Hora cero: Operación Rommel

Among the numerous low-brow WWII adventures to emerge from Europe around this time, the film under review also proved one of Jack Palance's not infrequent across-the-water excursions; typically, the film comes with several titles – the misleading Spanish original translates to ZERO HOUR: OPERATION ROMMEL (even if the Field Marshall does figure prominently in the narrative, his role in the failed July plot to assassinate the Fuehrer and his eventual suicide, thus bringing to mind the similar but inferior UCCIDETE ROMMEL from the same year), the Italian one (its co-producing country) to the generic THE CRY OF GIANTS and, for English-speaking consumption, it ended up with the imitative moniker given above! Anyway, the movie presents a typical 'impossible mission' scenario with the lock-jawed star as the cynical leader of a specialized outfit parachuted behind enemy lines; the group even includes a German officer(!) and, when they purposefully crash the plane, are also joined by the pilot. What is unusual – but also rather silly in the long run, given its pointlessness – is that each member of the squad has a specific function to perform which, however, is known only to himself…so that each of them is constantly, albeit unnecessarily, looking over one another's back!; for obvious reasons, the former Nazi is especially suspected in this regard, even more so when his instructions dictate for him to return to the fold (to further complicate matters, he meets his sweetheart – played by Rosanna Yanni – just then, and she takes him for a traitor to their cause of fighting the Hitler dictatorship)! Eventually, it turns out that Palance and his men were intended to divert enemy attention from a strategic point to another location – so that the German forces are deployed to this other section of the battle zone, thus facilitating the Allies' entry; the military-minded Colonel in command initially objects to the move given their opposition only involves five men – but another officer embroiled with the Nazi hierarchy imposes his will, once the ruse is discovered, to his ultimate chagrin. The combination of expected ingredients – plenty of action (where the expertise at baseball of one of them comes in handy when throwing hand-grenades during the final enemy onslaught!) and hard-boiled dialogue (most amusingly, when Palance complains about the terrible quality of the cigarette he is smoking while a bullet is being removed from his arm sans anaesthetic) – and novelty aspects (the obstacles, eventually surmounted, to camaraderie already mentioned and the suspense inherent in the jigsaw-puzzle structure) make it a mildly enjoyable offering as these things go.

Jack Palance was reason enough to see any film, and he was my reason for watching The Fall of the Giants. The film is not great and could have been much better too, but it is also not bad at all, certainly much better than Legion of the Damned(aka Battle of the Commandos), another war film starring Palance made at a similar time.

The Fall of the Giants looks good, while the photography is not mind-blowing it is hardly low-budget TV quality either, the sets are handsome and reasonably authentic in alternative to limited, the scenery with the countryside, woods and rivers is truly stunning and the editing is coherent and above average. Not all the costumes work though, with the helmets looking like over-sized pottery and Palance's uniform looked like it had shrunk a few sizes in the wash overnight. The music score is appropriately rousing and melancholic, and fits with the film quite well. The story is reasonably well-paced with some nice turns and remains interesting until the final 10 minutes, the battle scenes are appropriately tense(as is the build up to the final battle) and coherently edited and the direction gets the job done competently. The performances are good on the whole, with fine support from Andrea Bosic and John Grammack, Mirko Ellis in suitably heroic mode and Gerard Tichy brings authority to his General character.

As great an actor Palance was, this is not one of his best performances here. He gives his absolute all and he certainly commands the screen well, but it did feel like he was trying too hard(think his hard-nosed performance in Legion of the Damned except even less subtle) and it felt out-of-kilter at times with the rest of the film. The conclusion could have been powerful and moving, instead it went down the human sermon route and dealt with it very heavy-handedly, and that the characters are very one-dimensional, one-note and underdeveloped in the film(as well as drifting in and out) makes it less easy to really care for the ending or for them. Where The Fall of the Giants really falls down is the very pedestrian script that lacks any kind of pace or nuance and the dialogue is constantly corny and trite.

Overall, not bad with clearly some effort and professionalism gone into it, but rather bland. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Skip it – You've heard of "spaghetti westerns." Behold the "spaghetti war movie." Also known as "Hell's Brigade" or "The Battle Giants," the title is misleading because the mission has nothing to do with assassinating Rommel. During WWII, a small group of commandos disguise themselves as German soldiers and parachute behind enemy lines. The objective of the mission is unknown to the soldiers, but each of them is given their own specific task. They must put together the pieces of the puzzle while causing mayhem behind enemy lines. While the battle scenes near the end are entertaining, it's hard to overlook the rest of the movie, which is confusing, poorly made, and corny. 3.5 out of 5 action rating.

A pretty familiar and simplistic action piece from Leon Klimovsky, with a decent cast and little else of value.

Jack Palance stars as an American commando officer, who must lead commandos on a strange mission behind-the-lines in France. None of the men know the complete plan, so they basically wander around from place to place confusing the enemy until a big, booming climax.

The film features an acceptable cast, with Jack Palance in the lead as a gutsy commander. Unfortunately, just like Michael Rennie in COMMANDO_ATTACK Palance is a 1 dimensional character with no personality. Some scenes, in which he curses at suboordinates sound incredibly corny and every time he gives a command he yells "Give 'em all ya got!" Mankiewicz has no writing talent, and Palance never comes to life. Andrea Bosic from BATTLEFORCE tries hard as one of the commandos, as does Gerard Tichy (LAST DAY OF THE WAR) as an Anti-Hitler German General. We've also got Mirko Ellis (BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS) in a small and heroic role as an American commando. Wrap up the cast with Giuseppe Addobbati (THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN) as an American officer and Alberto de Mendoza as a German double agent, who constantly switches sides.

The combat scenes are very well-filmed, with lots and lots of explosions, bullet ricochets, familiar M48 tanks and lots of extras falling down and dying. The weapons used here are Italian Beretta submachine-guns (like in BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS) which does take away from what little realism there is.

Cinematography is actually pretty good, and the countryside looks a lot like France. The musical score by Armando Trovajoli is a pretty mournful sounding score, and doesn't fit the mood of the movie until the last 5 minutes or so.

I really don't like this film much despite all the good stuff it's got going for it. Mankiewicz and his writers didn't do a very good job with the script; there's a lot of boring dialog and not much else. It's pretty pro-war and fun until the last 10 minutes or so, which stresses the human cost and waste of life. There are a few interesting plot twists, though, which kept me awake.

I'm actually not sure what version of this film I saw. It's a dub from what I believe is a VHS from Saturn, due to the decent color transfer, background audio hiss and occasional dropouts. It's a transfer of identical quality to their release of DESERT COMMANDO.

All in all, this isn't a great film nor is it bad. It's got a good cast, fair action sequences, and decent production values but a pretty boring script and little originality.

I taped most of this film from a late night show a few years ago but I wish it would come on again. It is a serious film that turns out sort of un-serious. The way all the German soldiers get shot the same way and have to do the obligatory summersault before "dying". Jacks German helmet was too big and with the coat a few sizes too small makes him look like one of the three stooges.One incident when Jack is shot by a machine-gun he catches just one bullet dead center of his arm - what incredible luck!yea right. I love this movie!