Sam Peckinpah's WWII message movie, set in the Nazi trenches outside Stalingrad, is not exactly anti-war (under fire, the infantrymen learn to cultivate profound, soul-searching eye contact), but it is explicitly anti-officers. In one of their unending bunker debates, the aloof, aristocratic commandant asserts that all men of quality come from the upper class, and the fraternal fighting man retaliates with two exceptions, Kant and Schubert; and so it goes in the bunker. Peckinpah has been over this ground before, notably in Major Dundee and in his script for The Glory Guys; but in his main argument, as well as in his protracted action scenes, he seems here like someone who's trying to recall a tune, and can't quite get it. His good moments are as occasional as James Coburn's German accent. With James Mason, Maximilian Schell, David Warner. (1977) — Duncan Shepherd
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