Bons baisers d'Athènes

This WWII movie takes place on somewhere in Greek islands during 1944 , a misfit prisoners group(a stoic David Niven,a two-fisted Richard Roundtree, among them) are scheming escape from the concentration camp and at the same time the robbing in an Ortodox monastery at the top of the island's mountain. At the bunch appear a distinguished David Niven(whose son David Niven Jr is producer), an Italian cook(Sonny Bono), a member of the Greek Resistance(Telly Savalas), a prostitute( beautiful Claudia Cardinale) and among Nazis are a former Viennese art merchant(likable Roger Moore) and a cruel Nazi(Anthony Valentine).The gentleman Nazi officer Moore is stuck with the outfit of goof-offs as they search for the Greek treasure.

Basically an amusing action filled /wartime/and comedy set during WWII. It's a crossover among the rogue soldiers from ¨The Kelly's heroes(Brian G Hutton)¨, the getaway from ¨The great escape(John Sturges)¨ and the humor included in ¨Hogan's heroes¨ taking parts here and there. This wartime picture which is short in realism instead we have far-fetched but moving blow up, shoot'em up, fighting , it should please most adventure-action-comedy buffs.Middling screenplay by the prestigious Edward Anhalt.Some characters aren't credible in 1944 setting , neither the Nais soldiers dressed in black when parade along with the secret German rocket installation.Roger Moore is miscast as an Nazi official and Elliott Gould as a hippie-alike sound embarrassing. Cameo by William Holden as prisoner smoking a cigar in prison camp and he appears uncredited. Luminous and shimmer photography by Gilbert Taylor. Stirring and military musical score by Lalo Schifrin. This improbable motion picture is professionally directed by George Pan Cosmatos. Although the movie has some aspects a little tough to take , this caper film still has its moments.This large-scale and lavishly produced pic attempts a bemusing atmosphere with regular results.

Roger Moore is the Austrian commandant of a German POW camp located in the Grecian Isles in Escape to Athena. He's got a couple of favorites among the prisoners, an Italian cook in Sonny Bono, an archaeologist in David Niven and a black GI magician in Richard Roundtree. In addition USO entertainers Elliott Gould and Stefanie Powers are shot down in their transport plane and become Moore's prisoners.

Moore really hasn't got his heart in the commandant business. He's an antique dealer in civilian life and he relishes the assignment only because of the location where he's also involved in Adolph Hitler's looting of Greek antiquities of which there are many in that area. Niven and company aid him because if they didn't they'd be in the hands of the SS. STill they want there freedom.

Which they get when they join with resistance leader Telly Savalas and his mistress, bordello madam Claudia Cardinale. It's rumored there's a lot of hidden loot in a monastery on a nearby hill, whatever Moore hasn't taken for his own private stock for after the war. But Savalas is interested in some prototype V2 rockets located there.

Escape to Athena mixes the plot elements of The Guns of Navarone and Topkapi, but they're not stirred too well. The scenery is quite nice and I'm sure the prospect of some paid time in the Aegean Sea might have been a big inducement for all these people signing on for the movie.

As he was involved with Stefanie Powers at the time, William Holden gets a small unbilled cameo in a brief scene with Elliott Gould. As it turns out Moore's Prison Camp is also Stalag XVII. That might have been part of the package for Stefanie to go to Greece.

It was also plain dumb to make Richard Roundtree a black GI. Americans were not involved in that theater, let alone black soldiers. Now if they had made his character be part of the African colonial troops of the British Empire, it would have made more sense. Then again we couldn't have heard Roundtree call a German soldier a 'cool cat'.

The action sequences are done well enough, but the cast here just collected their paychecks and walked through the parts.

No one likes this film. Why not? It is a remarkably good film, with an excellent cast. Telly Savalas seems to be remarkably at home in this film; he is very natural. I also think that it is good to see David Niven in a different setting to his usual role as the English gentlemen. However, Roger Moore's German accent is appalling. The character of Charlie is also well imagined, and the motorcycling stunts are first class. There are some great one-liners: "I think your defection to the Allies must be taken as something of a mixed message." And did I mention the soundtrack from Heatwave (at the end of the film) ...

The wonderfully handsome Roger Moore was my main reason for sitting down one afternoon, while full of cold and feeling lousy, to watch this star-studded old film.

Roger is his gorgeous, charming self playing a benign German camp commandant on an idyllic Greek island in 1944. His scenes with the sadistic SS Officer, who he clearly despises (Anthony Valentine, well cast) are good.

Lots of big stars populate this film as a small group of favoured POWs are tasked with uncovering valuable treasures from around the island. Elliott Gould and Stephanie Powers are quite corny and annoying as two vaudeville entertainers who end up in the camp after being shot down.

Telly Savalas is a hard man local resistance fighter and David Niven is an urbane POW with a useful expertise in ancient artifacts.

Shallow this may be, but were it not for the lovely setting and my long passion for Roger I would probably not have enjoyed this film as much.

I'm guessing that this star-studded cast had an absolute ball filming this on the island and I can imagine that a brilliant time was had by all off camera!

This film came free with today's paper, so perhaps I'm in an indulgent frame of mind. However, much as I admire the wit shown by IMDb members in panning this film, I have to disagree with them. Escape to Athena is a very enjoyable romp indeed, with all sorts of excellent stylistic touches, some really gratifying explosions, humour that is a trifle dated but not so bad if you lean back and accept it, and an interesting plot. I don't know why people require a movie to go all the way in one direction, ie be edge-of-the-seat suspense, or cataclysmic tragedy, or roll-in-the-aisles hilarious, or weepie romantic etc. etc. Why can't it be a bit of everything? I think we're far too used to the extremes that have become fashionable of late. Forget Daniel Day-Lewis bursting a vein, if just for one evening. You'll feel better for it. However, Telly really can't dance. That I must agree with.