L'espionne des Ardennes

The Nazis release a woman into the open and take one shot at her. American soldiers later find her and treat her back to health. Her name is Alexandra Bastegar (Tina Louise). She is actually a spy sent to get information on the Americans for the upcoming Ardennes offensive and the start of the Battle of the Bulge. Colonel Devlin is sure that the obvious German attack should be coming right at him, but few others believe in his suspicions.

This movie never completely takes off. It's great to see a pre-Gilligan Tina Louise. Maybe she should be revealed as a spy much later. That would be a great shock to spice things up. Burt Reynolds is also in this with a disturbing scene. He did play some evil villains early in his career. That shock is not necessarily what I'm looking for in this movie.

What was supposed to be a tense, suspenseful war drama turned out to be rather confusing and boring. Sometimes these spy flicks go over my head, so if that's your genre of choice, you might feel differently about this one. I ended up writing other reviews while the movie was running to distract me from the boredom.

Tina Louise plays a German spy, but because she's an attractive and vulnerable woman, the soldiers who rescued her after her injury don't suspect a thing. They're too busy fighting over her to notice she's sneaking out secrets to the enemy. Howard Keel, Earl Holliman, Burt Reynolds, Carleton Young, Warner Anderson, Clem Harvey, Marty Ingels, and James Dobson are the men in the film, but with hardly any fight scenes, Armored Command doesn't really feel like a war movie. It's a little slow, and even though I just finished watching it a couple of days ago, I can't even remember what happens in the end.

Howard keel ( dallas, showboat, seven brides) and tina louise (three years before gilligans island). World war two drama. The story of the seventh army, near the ardennes offense in france. When they come across an injured woman, there's more to her than they know. A twenty five year old burt reynolds is in here as skee. The soldiers never seem to question their "prisoner", and a whole lot of the action takes place in their temporary quarters. It's all pretty low budget. The war had already been over for fifteen years. Pretty stale tale at this point. Directed by byron haskin. Imdb tells us that his nickname was "bunny" ! (really? ) written by ron alcorn. This one is nothing to write home about. But.. this one from allied came out in 1961. Even BEFORE zanuck at twentieth century fox's longest day, which came out in 1962 ! The longest day is so much better. More realistic and believable. Probably all the big names in it, and the outdoor action. Watch that one.

A squad of dogfaces move into a small French town in the Vosges, and rest up. There's a German army not too far away, but they're just sitting there. They discover Tina Louise, and move into her house where she is exhausted by the entire matter. They don't know she's actually a German spy who is getting word through to her bosses as they prepare for a local attack to draw attention away from the Ardennes Offensive.

It's a cheap movie with plenty of 1960s cynicism about war and the stupidity of colonels far from the front lines. Shot cheaply in Germany using all American military equipment, director Byron Haskins seems more interested in getting his compositions and explosions right than making his characters more than sketches. There's 56-year-old Carleton Young as their front-line captain, Earl Holliman, a non-singing Howard Keel, Burt Reynolds (in his second big-screen role) and Marty Ingels.

Plot In A Paragraph: During the battle of the bulge, a sergeant (Earl Holliman) in charge of a small band of men finds a woman (Tina Louise) with a gun shot wound lying in the snow. The take her to a local town with them where they are staying at an inn as they await further orders.

There are two parts to this movie, one that deals with the growing lack of respect that the group and in particular one soldier, a pollack named Skee (A young Burt Reynolds in only his second movie) have for the sergeant and the fact that the sergeant and Skee both have the hots for the injured woman. And one where (Howard Keel) tries to warn his superiors that his men are about to be attacked and over run any time soon.

The contrast between Holliman's and Reynolds characters could not be more different. Holliman is a love sick school boy towards to woman, where as Reynolds is the confident Alpha male who will have her, if she wants him to or not. This is the second movie in a row where Reynolds has raped a woman during his early career. Luckily he did not get typecast in such roles.

In a side note several sequences of action are repeated during the final battle scene.