The film is set in Holland 1945, last days of WWII, with two armies battling , the Montgomery powerful army and the remains of the Nazi batallions . At a concentration camp or Lager occurs two protagonists , Frédéric Stafford and Howard Ross as prisoners , get escaped. They are helped by a German guard, Michael Constantine, . The group team up with a Dutch partísan , Rollman : Adolfo Celi , to rob documents about V1 , V2 rockets and a loot of Netherland diamonds from underwater through the Nazi bowels to the vault safe-box located at the Wehrmacht headquarter . As the bunch looting or loving and they play it dirty . As they fight a dozen dirty different ways . Meanwhile, Frederick Stafford falls for a gorgeous Jew , Daniela Bianchi , married to a German general , Curd Jurgens.
Average warlike movie contains thrills , breathtaking scenes , noisy explosions , busy battles , vicious Nazis, and a spectacular caper . The film is set when the defeat of third Reich is imminent , in its ending confrontation and two armies take on each other , on the one hand the Allied Army and on the other hand the tarnishing garrisons of the third Reich. It is a middling actioner with some decent scenes , a straightforward warfare movie with lots of shootouts , a love story , a diamond caper, fights , twists and turns. Displaying a great number of extras, ships , tanks, machine guns , and soldiers with acceptable production design . In spite of some flaws and gaps , the Wartime action keeps breathless, thanks to tension and intrigue . Notable widescreen scenes , which will suffer on TV small screen and including several zooms , as usual . Main cast is passable . It stars Frédéric Stafford who played Hitcock's Topaz and two war films as Battle of Alamein by Giorgio Ferroni and Eagles over London by Enzo G Castell . Along with the beautiful Daniela Bianchi and Adolfo Celi , both of whom played James Bond movies. Support cast is pretty well formed by ordinary secondaries of the 60s and 70s such as Curd Jurgens , Anthony Dawson , Howard Ross, Tom Felleghy , John Bartha , among others . Special mention for Helmut Schneider as a nasty SS officer and John Ireland as an American pilot, captain O'Connor.
It has an attractive musical score by the great Ennio Morricone , helped by his regular collaborator Bruno Nicolai . Atmospheric cinematography in Technicolor Techniscope by cameraman Giovanni Bergamini, though a perfect remastering being absolutely necessary . Adding the brilliant matte shots and visual effects from Emilio Ruiz Del Rio and Alejandro Ulloa . This is an European coproduction among various countries : Italy , Germany , Holland , France , Spain and in enough budget. The motion picture was regular but professionally directed by Alberto De Martino . Martino was a craftsman who directed all kinds of genres, getting some sucessess such as Puma man, Holocausto 2000, The antichrist , Django shoots first , Operation Lady Chaplin , Hero of Rome, Medusa against the son of Hercules , Seven Spartans , Horror , among others.
THis film titled Dirty heroes , or De las Ardenas al Infierno, or Della Ardenne all'inferno , belongs to a numerous group of European coproductions, usually Italian/Spanish , nicknamed Macarroni combat made throughout the late 1960 and beginnings 70s , imitating American ones , often directed by Enzo G Castelari ,Umberto Lenzi, José Luis Merino and León Klimovski , including old Hollywood stars as Hell brigade with Jack Palance , Eagles over London with Van Johnson, Command attack with Michael Rennie , The Legión of no return with Tab Hunter or this Dirty Heroes with John Ireland . All of them were supported by the Italian or Spanish army that lent tanks , weapons, soldiers to make these films.
