Os Comandos de Churchill

A routine Italian low budget war action movie about English dam busters working in occupied France. Best feature in the film is, obviously, the great Klaus Kinski whose SS captain brings a sinister edge to the final battle.

All in all an interesting film that suffers from the same problem than most of its peers: lack of ambition. The only scene that stands out is the execution of the resistance leader (by Kinski's SS men), which makes one wonder why the rest of the film wasn't made with similar effort.

A tough team carries out a relentless assignment plenty of thrilling action , risked adventures and hazardous feats . Spaghetti/War film about a misfit outfit led by Richard Harrison who carry out a suicide mission behind enemy lines . The mission: search out and destroy a dam in Normandy before the D-Day invasion . The movie is set during World War II in the days just prior to the D-Day invasion. A special parachute unit is sent to destroy a German dam installation . A group of two-fisted soldiers formed by various experts are drafted to go on a near-suicide mission and attempt to destroy it . The volunteer commandos, misfits from the American army do not care how its done and will run over anyone who gets in their way . ¨Commando attack¨ or ¨Curchill's leopards¨ is an entertaining film with Richard Harrison as a stiff officer posing as a Nazi lieutenant , his true brother , as his father is British and his mother is German . Richard Harrison leading a group of motley and eclectic soldiers for a dangerous assault on strongly armored Nazi position . In the hands of hardboiled director Maurizio Pradeaux , and a tough-as-leather cast , that's all the plot that's needed to make one rip-roaring wartime flick . Harrison's mission is two-fold and in violent and cynical style ; first turn his G.I.s into a valiant fighting unit , being parachuted Major Powell , Giacomo Rossi-Stuart , then turn loose on a French location in Normandy where they run into partisans -such as Pilar Velazquez , Frank Braña and Antonio Casas- , helps them penetrate behind enemy lines . The first half of the film allows the colorful cast of character actors to have their fun as they get their tails whipped into shape and develop shaky relationship with their leader . The final part is all action , as the brave commando wreak havoc and then run for their lives . The dangerous mission includes a selected group formed by a motley and varied squadron played by usual of Italian B-series . This is a rugged WWII actioner concerning about an experienced officer , he's assigned by Military staff to lead a group of valiant G.I.s , as they pull off a extremely risked assignment called ¨Operation Over Edge¨ . At the end they must participate in the suicidal mission behind the enemy lines , to wipe the German group by means of a violent assault over a strongly protected position and put an explosive rocket into dam .

Richard Harrison in a double role as Lt. Richard Benson / Lt. Hans Müller assumes the character of commando leader along with Giacomo Rossi-Stuart as Major Powell in this ordinary wartime movie regularly directed by Maurizio Pradeaux . This moving film packs frantic thrills , perilous adventures , relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action and violence . The noisy action is uniformly well-made , especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring final scenes on the dam , including some spectacular shootouts , firing and bombing . Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by Harrison into his varied group , the film is full of feats , shots and thrills though contains excessive dialog and a lot of night scenes . The notorious Spaghetti actor , Richard Harrison is good in his usual tough role , here playing the unshakable Lt. Richard Benson . Giacomo Rossi-Stuart as rough Major is fine as officer of the motley pack together thwart the Nazi schemes, as well as the largely secondary cast full of familiar faces as Spanish actors such as Pilar Velazquez , Antonio Casas , Helga Line , Frank Braña as Italian players such as Máximo Righi , Goffredo Unger and many others ; all of them habitual secondary players in multiple Italian/Spanish films and mostly playing brief interventions . Atmospheric and functional musical score by Franco Salina and aceptable cinematography in Eastmancolor filmed by Miguel Fernández Mila on locations in La Pedriza , Manzanares del Real , Madrid ; being necessary an urgent remastering because the film copy is washed out . This is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando genre¨ , in USA style which also belong the American classics as : ¨Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich) ¨ Where eagles dare¨ (Brian G. Hutton) , ¨Kelly's heroes (Hutton ) , ¨Tobruk¨ (Arthur Hiller) , ¨Devil's Brigade¨ (Andrew V McLagen) and many others .

The movie was produced in enough budget by Ricardo Sanz who financed various Paella Western such as "My Horse, My Gun, Your Widow" , ¨4 Implacables¨ , ¨Bala Marcada¨ and "I'll Kill Him and Return Alone" .The film was professionally directed by Maurizio Pradeaux and some moments he gets a competent Italian war actioner . ¨Commando attack¨ or ¨Churchill's leopards¨ belongs to Spaghetti War sub-genre , whose maxim representatives are the followings filmmakers : Umberto Lenzi with ¨Battle of commandos¨ ,¨Desert commandos¨ , ¨Battle force¨ , Leon Klimovsky with ¨June 44 , Normandy¨, "Hell's Brigade: The Final Assault", "The Legion of No Return" ¨ , Alfonso Brescia with ¨Objective : Rommel¨ , ¨Misiones Ardientes¨ , ¨Hell in Normandy¨ , Albert De Martino with ¨Dirty heroes¨, Jose Luis Merino with ¨Hell commandos¨ , Armando Crispino with ¨Commandos¨ and Robert Bianchi Montero with ¨36 hours of hell¨ . ¨Churchill's leopards¨ rating 5'5/10 : Average but entertaining .

During the latter days of World War II, a British Special Forces unit is sent behind enemy lines to destroy a dam key to the German war effort.

It wouldn't be unfair to describe Churchill's Leopards as a pretty standard entry from the Italian war movie cycle that was popular circa late 60's. After all it focuses on a crack team of soldiers on a dangerous, borderline suicidal mission. Not only that, it features an even more specific detail that films from this sub-genre often bizarrely used - the lookalike who is used to fool the Germans. Movies such as When Heroes Die (1970) and Casablanca Express (1989) also used this slightly ridiculous gimmick. Richard Harrison is the guy here who plays the dual role of a British soldier pretending to be his identical brother who happens to be a Nazi officer, although the latter is admittedly killed within the first five minutes by a partisan woman, leaving the door open for the English brother to saunter in and take his place - completely silly of course but par for the course when it comes to Macaroni Combat movies. Another regular feature seen here is Klaus Kinski as a ruthless SS officer, although rather stupidly they have this German baddie dubbed with an English accent which makes no sense and unfortunately reduces his potency on screen somewhat. I found this one to be overall not too bad for this kind of thing. I've found these Italian war movies to not be exactly a guarantee of quality, with the majority hovering around the mediocre end of the scale. This one ultimately is no different although I did think it set things up slightly better than most. The best scene has to go to the tense, well-handled part where the Nazis gather a group of French citizens on a picturesque mountain in order to be executed as revenge for the killing of two of their men. This scene is paced really well and does have some good tension; it shows that it's more low-key moments such as this that can have more impact than the more typical, and a bit tedious, gun battles that seem to be part of the formula for this kind of thing and which compromise the latter stages of this one too. Events ultimately culminate perhaps unsurprisingly with the dam explosion, which most people seem to think was terrible but which I actually thought was pretty good.

CHURCHILL'S LEOPARDS - great title, by the way - is yet another addition to the wave of WW2 flicks that emerged from Italy in the late 1960s after the initial enthusiasm for the spaghetti western genre had run dry. It's a very familiar tale about a group of soldiers on a mission to blow up a dam in Nazi-occupied France.

What follows is routine in the extreme, a film with only a handful of memorable moments (like the bit where a crowd of collaborators are about to be executed, an exercise in tension). The action is sparse and when it comes it's a bit of a disappointment, but then director Maurizio Pradeaux had only made a couple of films previously so he was hardly a seasoned expert behind the camera.

The most interesting thing about the film is the cast. American strongman Richard Harrison plays the dual role of a Nazi officer and his lookalike who's brought in to help the team, while Klaus Kinski is the nasty Nazi bad guy. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart has a supporting role as another hero, while Euro crumpet Helga Line shows up (and is welcome) and Spanish actor Frank Brana (RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD) has a cameo.

One of the most average Italian war movies to emerge in the genre. A great cast and some decent photography highlight this otherwise mediocre entry.

The plot is pretty straightforward and familiar: A British commando team heads into France to blow up a German-held dam, while a British agent infiltrates the German garrison to give inside help. The twist is the British officer is replacing his twin German brother (!)

Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (The Greatest Battle), one of my favorite Eurowar co-stars, makes a pretty bland lead. He doesn't get to do too much, unfortunately. He is reduced to uttering boring dialog and leaves most of the real acting up to Richard Harrison (Thirty Six Hours of Hell), who plays both a German officer and his British twin. Klaus Kinski (The Liberators) has his usual glorified cameo role as a German officer, though his role lacks any of the weirdness which usually accompanies his part. He is a straightforward, evil SS type and nothing more. Unfortunately, he sports a dubbed English accent rather than a typically nasty, thick German voice. Pilar Velasquez (His Name was Holy Ghost) is the French resistance woman in love with Harrison. Finally, Antonio Casas (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) has a glorified cameo as the genius leader of the French partisans. In support, Frank Brana (The War Devils) plays a French partisan, and Claudio Biava (Battle of the Damned) has a juicy role of a skeptical British commando. Look fast for Herb Andress (The Rangers) as a German officer, and Geoffredo Unger (Hornets' Nest) as a British commando.

The whole course of the film is weighed down by some low production values that can easily kill a film. First of all, Vassili Koducharov's familiar score from Heroes in Hell, Thirty Six Hours of Hell and The Rangers is used once again. This piece of music is trash, and I don't get why so many films use it. The special effects are pretty bad, and one dam destruction sequence ranks as one of the worst miniature effects in film history. The movie is set in France in 1944, but looks like it was shot in an Italian rock quarry - maybe on some of the same locations as the earlier action flick Five for Hell.

On the plus side, the cast all do excellently and seem to be having fun with their parts. The script is excellent, with an unexpected conclusion for one of the main characters. Maurizio Pradeaux keeps the action flowing whenever possible. When nobody is getting shot on screen, people are moving about and so is the camera. Close-ups, pans and zoom-ins rule for the duration of the movie. The final combat scene is excellently-shot and tightly edited, with some fine suspenseful moments.

CHURCHIL'S LEOPARDS is a pretty average commando movie, with a good cast and fine camera-work but little else of value. It's an entertaining 90 minute piece, but no classic.

RATING: 6/10