Vintage movie review: The Heroes of Telemark

1965
Directed by Anthony Mann
Starring Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris and Ulla Jacobson.

A large screen TV, a good sound system and a pristine cut on DVD - add a bottle of scotch and a cheese board and you've got all the ingredients for a truly cinematic experience in the home.

I watch a lot of old movies like this and so I thought it would be a good idea to add a VINTAGE MOVIE REVIEW section to the Archive, where titles would not be categorised by genre but rather included because they are what we would define as vintage. And you know, by and large, the old movies are usually the best - well, they are in the opinion of this grouchy old timer. You can stick your expensive CGI where the sun don't shine and muscle bound fools in latex merely bore me. Give me a slice of classic celluloid and I'm happy.

The Heroes of Telemark, filmed all the way back in 1965 (the year the Beatles released Help, cigarette advertising was banned on Television, Ian Fleming posthumously published The Man with the Golden Gun and I was born.) and takes its story from factual events.Namely the sabotaging by the Norwegian resistance of the German heavy water plants. These actions may have actually cost Germany the war, since prior to this audacious act of sabotage the Germans were closer than both the Americans and the British to producing a workable nuclear bomb. The story was also filmed in 1948 under the title   Kampen om tungtvannet, and that Franco/Norwegian version even featured four of the original commandos who took part in the actual sabotage playing themselves - that movie is available on You Tube and is embedded below. There is also a newspaper article HERE that tells of the death in 2012 of one of the last surviving saboteurs.




   Kampen om tungtvannet The movie as available on You Tube



Anthony Mann's movie is quite faithful to actual events, but the veteran director of many classic westerns, is at all times aware that he is producing an entertainment and he delivers a spectacular movie, excellently paced and full of excitement. Reviews at the time said the characters were wooden but I can't agree with that and whilst Kirk Douglas may come across as a cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond, Richard Harris' Nazi hating character is superbly nuanced.

The action scenes are excellent and the ski chase in the movie is as good as anything seen on the big screen, the suspense is also ramped up and the end scene in which Douglas tries to save a group of children from a ferry that is about to blow up is a master-class in edge-of-the-seat viewing.

If you enjoy movies like Where Eagles Dare and the Guns of Navarone, then you will certainly enjoy Heroes of Telemark. Highly recommended.

Second World War Timeline in movies - 1 - towards global warfare

All this week the Archive will be presenting a timeline of the second world war as told in the movies - that's the entire story of the conflict which lasted from 1939 to 1945 and resulted in between 50 - 70 million fatalites. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. The global conflict remains the most global war the world has ever seem, resulting in both the holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in a warfare.

Of course this series of articles is not intended to be a history of the conflict, but rather to highlight some of the better war movies which strive for both historical accuracy and viewer excitement.

To start the series the Archive points the interested reader towards Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003) which depicts the rise of Hitler, from impoverished child to leader of the National Socialist Party and instigator of the war in Europe which would eventually go global. The movie was originally made as a TV mini-series and shown on television, before being released as a theatrical movie. Reviews at the time were mostly negative but the production was nominted for several Emmys and did in fact win two.

Robert Carlyle in the role of Hitler is nothing short of remarkable with virtually every possible character trait of the Nazi dictator being captured and portrayed in an incredibly convincing manner. It does resort to stereotype on times and can not be said to be totally historically accurate but it does contain most of the important elements of the storyl. And although it only takes us upto Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany, it provides a useful introduction to the start of our World War II timline.

Next - 1939 - Dunkirk.

80/80- Clint goes to war

Where Eagles Dare was intended to cement Clint's standing in Europe and to prove that he could do more than westerns. He was cast opposite the then much bigger star, Richard Burton. However when Clint started shooting he found his character far too wordy and so, as he had done with the Leone movies, he started cutting his dialogue until he was left with very little to say. This annoyed the director but as it gave Richard Burton more screen time, the Welsh actor defended Clint and Eastwood got his way.


However where it worked for Clint to just stand there in the surreal landscape of the Dollar movies it didn't have the same effect in this second world war movie. True Where Eagles Dare is a good, no nonsense action film but this is despite of Eastwood rather than because of him. He seems to have little to do in the film and does come across as wooden in several key scenes. Richard Burton is very much the star here and although the film was a commercial success it certainly didn't do Clint any favours.

Eastwood's next war movie was the comedic Kelly's Heroes (1970) - Clint worked alongside a top rate cast - Telly Savalas, Don Rickles and Donald Sutherland. Filming was done in England and Yugoslavia and meant that Clint was based in Europe for most of the year.

"I can't stand long locations or production schedules. Once you get moving, I see no reason to drag your feet." Clint Eastwood in a 1971 interview with Action magazine.

The shoot would drag on and on - Clint spent much of his time travelling around the European countryside on the 750CC Norton motorcycle he had purchased while filming, Where Eagles Dare.

The resulting film is these days much loved but wasn't so at the time. Clint himself has publicly said he dislikes the film which is odd given that his performance is excellent. The film opened in most markets at the same time as Two Mules for Sister Sarah which meant that effectively Clint was in competition with himself.

Kelly's Heroes would be the last film Clint would make outside of the control of Malpaso.


Clint would next go to war in 1986's Heartbreak Ridge - Eastwood was Tom Highway, a Korean war veteran in charge of a young squad of marines. In reality the battle of Heartbreak Ridge was won by the army and Clint was aware of this. The original story had seen an army squad used but in order to obtain the military equipment used in the movie the premise was changed to the Marines.

When the film was released it wasn't the recruiting advert the Department of Defence had hoped for. Robert Simms branded the film as blasphemous pornography and the Marines released a statement saying that they did not support the movie and its depiction of the corps.

The film was modestly successful at the box office though and Clint did add considerable depth to the character of Tom Highway - it's far from a classic but it's certainly not bad. Of course Clint's true war themed master-works were still to come with Flags of our Fathers and the even better, Letters from Iwo Jima.

But that as they say, is another story

WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968)

1968
Directed by Brian G. Hutton

This is very much Richard Burton's film for it is he who is given all the acting, while Eastwood stands around looking cool but always ready when there' some killing to be done. And there's plenty of that in this boy's own style adventure movie that keeps the viewer literally gripping the edge of the seat.

The plot sees a group of British agents and an American (Eastwood) dropped into an Alpine fortress to rescue an American General who holds the details of for the planned second front in his head. No sooner have they parachuted in than we realise one among them is a traitor when one of the team his found dead, his neck clumsily broken to indicate he died in the jump from the plane. But as the mission continues it becomes apparent that there may be other traitors within their ranks and the plot twists and turns, keeping the viewer guessing but glued to this high octane thriller.

Based on the Alistar Maclean thriller, this was, at the time, Eastwood's most successful film and MGM's number one moneymaker that year. The action scenes are brilliantly staged and the extended climax is exactly what cinema was invented for, even if the final twist is just a little bit obvious.

"Broadsword calling Danny Boy."

The set pieces are many - the motorbike escape, the cable car fight, the heart-stopping mountain climb and the fight out of the fortress. The film doesn't question or moralise about the war (it's not that kind of war movie) but instead provides an exciting dose of pure action cinema.