Review of Kelly's Heroes (1970) by Van R — 25 May 2011

Director Brian Hutton followed up his smash hit World War II espionage thriller Where Eagles Dare with Kelly's Heroes. Whereas Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton masqueraded as Germans to infiltrate an impregnable castle and rescue a prisoner who knows everything about D-Day. Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland, and Eastwood.

Behave like renegades willing to loot a heavily guarded bank behind enemy lines. Italian Job scenarist Troy Martin Kennedy pulls off a spectacular premise that had never been done before in a World War II movie. A platoon of restless G.I.s who are left to their own designs storm enemy lines to rob a bank. Since command has pulled them out of.

Battle and ordered them to take rest and relaxation, they decide to grab something for themselves. Clint Eastwood plays a former U.S. Army lieutenant demoted because somebody had to assume blame for a botched mission that claimed the lives of all his men. When he interrogates a reluctant German officer with alcohol, the enemy soldier reveals the secret about a horde of gold ingots. Telly Savalas co-stars as an abusive but skeptical sergeant, while a bearded Donald Sutherland steals the show as a stoner tank commander. Eastwood and company set out for a $16 million pay day and wind up turning the tide of battle with their exploits. Kelly arranges for a mortar barrage as his men and he highball through enemy lines, while Oddball calls on a marching band to help his Sherman tanks ford a river with no bridge. The complications and the way that our ingenious heroes handle them is what sells this imaginative epic. Confronted by angry Germans prepared to kill them, our heroes find themselves being pursued at the same time by a crazy General (Caroll O'Connor) dying to hand out medals for gallantry. The finale in an occupied town is played as if it were a World War II spin on The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is inspirational. Kelly's Heroes boasts literacy, suspense, tension, and humor. Actually, the subtext of this movie seems to be a anti-war commentary about Vietnam. Kelly's Heroes is a must-see for all combat movie fanatics. The ensemble cast makes this movie truly entertaining as well as offbeat.