Les Héros meurent jeunes

This is a prime example of a poorly thought out, acted and produced movie. Being that it was made in 1960 they at least use proper gear, weapons as props. What little use they got anyway. A lot more WWII surplus around back then, so guess they saved enough for the crews lunches, from the prop budget.

Not one well known star to help pull this production out of wastebasket. Sometimes even with a poor movie having at least one seasoned and professional actor can pull it together. You could say the same prinicpal as in the army when they place a seasoned NCO or troops in a unit of raw recruits. This effort did not even have that.

Even the female lead looked more like American teenager on a hike thru the woods in her dress, accent and deportment. Not even a effort on the actress's part to act the part. The only reason I think she is even in the movie is to give a target for some hormone soaked young American boys to hit on throughout the movie. She was like the only girl who showed up at the prom and spent the movie fending off the horndogs.

This is suppose to be set in wartime Rommania, but you have more the feel your in Mexico and this a Spagetti western complete with burros, except that the actors put on the wrong costumes and picked up the wrong props on their way before the cameras.

Other than some nice archive footage of military equipment in use for those of us who are into it. This is a waste of tape. Unless you get this for free some how not worth adding to the collection.

I just spotted while browsing through some old newspapers that a Finnish reviewer spotted some talent in this. He wrote that this was a critical and uncompromising take at war and its heroics, even though the film was poorly made. The later half was worse, he wrote, but he gave praise to the first half, comparing it with Burt Topper's War Hero from 1958. The Finnish reviewer in question (won't give out his name, since I don't have his permission) was always on the lookout for unhidden gems in the American B-movie productions, hailing praise for films like Carnival of Souls. I don't know what he would think of this now, but may have to ask him. It seems funny that besides this Shepard directed only the Monkees TV show. Go figure. I haven't seen Heroes Die Young myself.

The reason why I love IMDb is for the fact that I can look up the films that I had seen when I was a child or in my teens. I had seen this film many years ago, probably when it had come out in the theaters. I could not remember the title but I could remember an air raid over some place called Ploesti. The raid had stuck with me all of these years. I still am able to see the destruction of the oil refinery by the low flying B-24s with flames shooting up into the sky. I guess at the time that I had seen Heros Die Young I had really liked it but now that I had read the review I do remember that the plot was very thin and the movie had no actors that I had known at the time.

Bill Lanoie