By Marc S. Sanders
There’s gold in them thar Nazi castle. Hence the plot is set in motion for a World War II romp called Kelly’s Heroes. It’s easy to get acclimated to the lightheartedness of this comedic war picture from director Brian G Hutton (Where Eagles Dare).
The movie opens during a dark and rainy evening within a German occupied France. The on-screen credits pop up revealing an all-star cast of tough guy actors who are also quite funny. Clint Eastwood is the title character who sits behind the wheel of a jeep. When the Nazis take notice, he hits the gas, makes a sharp left through the muddy road, and zooms away while avoiding shell fragments coming down on him. The film’s catchy theme song marches in – “Burning Bridges” performed by the Mike Curb Congregation. The chorus of singers speak as a soldier who does not even care about authority or the rules of war. The lyrics are rather simple to understand, and you want to just join in on the revolutionary merriment. The song enters the film again and again over the next two and a half hours, reminding you to just enjoy the ride against this tragic capsule of time from the first half of twentieth century history. Hawkeye Pierce couldn’t have said it better.
In his capture, Kelly has brought back a Nazi commandant and when he sees a fourteen-karat gold bar in the German’s possession, it’s easy to surmise that there must be more where this came from. Turns out there is a stash worth roughly sixteen million dollars crated in a bank vault in the center of a stopover town, located across enemy lines in war torn France. Kelly and his squad, led by Big Joe (Telly Savalas), are under heavy fire and forced to retreat for safety, but that isn’t going to stop him from making a snatch and grab.
Joe has been given orders to get the unit to safety and allow them a three-day reprieve of R & R. However, he’s just as enticed as Kelly and gradually a small team of men assemble to pull off the heist. First, they’ll need tanks to fight off the nearly indestructible Nazi Panzer machines they expect to encounter. Fortunately, Crapgame (a scene stealing Don Rickles) and Kelly come across the hippie loving Oddball (another scene stealer – Donald Sutherland) who can supply the tanks they need and fend off what stands in the unit’s way. What’s also important is Oddball find a bridge for the squad to cross before the allies destroy it. That’s not so easy. Sutherland is somewhat of a spaz; maybe an ancestor of Cosmo Kramer.
Meanwhile, a blood and guts two-star General Colt (Carroll O’Connor) is screaming for results from his subordinates. When he intercepts the guys’ communications, he can’t help but be impressed with their progress and strategies of attack. He’s ready to go into the field with a handful of medals for every American soldier that’s giving a damn.
The looniness of Kelly’s Heroes is hilarious. Eastwood carries his signature quietness about him. So, he’s the straight man leaving the loudmouth material for Savalas, Rickles, and a bevy of supporting actors. Plus, there’s O’Connor in his own side story. Sutherland is another kind of comedy – the free spirit who appears to have taken one too many shells to the noggin.
It’s not a slapstick kind of movie. It operates like the doctors from M*A*S*H. These draftees have no loyalty to a cause. They look out for each other. They know how to survive the battles and they know that some will not make it. Brian Hutton does not forget the frightening impact of war. A memorable scene occurs when the unit realizes they are dead center in a mine field, offering up the life and death factor blended in both the comedy and drama that comes with a heroic war picture.
There are some inconsistencies to Kelly’s Heroes. Often, it feels like some scenes that would connect certain dots must have been edited out of the final print. As the men come close to the to the bank where the gold is stashed, two of the soldiers are already in the overlooking bird’s nest tower giving a low down of the area to Kelly and Big Joe. Yet, how did those guys ever get up there? It’s not a terrible violation. There are sequences like this that make the movie feel a little uneven. Clint Eastwood even went on record expressing his disappointment with the film as there were excised moments that drew more out of Rickles and Sutherland’s characters, and a few of the other supporting characters played by Gavin MacLeod (The Love Boat, The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Stuart Margolin (a very underrated character actor who had memorable episodes on the M*A*S*H tv series) and a young Harry Dean Stanton (here credited only as Dean Stanton).
This film was shot in Yugoslavia simply because the country still had possession of many tanks and vehicles from the story’s time period. The art design and battlegrounds are very impressive. Before CGI, Brian G Hutton and his team were reenacting a lot of these loud, bombastic battle scenes complete with big fireballs of explosions along with the aftermath wreckage left behind of rubble and blasted out walls and craters. Hutton positions his cameras either on top or right behind the cannons and guns mounted on the tanks. So, you are actually getting a first person view of these massive war machines driving across the plains while shooting off their firepower. The filmmakers did not hold back on making World War II look authentic in its battle wear. I’ll be bold enough to say the settings are comparable to what Spielberg accomplished with Saving Private Ryan, and what Eastwood depicted in Letters From Iwo Jima. The lens is just not as serious as those films.
The cast is a magnificent fraternity of brazenly funny tough guys, in the same vain as The Dirty Dozen, though much more lighthearted. They’re a motley sort who all stand out among their similar appearances in green army fatigues and netted helmets.
Kelly’s Heroes is a lighthearted comedic adventure where the heist is what you come to see against a historical backdrop when nothing was ever sensationalized fun. History offers up a cruel world of pain and suffering, but who says we can’t enjoy ourselves through all the blood, guts and misery as our heroes ride off into a ravishing orange sunset?
Go for the gold and catch up with Kelly’s Heroes.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 