A man on a mission film made in a couple of weeks after the wrapping of Beast from Haunted Cave, sort of like how She Gods of Shark Reef was made in the remainder of time in Hawaii after Naked Paradise wrapped, Ski Troop Attack is pretty much the refuse of a production schedule. That it's narrative ambitions are fairly modest ends up being a benefit to the whole thing, though. I mean, get a group of dudes, put them on a mission, carry out mission is not a hard formula, right? Well, Corman and Charles Griffith don't do it particularly well, but...there are worse out there.
Lieutenant Factor (Michael Forest) is leading a small group of American soldiers deep into German territory in the middle of winter to do reconnaissance on the area. His second in command, Sergeant Potter (Frank Wolff) is a hothead who starts the film opening fire on a passing German patrol, killing them all despite Factor's orders that the mission shouldn't involve fighting unless necessary. That's...about the limit of characterization we're going to get. The other members of the troupe never have any real imprint or prominence.
The core issue with the film isn't the characters, though, it's the haphazard structure. There's no actual mission other than recon. They have a couple of encounters, but there's no building to anything. There eventually is something, the blowing of a bridge, but it doesn't appear as an idea until very late in the film. Until then, it's a series of mechanical events as the group finds a bit of trouble and gets themselves out. This could work fine if the character work was detailed and the vignettes were designed to bring out their characters in new and interesting ways. But, that's not really what happens. It's really just scenes that happen in war movies with thin characters playing around in them.
The biggest is when, after an attack, the men find an isolated house where Ilse (Sheila Carol), a dedicated German wife to a German officer. They have to hide. She doesn't want them around. Things are tense. They end up...killing her. It could be a whole thing about harshness and realities in war, but nothing is given any time to consider any consequences, and we're off to have more adventures. Including the boys having Christmas in a cave.
The plot, such as it is, eventually develops when Factor decides that they've finished reconning the sector they're supposed to but wants an answer as to how German tanks are getting to American lines. Factor decides to attack a key bridge in the next sector, and the men have a mission. Really, this should have been the mission from the very beginning. Each event should have been a step towards their goal. Instead, most of the film is just a series of random, war-related events with cardboard characters.
The finale of the film is an extended bit of suspense and a chase in the snow that feels like a predecessor to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and it's all decently well done. Corman was always good for a well-filmed chase and action sequence to finish a film. It's just kind of an empty exercise, the biggest emotional catharsis we get when Factor gets to have an "I told you so" moment with Potter when it's all over.
Is this good? I wouldn't say so. It's too thin, the structure too random, and almost none of the events actually feed from one to the next. Performances are fine, nothing to write home about, and when the film finally does get something like a plot, it's decent. Thin, but decently executed.
As a leftover to fill a few days in a schedule, there are worse things out there. This isn't good. It's not even okay, but it's far from the worst.
