Brass Target

Interesting and intriguing tale of murder and conspiracy is set in the closing days of WWII, concerning a plot to assessinate General George S Patton for the sake of 250 million dollars in Nazi gold, being robbed from a train to Frankfurt by an undercover staff involved in the vast gold bars heist .The Germans hid it . The Russians want it . The Americans stole General George S Patton may die for it ...suspense that reaches the highest rank . In December 1945 , America's most controversial General, George S Patton , was killed in an auto accident in Germany . 250 million dollars in gold says it was no accident .

Thrilling robbery movie about a train heist, it contains action, thrills, Bond-style techno-glamour , complex narrative with red herrings and labyrinthine plot, as well as nice cast, but all these things can not find the convoluted story. Pure Hollywood profitable hokum at its most ridiculous premise as General George S Patton was allegedly killed because of a large lot of gold robbed after WWII, being committed by a suspicious staff formed by ambitious subordinates . The film goes for various targets as suspenseful narration with stubborn investigation , historical significanc or hard preparation of an assassination, but missing them all . Mining the boxoffice vein of "Days of the Jackal" by Fred Zinneman with Max Von Sidow in Edward Fox-alike role, and even copying some scenes. Rating PG (Parents Guide) for violence, and moderated language. Main and support cast are pretty good. As trio of protagonists : John Cassavetes, Sophia Loren, Max Von Sidow are very fine, though Loren as the woman with a past holds an unnessary, superflous role . Support cast is filled with familiar faces giving acceptable acting , such as : Bruce Davison, Patrick McGoohan, Robert Vaughan, Ed Bishop, Edward Herrmann, and two historical characters performed by Lee Montague as Lucky Luciano and George Kennedy as George S Patton.

Special mention for the rousing and powerful musical score by Laurence Rosenthal in Jerry Goldsmith style. Cinematography by Tony Imi is passable, though a perfect remastering being really necessary. The motion picture was professionally directed by John Hough, though it has some flaws, gaps and failures. John Hough is a nice British artisan with a long career directing all kinds of genres such as terror, fantasy, thriller, drama, and adventure, in films as Treasure Island, The watcher in the woods, Eye witness, Escape to Witch Mountain, Return from Witch Mountain, The Black Arrow, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Incubus, Triumphs of a Man called House, Biggles, Twins of Evil, Howling 4, Incubus, The legend of hell house, American Gothic, The Lady and the Highwayman, The Dying Truth, Duel of Hearts, Hells's gate, among others.

World War II is over, and the Allies set about cleaning up and helping rebuild Europe. The Allies' most famous battle leader, General George S. Patton, continues to alienate the Russians and doesn't like attending to civil formalities of state. So, he gets canned by Eisenhower and is ordered back to the States. But during all this time, some $250 million in Third Reich gold had been discovered and then went missing. Patton launches his own effort to find the thieves and retrieve the gold.

This story line has all the makings of a good action-thriller, and "Brass Target" doesn't disappoint. It has a solid plot – with much conjecture and fiction built around and woven through the real details of Patton's last months. The script is very good for a cast that delivers. There's just enough intrigue to keep us guessing from one scene to the next, as culprits come to light one by one. But amidst this, the one big theme develops – with the hiring of a top assassin to eliminate Patton. There's much more to this, and part of the intrigue for the viewer is wondering what next step in his plan the assassin will lay out and expose to the audience.

George Kennedy is excellent as Patton, and Robert Vaughn turns in a first-rate performance in his role. John Cassavetes does justice as the top intelligence officer digging into the theft. Sophia Loren and Patrick McGoohan give very good performances. And the consummate cool and calculating Max von Sydow excels in the type of role he has played before.

Some comments I've seen about the film are disparaging because of the fictitious plot. But that's precisely what makes it a movie different from the account of Patton's accidental death otherwise. If people don't like fiction in film, they can avoid movies purposely built around fictitious aspects. Come to think of it, they should probably stop watching all movies. But the rest of us can sit back and really enjoy films like this.

A 'maybe it happened this way' WWII thriller from the 70's. A consignment of captured German gold is on its way to its new home guarded by American troops when it's robbed prompting a CID officer played John Cassavettes to investigate what happened. Up the ladder of command Patton (George Kennedy) is grilled by the Russians on the theft so he decides to stick his nose in as well prompting the real thieves to hire an assassin (Max Von Sydow) to take care of 'ol Blood & Guts & anyone else who comes close to finding who did the deed. Not very good w/a bevy of talent, namely Sophia Loren, wasted as window dressing as we're more than a few steps ahead of the investigation than than person assigned to investigate.

I remember watching this as a kid when it first came out. And it stuck in my mind. More than 40 years later, I still remember the intricacy of the assassination plot against Patton. "Just make it look like an accident, 007" - well, this scenario does just that. Max von Sydow was in his prime as an unassuming hit man, who could wear any disguise and pull it off spectacularly. That it still sticks to my mind 40 years later is a testament to how impressed I was with the movie.

I saw this movie just by accident on TCM when I was surfing through the channels.

The movie tells the story how just after World War II, a train carrying 250 million dollars in gold from the German Reichsbank is hijacked by renegade U.S soldiers. When the Russians hear about it they are furious and want the gold back since it should be shared by all the allies, General Patton, old "Blood & Guts" a well known anti-communist takes it his job to retrieve every single bullion to show off to the Soviets.

While the story gets a promising start it bogs down a bit after the first 30 minutes, the story gets just too unfocused also the casting could have been better, Sophia Loren is far from convincing and McGoohan is certainly not at his best, if Hough would not have tried to get more audience by starring a lot of big names like Loren and Montague and just have hired other actors who could played the characters more convincingly this could have been a better film.