is that when in the right frame of mind and when the occasion justifies it, we all are guilty of "willing" a war.This is why "Castle Keep" is not just a novel or a movie, but rather a mirror placed right in front of us, forcing us to think and think hard.
I remember that even in the movie theater, it was shown in a Monaural version.Pity they don't make them anymore like this, but then again, where would you find actors of a caliber such as Burt Lancaster, Bruce Dern, Peter Falk or even, Patrick O'Neal?
He was given an all star cast of excellent actors, a fantastic castle and town set locations, a great premise for an epic movie and he comes up with *this* drivel?The film has absolutely *NO* plot, it alternates between a war movie, a comedy, an anti war movie, and does a uniformly bad job at all of them.
There is 1960's "hippy" speeches, a roving group of religious zealots, a fully equipped fantasy whorehouse, a beautiful unblemished story book castle in the middle of a war zone late in 1944, and that's just the few things that pop immediately into my mind.This movie is too bad to be good, too lame to be camp, too stupid to make *any* point except "-Look at just how bad a director can fail-"Do yourself a favor and skip this one.
During the first half of this 106-minute movie, castle owner Count of Maldorais (Jean-Pierre Aumont of "The Siren of Atlantis") welcomes Major Falconer, Captain Beckman (Patrick O'Neal of "El Condor"), Lieutenant Amberjack (Tony Bill of "Ice Station Zebra"), Sergeant Rossi (Peter Falk of "Anzio"), Sergeant DaVaca (Michael Conrad of "Sol Madrid"), Corporal Clearboy (Scott Wilson of "In Cold Blood"), Private Allistair Piersall Benjamin (Al Freeman, Jr. of "The Lost Man"), and Elk (James Patterson of "Lilith") to the castle and hope that they will defend it from the enemy.
Principally, Maldorais wants them to save his works of art and hopes that the virile Major will get his classically gorgeous wife, Therese (Astrid Heeren of "Silent Night, Deadly Night"), pregnant because the count is impotent and needs a male heir.After the Americans settle in—Falconer warms up the master bedroom with Therese, the soldiers head into town to the Red Queen brothel, while Rossi befriends the widow of a baker (Olga Bisera of Women in Cell Block 7") and starts baking bread.
The second half concerns the castle defense and a brief but explosive battle with tanks blasting away at the architecture as well as the Americans concealed behind it.Despite its pretentious, cool attitude toward warfare, "Castle Keep" qualifies as a traditional war movie, but it is far from conventional.
Indeed, some of the best World War II era films dealt with gallant last stands, such as "Wake Island," "Bataan," and "China." The Germans constitute a faceless enemy.
You can tell that "Castle Keep" is an anti-war movie because it refuses to glorify warfare.
If a bunch of hippies teamed up with Federico Fellini to make a WW2 film after attending an anti Vietnam war rally, it would probably look something like director Sydney Pollack's "Castle Keep".Psychedelic, surreal and zany, "Castle Keep" opens with a series of dreamy shots.
Recognising that the German Army is advancing toward a nearby town, Falconer decides to turn a medieval castle into his own private fortress; the Germans will have to destroy it and him if they wish to advance any further.Fittingly for a film released in 1969, amidst the social turmoils of then-contemporary United States, Falconer's men are a gang of Vietnam-era slackers, shirts untucked, jaded, cynical and tired of killing.
Destruction, for Falconer, is its own brand of beauty.Late in the film, it is revealed that Falconer is sleeping with the wife (Astrid Heeren) of the Count (Jean-Pierre Aumont) to whom the castle belongs.
The only one who gets what he loves, seems to be Falconer."Castle Keep" echoes the counterculture-inflected war films of the 1960s and 1970s ("Catch-22", "Kelly's Heroes", "Go Tell the Spartans", "MASH", "Dirty Dozen" etc).
The film hits its height nearing the end with an air attack that is quite brutal.When the plot does finally kick in (essentially their story of survival and keeping the Germans from taking over the castle), you are engrossed with what's happening, so it's easy to be inclined to think that it's a better film than it is.
No doubt someone will tell me I'm missing a deeper meaning to the film, but I'm not sure I want to know what it is.To top it off, the movie is so dull that I could have cared less what was happening to the characters.
During World War II a small squad of 8 American soldiers led by Major Abraham Falconer (Burt Lancaster) relocate to a castle in Belguim.
The count and his castle have survived German occupation, and he does not want his world destroyed by GIs turning it into a modern war roadblock.
His ally is Patrick Neal's Captain Beckman, who happens to be an authority on art and pleads with Falconer to continue their retreat so the castle and its art treasures can be spared.On the other hand, the scheming count wants his beautiful young wife impregnated for an heir and the predominating Major Falconer takes diversion from his unit and the war to do that duty, while killing a young German officer who had tried to return to see her.
TV series: the château program with Joan Hackett as the count's daughter and the demolition - of all the beautiful statuary in the cave under the bombed out château and German observation point - program with Charles Bronson.Finally, Private Benjamin represents what Pollack may have thought was the most relevant and valuable art, chronicling the castle's last epic, and his and the countess's fate - dictated by Major Falconer - is the true climax and message of the film.Lou Coatney.
Where they came from is unknown.Leading the group is a one-eyed Major Falconer (Burt Lancaster) who wastes no time in bedding the castle's Mistress Therese (Astrid Heeren) who is by the way, the wife/niece of the Count.
Beckman (Patrick O'Neal), Sgt. Rossi, a baker (Peter Falk) who moves in with the local town baker's wife, Cpl. Clearboy (Scott Wilson) who falls in love with a Volkswagen, young Lt. Amberjack (Tony Bill), Sgt. Devaca (Michael Conrad), Pvt. Elk, an Indian (James Patterson) and Pvt. Benjamin (Al Freeman Jr.) an aspiring author who narrates the story.Count Maldorais manages to convince the group to defend his castle and its treasures against an expected German attack.
As stated before, a group of American soldiers are stationed in a castle near the end of World War 2, and eventually meet a German offensive at the nearby town and at the castle itself.
All in all, Castle Keep is a surreal film, which may turn some viewers off, but the combat sequences are good, and the movie is good entertainment for an evening..