À Sombra de um Gigante

This could have been so much better if the screenplay had stuck to the facts, but instead it had to devote a lot of screen time to a romance between Marcus and an Israeli woman that probably never happened. At least all the extraneous romance in Preminger's "Exodus" can be blamed on the Leon Uris novel, but this was supposed to be a true story. The direction of the film was also listless.

This was made in an era when just about every household had a television and Hollywood doesn't tolerate competition and needed to bring out its big guns . Those howitzers would be big name stars and epic storytelling . Unfortunately by this time this type of film would be dying out and a year later BONNIE AND CLYDE arrived on the scene which changed Hollywood film making with relatively unknown actors starring in smaller scale films that had a dubious morality to them so a film like CAST A GIANT SHADOW would have become relatively dated very quickly by the end of the decade

On its own merits it isn't a bad film though it's certainly not a very good one either . The problem is that " Epic " is often a euphemism for " bloated " , therefore we get to see the main protagonists war experience and family life . Why do we have to see all this ? one can speculate that the war sequences is an excuse to shoehorn John Wayne in to the film that'll appeal to all the manly men in the audience and the family life of the protagonist will get women flocking in to the cinema . It also has the unnecessary addition of Frank Sinatra which like Wayne seems to be included to give box office appeal

It's not just the lack of brevity that's the flaw but the sometimes embellishment to the story that doesn't do it any favours . Some other commentators have gone in to detail so I won't dwell to much upon it but one noticeable aspect is that the Israelis in 1948 are portrayed to being total strangers to war which isn't in any way true . The British Army had a Jewish brigade which served in Italy during the war and were engaged in some very tough fighting in 1944 . Likewise Palmach and Haganah members would have had military experience fighting against Arabs in the Special Night Squads during the Arab revolts of 1938-39 and wouldn't be the inexperienced military virgins as seen here . Sadly the film doesn't make the point that the Irgun and Stern Gang were the purveyors of modern day terrorism that EOKA , the Provisional IRA and many other terrorist organisations modelled themselves upon until Al Quada took terrorism to new depths , but if you've got a Hollywood movie and it contains Brits as an occupying power then it's easy to turn a blind eye , but to be fair it points out it's better to be occupied by the British than the French

That said the Brits aren't full blown villains and the American view of Israelis is I imagine not as black and white as it would be today regardless of your politics . In 1948 the American State Department was very suspicious about Israel since many of its inhabitants were from Eastern European countries and Eastern European equalled communist in American eyes with Zionist support for the country confined to a small American Jewish lobby . The film does touch upon the fact that the fledgling Jewish state obtained its weapons from the international black market rather than being supplied by America with America realising that the Arab lands contain an awful lot of oil so best not to annoy them . It should be remembered that the first arms supply from America to Israel didn't happen till 1965 and the often overstated influence America has over the Israeli state wouldn't have existed when this film was released

In summary CAST A GIANT SHADOW is a relatively entertaining yarn but it's a melodramatic Hollywood movie using big names to make money for the studio . If you're interested in finding out the proper history of the creation of Israel it's a much better idea to read a book on the subject with the only problem trying to find a totally unbiased book on the subject

One of the greatest casts ever assembled for a single film including Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Yul Brynner, Senta Berger, Angie Dickinson and others was put completely to waste in this film of unfulfilled potential. Sadly, despite a disproportionate amount of Jews in influential positions in Hollywood, Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow remain the only two major films on the subject of Israeli independence.

Clearly almost the entire budget was spent on a two minute cameo by John Wayne because even for 1966 the special effects were poor, the dialogue was flat, the plot was boring, many scenes made little sense, and every actor either seemed bored with his or her role or they overacted. For a movie based on actual events the filmmakers due an incredibly poor job of explaining how things actually come to pass in the movie, maybe the truth was just too boring. The film sends a message but it is poorly conveyed and in the end I simply am left unsatisfied with a desire to see a Longest Day type caliber movie about the Israeli War of Independence.

I don't know why this movie doesn't work, but it doesn't. I guess I'd hold the writers and the actors responsible -- the direction is efficient and the score good.

The script tells us things that most of us already know, without adding much that we didn't. Thankfully it avoid extensive shots of the death camps. If anyone needs to be told about that, he's hopelessly benighted anyway. That mass genocide was perhaps the most horrible expression of the baser impulses of human nature, and like any transcendental event should be treated with caution, not with an eye to the box office.

Still, the dialog is flat and ordinary. Giant closeups of faces telling us important things -- "For the first time, I've realized I'm a Jew" -- doesn't really help. It's like being hit over the head by someone wielding a crowbar and yelling -- "GET IT? GET IT?" Yes, we get it. Stop already.

Kirk Douglas isn't bad. In fact he's pretty good, outdone only by Topol as an Arab sheyk -- "I course your Faddair." Cheese, Topol is good. And so is his role. He plays "The Sheik of Arabie" on a Victrola and rolls his eyes with glee.

John Wayne's performance is perfunctory and so is Frank Sinatra's, but the latter's involvement is interesting. At one point in the film he protests, "Don't leave me alone -- I'm anti-Semitic." Far from being anti-Semitic he was, let's say, pro-Semitic. Like a lot of recent immigrant families in the Northeast his had a keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of ethnicity, and Sinatra plumped for the strengths in Judaism. He envied and admired Jews for their family values and their solidarity, and even learned to read a little Hebrew. A scene in which he spurts seltzer water at an attacking Arab fighter is beneath comment.

Overall the film is not a success because it doesn't spell out in any detail exactly what Mickey Marcus actually DID for the Israelies. It won't do to have two minutes of Marcus telling them "Attack! Attack!," when ten times that amount is spent on an unconvincing adulterous affair with Senta Berger -- not that having such an affair with such a magnificent woman would be a blot on anyone's escutcheon. (I could never spell that word. It means "shield".) I guess it's worth watching once, just to remind us of a part of history that some of us have not bothered to look into. As a film, (shrug).

An American drama; A story about an American soldier who led a battalion of fledging Israeli Defence in the late 1940s. This epic biopic is based on the true story of American-born U. S. Colonel David "Mickey" Marcus, who was enlisted by the Israelis to perform the difficult task of preparing their fledgling nation for battle during Israel's struggle for independence. It has a good production standard with a great musical score and superb photography. However, it falls short in getting down to the proper work of storytelling on the film's main theme and relies on flashbacks for exposition and superficial melodrama about a relationship. Pity, because Kirk Douglas was well cast, and he portrays the adventurous soldier-of-fortune with distinction. John Wayne plays a composite character that hardly makes an impact on the story.