Attaque!

Cowardice and creepy careerism are at the heart of this disturbing war film featuring outstanding performances from Jack Palance and Eddie Albert as officers at odds at the tail end of the war in Europe, 1944. One a respected leader, the other a coward with connections.

Week end wonder Captain Cooney (Albert), reluctant to engage the enemy is wasting platoon lives. Rather than be court-martialed or sent to the rear, his connections to Colonel Bartlett (Lee Marvin) prevent it. Captain Costa (Palance) appalled at the carnage Cooney is creating resorts to threatening him if he does not back them up on the next mission to secure a town.

Palance is powerfully intimidating throughout, his frustration level with Cooney at fever pitch. Albert is text book craven coward with daddy issues, his condescending smugness, attempting to disguise his terror, making him an even more infuriating individual. Probably Albert's finest dramatic performance to go along with the irony that Eddie was a bona fide war hero. Marvin as the cynical commanding officer is slightly over the top while the rest of the dogfaces convincingly battle weary.

Aldrich and his cinematographer Joe Biroc capture the depressing futility of battlefield charges as well as create maximum tension among the men in tightly framed claustrophobic interiors. Aldrich for his part does not sugar coat, glorify in any way or go Hollywood ending. A depressing but impressive work.

Based on a play Fragile Fox that was on Broadway during the early Fifties, Attack is one of the best war films ever made. No sham heroics here, just men doing a dirty job and caught in an extremely lousy situation due to politics.

Lee Marvin is a politically ambitious colonel who's national guard company has been activated for World War II. He's got to babysit and keep an eye on Eddie Albert who's father is a big shot in the unnamed southern state he comes from. Only Albert is an incompetent and a coward. That's causing problems up and down the ranks.

How it all gets resolved is what you have to see Attack for and Robert Aldrich never directed a better film. There's not a bad performance here, not a minute of film wasted.

The contrasting character is Jack Palance who is the lead character. His courage and concern for the men he leads are set up in a direct counterpoint to Albert. His climactic scene is one of the most harrowing ever put on film.

It is appropriate with news of Eddie Albert leaving us at the grand old age of 99 to pay tribute to what is probably the best performance this multi-talented and under-appreciated performer ever did. His Captain Cooney is one of the most malevolent creatures ever put to celluloid. He's such a bad man, his performance will make your skin crawl, Albert is that good in this role. Both he and Palance should have been up for Oscars in 1956.

William Smithers made a good film debut in Attack. He never reached the heights of stardom, but Star Trek fans will know him for a role in the original series as Captain Merik who oddly enough made the same bad choices in that episode that Captain Cooney does in Attack.

The cast is populated with war film veterans and they all do their usual fine job. There were times that it didn't seem possible you could make a war film without Lee Marvin, Robert Strauss, or Richard Jaeckel. God Bless 'em all.

And Attack is a film not to be missed even if you don't particularly like war films.

Anyone remember a 1965 war movie called BATTLE OF THE BULGE ? That's the movie supposedly set during the Ardennes campaign in Belguim but instead of seeing snow shrouded forests we're led to believe the conflict took place on dusty desert plains . Unfortunately with ATTACK director Robert Aldrich makes a similar error in geography and weather conditions . There's no snow to be seen ( Apart from some fake snow in one scene ) there's no forests and you do get the feeling the movie was filmed on a hot summers day no matter how the cast try and convince you other wise . In fact I felt rather sorry for the actors dressed in heavy greatcoats jumping up and down trying to get into character and it's interesting to note that by half way through the movie everyone has stopped in their vain attempts trying to convince the audience it's a very cold day

That said ATTACK is a very impressive war drama - and please note I used the word drama in the last sentence . It's based on a play but unlike a lot of movies based on plays that often use flashback to tell the tale the roots of the source is hidden , this actually feels cinematic . The movie centres around the conflict Lt Costa who blames his commanding officer Captain Cooney for getting his platoon wiped out . The human drama of cowardice and command and the motive of revenge feature very heavily . It should also be pointed out how well Captain Cooney is written and played by Eddie Albert , he's relatively sympathetic as a weak man who seems caught up in things outside his control though at the end he does become a sort of melodramtic carichture . The whole cast do a good job and the scenes with Lee Marvin and Eddie Albert together are superb . It's such a pity no one seems to make war movies this intelligent anymore

One of Robert Aldrich's classic war movies explores pyschological pressure and just how war effects men mentally. Even the "good guys" have their bad sides, and the bad guys are so screwed up you either sympathize with them or hate them.

During the fall of 1944, Captain Cooney (Eddie Albert) commands a weary infantry company. Lt. Costa (a young Jack Palance) realizes that Cooney is unfit for command when he freezes in combat. Costa and close friend Lt. Woodruff (Bill Smithers) try to inform their superior, Colonel Bartlett (Lee Marvin sporting a southern drawl) of Cooney's incompetence; instead, White wants to stay out of the way and hopes for the best. He owes Cooney a chance to become a hero so he can look good back home. Well, as you might have expected, Cooney again freezes in combat, this time costing the lives of several of Costa's men - and Costa goes looking for vengeance in an awesome climactic sequence.

The supporting cast is dotted with familiar faces, including Robert Strass from STALAG 17 as an oafish, emotional dogface; the late Buddy Ebsen (BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL) as Costa's loyal platoon sergeant; and Richard Jaeckel (who's appeared in at least a dozen war flicks) as another young soldier. Kudos to Bill Smithers, who does a fantastic job in an early role as Costa's rational friend. His final scene will leave you stunned and reeling.

The movie features a number of memorable scenes which combine physical action, superb dialog and emotion perfectly. One scene in which a mortally wounded Jack Palance prays that God will let him live long enough to kill Cooney is gut-wrenching. Interestingly, both Cooney and Costa have lost their grip on sanity. It's clear from the beginning that Cooney is a whackjob, and Costa is perfectly sane. But he becomes madly (no pun intended) obsessed with killing Cooney, that he forgets everything else - including his own men which is fighting to save. Instead of focusing on thousands of troops and big explosions, Aldrich delivers enough punch in his small-scale story to knock you down. Interiors and exteriors are beautifully shot, confining the action within small spaces to deliver maximum intensity and efficiency.

ATTACK! is an honest film - yes, this type of thing did happen; read or see BAND OF BROTHERS (particularly episode #7) to witness a brutally accurate account of flawed leadership resulting in disaster. I give an 11/10.

'Attack' was a violent exposé of a lack of courage and perversion among American officers fighting the Germans in Belgium; a completely anti-romantic expression of disgust with war, and, more specially, the war machine, with its breakdown and its own ridiculous brand of bureaucracy…

Jack Palance and Eddie Albert played, at different types of psychic disturbance, two officers who struggle on the battlefield — the one an efficacious, trustworthy, but disillusioned hero-typed, the other a cowardly sadist…

Lee Marvin was the cynical high-ranking officer who treats war as a political farce, mindless of the pain and distress of the ordinary soldiers…

Despite an inevitable over-fondness for the dramatic values of combat and the ferocious of men at arms, this was a convincing, truthful try to demythologize war — which, had it been set up in a lower key with fewer psychiatric reverberations, would have come nearer to being what Aldrich was struggling to achieve, 'a sincere plea for peace'.