Colinas da Ira

Robert Mitchum stars in "The Angry Hills" from 1959, directed by Robert Aldrich and written by Leon Uris. The film also features Gia Scala, Theodore Bikel, Stanley Baker, and Sebastian Cabot.

Mitchum plays Mike Morrison, a journalist during World War II, who is given a list of undercover people who will seem to collaborate when the Nazis move into Greece. The battle for the list begins, as Morrison goes on the wrong and is helped to hide by the Greek resistance.

A list of secret agents, a list of double agents, a list of Nazi collaborators, a list of resistance members...this has to be the most overused plot in film history. It was recently used as the "Macguffin" in Skyfall. We've seen it in dozens upon dozens of films.

When you use a hackneyed plot, you've got to do better than this film, which is overly long and overly talky. I have no problem with "talky" scripts as long as the dialogue is good -- All About Eve comes to mind. "The Angry Hills" is not of that caliber. Rather than action scenes, it has meandering scenes and does not hold interest. The characters aren't well defined enough.

Robert Mitchum is always good, and in fact, the cast is good, doing their best with a mediocre script. It's not much of a story. Nice scenery, though, and Sebastian Cabot seems like he's doing Sydney Greenstreet.

There are only two hills worth seeing in this film; and you will see them early on in the film. The movie could have been titled "The Hills are Alive With the Sound of Nazis", but deferred to The Angry Hills. Mitchum tries to rescue this turkey, but the script is hopeless. The rest of the cast is uninspiring (and Mitchum, too, at times, seems uninspired. The events are convoluted and, at times, repetitive. Both Stanley Baker and Sebastian Cabot are horribly miscast, and look embarrassed to be in this production. The production values are of the lowest quality, and one gets the feeling of a home movie being made at times. Don't waste your time.

The poster on the cover is misleading. Mitchum (as Mike Morrison) never held an assault rifle (a handgun a couple of times) and there never was a bombing scene in the film. The hide and pursuit action was pretty well produced. However, this film lost a lot of money for MGM. imho, what moviegoers want for an ending is for two highly-paid heads to come together for that studio rent-paying, theater-filling, popcorn-selling KISS. This does not happen in this film. In fact, the ending, while positive, is kind of weird.

Stephen Dade's noirish black-and-white cinematography is the best thing on view in Robert Aldrich's early (1955) and all-too standard-issue tale of an American (Robert Mitchum) involved against his well-developed instincts for survival in resisting the Nazis in a periphery (Athens and the title hills of Greece). There's a conventionally cold-blooded Nazi commander (Marius Goring), Theodore Bikel in the Peter Lorre role of the cowardly collaborator, a wooden Stanley Baker as a less-cowardly one, Elisabeth Müller and Gia Scala as brave love interests, and Robert Mitchum in what might be considered the Humphrey Bogart role if Mitchum had not essayed it a number of times himself. And in a variant on the Sidney Greenstreet role, every bit as rotund but more jovial is Sebastian Cabot. The set-up is handled well, but the middle of the movie drags through reprisals and miraculous escapes by the antihero. The low point is a discussion about values between Mitchum and Müller and the final scene is a bolt from the blue of redemption. The movie is watchable, not least for the Greek locations, but inferior to earlier Aldrich westerns and his superb WWII melodrama "Attack!"

The opening developments in this picture are promising in the manner that Hitchcock so often exploited: an innocent bystander finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is drawn into intrigue of which he has no prior knowledge, and in which he has no interest. But he has something that the villains want - while all he wants is to get out of the situation alive. So far, so good. It is not long, however, before the complications give way to standard action fare, the emphasis now being on hiding, getting away, deciding who is trustworthy - elements used many times in many pictures, some better, some worse. Ultimately, the story disappoints. There are rewarding performances by steely-eyed Stanley Baker, and sweaty, cowardly Theodore Bikel. Robert Mitchum plays the lead role with competence, if not distinction.