KELLY‘S HEROES
(directed by Brian G. Hutton, 1970)
***+ (out of 5)
.
> As I age, it seems the percentage of films I am returning to for a second viewing is rising sharply.
. Sometimes I discover a film I loved as a kid was as good, or even better than I remembered it. THE PRESIDENTS ANALYST is a great example. Other times, the passing of years and maturation are not as kind, as in WHERE’S POPPA. This example of revisiting previously plowed ground was every bit as entertaining as I remembered it, but not nearly as humorous. Intended to be solidly in the vein of M*A*S*H* or CATCH-22, KELLY’S HEROES is also a war/comedy, though the setting is World War II, not Korea. It’s a heist story- but the fresh angle here: it’s a heist behind enemy lines during a hot war.
. Cocky private Clint Eastwood captures a German officer, and decides to get him drunk to loosen his jaw for interrogation. It works. Eastwood ends up getting much more eye-opening information than he bargained on, discovering that 30km behind German battle-lines lies 16 million bucks worth of gold bullion, sitting in a bank waiting to be “liberated”. Every man-Jack among his platoon is sick and tired of Army life, so when Kelly goes to them with a plan to make-off with the gold, he finds receptive ears. Hooking up with groovy hippie “Oddball” (Donald Sutherland in his element), and his gang of loafers who have conveniently forgotten to report the death of their commanding officer, they become Kelly’s armored mercenaries, each motivated by the equal share of the loot they hope to secure at the end.
. If hostile Nazis were not enough- there is another complication: rageaholic General Carol O’Connor has mistaken their crime for gung ho patriotic initiative, and he is hot on their tail, eager to pin medals on everyone and claim the glory for himself. (Here is the humor I remembered, in O’Connor’s broad, satiric caricature of military myopia.) They’ve gotta move fast, and hightail it out of the small French village before he arrives to catch his mistake.
. Among the motley crew: an already-bald Telly Savalas as their sergeant, very young versions of Gavin MacLeod and Harry Dean Stanton, and Don Rickles doing his usual biting satiric comic schtick. Maybe KELLY’S HEROES is not quite the classic I remembered from my Golden Age of discovering cinema, but there is much to appreciate here. It made me want to revisit a couple of other war-comedies I saw at the time and grooved on, like THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA and THE KING OF HEARTS.
– Who knew World War II was so entertaining!
*
© Kevin Paul Keelan and lastcre8iveiconoclast, 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kevin Paul Keelan and lastcre8iveiconoclast with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
KPKworld 