Stoßtrupp Gold

Whilst it would make few people's "All time top ten" lists, I'm hard pressed to think of a film which is so relentlessly enjoyable as "Kelly's Heroes". Part war movie, part comedy, part bank-job caper, the different elements combine seamlessly to produce a distinctive and memorable film.

Clint Eastwood, in an unusually subdued but nonetheless commanding performance, plays the leader of a platoon of restless GIs in the chaos of post D-Day France. When he captures a German officer who just happens to be in possession of a solid gold bar, Clint extracts the necessary information and before you can say "Three Kings", he's hatched a plan to make it 30 miles beyond enemy lines to nab the $16 million stash. He can't do it alone, of course, but has no trouble in convincing his fellow troops that if they're going to be killed in this war, the reward for them should be worth the risk. Enlisting the help of Quartermaster "Crapgame" (Don Rickles) Sergeant "Big Joe" (Telly Savalas) and Sherman tank driver "Oddball" (Donald Sutherland) among others, Kelly and his platoon of ironic "heroes" are soon on their way to an eventual showdown with the German Tiger tank unit guarding the bank...

All too often cross-genre pictures can be let down if the balance isn't right, but that's not the case here because each element is as good as it can be. The action and battle scenes are well executed, especially that in which Oddball and his Shermans attack a German depot. The comic relief is genuinely funny rather than cheesy, and includes a beautiful scene at the climax of the movie which gently parodies Clint's spaghetti-western days, complete with the strains of cod-Morricone music. The suspense is well maintained where necessary, such as the scene where the platoon is caught exposed in the middle of a minefield with a truckload of Germans bearing down on them. And of course there is the ensemble cast, which is uniformly excellent. Keep an eye out for a young Harry Dean Stanton, and Len Lesser, who is better known as Uncle Leo in "Seinfeld". Sutherland's proto-hippie ("Always with them negative waves, Moriarty!") and Carroll O'Connor's manic General Colt are just two performances which live long in the memory, alongside the ever-reliable Eastwood and Savalas.

There are a few points made about the madness and futility of war if that's what you're looking for. Allied bombers knock out bridges by day, German mobile engineers rebuild them by night... neither the Americans or the Germans seem to know what's going on or where their lines are supposed to be... behind the lines our heroes are attacked by their own aircraft... General Colt mistakes Kelly's gold-inspired push for a patriotic determination to end the war, and mobilizes his army to follow him, chastising the staff officers around him for failing to show the same spirit!

But ultimately, this movie is about entertainment rather than political comment. And as such it is one of the most successful examples of its type, as the almost total absence of negative comments from this page should indicate. The script by Troy Kennedy Martin ("The Italian Job") is tight, and direction by Brian G Hutton ("Where Eagles Dare") equally assured. Perhaps regarded as lightweight in comparison to other, more serious "men on a mission" movies such as Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" or Hutton's aforementioned "Where Eagles Dare", the film has nonetheless been influential. For example, although David O Russell's "Three Kings" veers off on a tangent and makes more of a serious comment on the US role in the Gulf War, its matchbook plot (ie that which can be written on the back of a matchbook) is the same as "Kelly's Heroes". And in the speakers mounted on the side of Oddball's tanks, used to blast music at the enemy and freak them out, there is more than a hint of the Wagner-playing helicopters in Coppola's "Apocalypse Now", still some nine years hence at the time of this film's release.

In my humble opinion, therefore, "Kelly's Heroes" is a supremely enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. You will be doing yourself a favour if, next time you get the chance, you take a look. It's rare that I see a film and don't think at least once that I'd change something about it, but if there is something to change in "Kelly's Heroes", I don't know what it is. With that in mind, I give it a...

(10/10)

I'm the first one to rant at ridiculous war movies. The history has to be right, the uniforms, and so on and so on. Plots have to be creditable or I'm the first one to cry foul. But then there comes along movies like Kelly's Heroes. It's violent and meaningless really...but funny and very exciting. The gear is accurate for the most part, which is far more than I can say about the bulk of so called serious war films. Even with the infamous Tiger tank the film makers attempted to at least make the Russian built Yugoslav T53s they were using look like Tigers. I think they were T53s, they did such a good job of making them look like Tigers it's hard to tell. The whole film is a 1960s anti-establishment slant thrown on a pretty standard WWII story about GIs on a mission behind the German lines. In this parallel universe John Wayne type mission, these guys are out for number one. It's their mission, not the US Army's or the Allies. With a headlines crazy General chasing behind them with his photographer looking to pin medals on "his boys" for piercing the German lines and apparently leading his "charge", they're heading for a town full of Germans guarding a bank with three Tiger tanks. Clint Eastwood has to pick up the means to complete this personal mission along the way without the secret leaking out. We even have 1960s Hippies in this silly war torn 1940s world. Donald Sutherland is a riot as a stoned Sherman tank commander who seems to have stepped into a timewarp and emerged in 1944 and found himself at the helm of an armored unit. Several then unknowns are in the film, including Harry Dean Stanton and Gavin Mcleod. Beautiful scenery and photography shot in what was then Yugoslavia. Excellent attention to equipment detail. Good, if over the top, performances all around. Suspense and excitement. Very funny. And possibly the silliest pothole laden plot to ever pass itself off as a war movie. If you're a war movie buff with a sense of humor you'll love it.

Interesting enough, reading through the comments on this film, I noted only one detractor, some sorehead from Canada who completely missed the point of the film. No, Sr. Canadiense. This is not a serious film about WW2. Read some of the excellent commentaries here about the social and temporal context of this film, i.e., the height of the Vietnamese war. Yes, Sutherland, your fellow countryman, was an active anti-war protester and fully embraced the anachronistic hippie role. The mad-cap story which tweaks the nose of the "establishment," in this case, the military establishment, is plausible when you let go of the blood, guts and glory of the war film genre. And, it is a damn funny film. Eastwood is at his clenched jaw, cynical best; Savalas is great as the Sergeant big-guy; Carrol O'Conner is riotious as the general; Rickles is, well, Rickles. But, Sutherland steals the show. The scenes where they tanks come out blasting the Germans to the tune of twangy Country-Western music is hilarious. Sutherland's out-of-time-sync "...no negative vibes... hey, man...yeah, baby..." is side-splitting. The final confrontation scene between the three striding up to the German tank commander, with Sutherland loosening his side arm, ala Clint Eastwood in Fist full of Dollars is a riot. This film is full of funny stuff. And, you can see it again and again and find new business to laugh about. Buffs will delight at seeing Harry Dean Stanton in a pre-Repo Man role and Richard Davalos who played James Dean's doomed brother Aron in East of Eden. This is a great piece of satire that was overlooked, cast aside and has still survived to the delight of those of us who enjoy it again and again. But, hey, don't just take my word for it. Of the 30 or so commentaries here-- and do read them, as there are some excellent ones-- only one was a detractor.

Kelly's Heroes does not try to trivialize war. It portrays a comedy within the boundaries of war's absurdity. (Quite frankly, I did not like the film MASH because I felt it did try to trivialize war).

What makes Kelly's Heroes a success is that the director never forgot that the point of comedy is to make us laugh. There's no message here; just pure entertainment.

The film is believable because it stretches, but never steps over, the line of plausibility. The story is preposterous, but in the confusion of war we can believe something like this could happen. Those who have served in the military have all met characters like the ones in Kelly's platoon, even Oddball. Yes, Donald Sutherland was clearly cast out of time, from the 60s, but he somehow personified the rebel in all of us, and that spans generations. If anything, Oddball subliminally told us it was okay to view the film from our vantage point of 1970. His character worked. And so did all the others.

On top of that, the filmmaker spent the extra time and expense to insure reasonable technical accuracy. The uniforms were authentic and I was most impressed by the fact that the vehicles and equipment, for both sides, were accurate. (My biggest gripe about 'Patton' was that it used M-41 tanks for both sides, just painted differently).

The structure of the film is excellent. We believe everything is real. The early scene where the platoon is sitting on the side of the road while a seemingly endless convoy of Sherman tanks passes is a perfect example. There may have only been a few tanks but the way they were looped about continuously gave the impression of 'a cast of thousands'. The Yugoslavian backdrop was reflective of WWII Europe.

Watch this film a few times and you'll catch the slight nuances not normally found the first time through. It's classic how seemingly unimportant early events or dialog enhance the humor of later scenes. For example, when Oddball first shows Kelly his tanks he says they have loud speakers to calm their nerves and paint in their shells to scare the Germans. Early Sherman tanks had a low velocity shell that was ineffective against German armor. Later we roar when Kelly catches a Tiger from its vulnerable rear, but Oddball forgets to fire an anti-tank round and instead splatters it with pink paint! The railroad yard attack scene, (which is superbly choreographed, and tactically accurate) becomes absolutely riotous when Oddball's crew plays 'I've been working on the Railroad' after destroying the place and rumbling away.

Don Rickles should have won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Crapgame. He congeals all the other elements and characters in the film.

The parody scene of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' is superb. Like Oddball, its being out of time somehow enhances its own effect.

I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood was a bit disappointed with this film because he was not allowed to give it one more edit before its release. I don't know how on earth he could have improved on it.

Clint Eastwood leads a fine cast of actors(including Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, Carroll o' Connor, Stuart Margolin, and Don Rickles) in this underrated World War II action comedy as Private Kelly(Eastwood) learns of a secret cache of gold bullion worth $16 Million dollars. Only trouble is, it is many miles behind enemy lines, but that doesn't deter Kelly, who gathers other members of his platoon to recover it, leading to a misunderstanding with a general(played by O'Connor) who thinks the men are incredibly brave and determined soldiers who want to defeat the enemy, and reclaim an occupied village! Hilarious and action packed comedy with an appealing assortment of "oddball" characters, and nice directorial(Brian G. Hutton) touches like a showdown with a tiger tank that lifts some memorable music cues from a certain classic western of Clint's...

Highly satisfying film may not always be credible, but is a lot of fun. Nice use of the song "Burning Bridges" in this neglected classic.