Kelly's Heroes
Eastwood is the titular Kelly, who at the film's outset has captured an officer in German intelligence. When Eastwood discovers a gold bar among the man's possessions, he gets him drunk and finds out there are 14,000 more like it in a bank in a French town. The catch--it is 30 miles behind enemy lines.
Eastwood enlists the men in his platoon, plus a fixer called Crapgame (Don Rickles). He inadvertently brings in a fellow known as Oddball (Donald Sutherland), who has three Sherman tanks at his disposal. The only holdout is the tough as nails sergeant, Telly Savalas, but when Eastwood and the men convince him that they might as well die this way than any other, Savalas joins.
While this is a World War II movie, it is most decidedly a creature of 1970. Not only is their a pop song (sung by the Mike Curb Congregation) but the viewpoint is from the radical view. Savalas says to his men that no one should stick their neck out for anyone else, unless you're a hero, implying that none of them are. Though the viewer gets caught up in their mission, it is one strictly for greed, not for altruism. A key moment is when there is nothing between them and the bank except a German Tiger tank. Instead of shooting their way in, they simply offer the German tank commander a cut.
The biggest giveaway about all this is the role of Oddball. He's got long hair and a beard, and says things like "dig" and calls men "baby." He is a proto-hippie if there ever was one (although he has no trouble using his tank for mayhem). I'm quite sure there were no people like him at the time--even the Beats were not yet firmly established--but Sutherland, who of course was also in M*A*S*H, plays him as if it were the Summer of Love.
Eastwood is as stoic as ever, but I quite liked Savalas and Rickles, who is an under-rated actor. I also enjoyed the antics of a pre-Archie Bunker Carroll O'Connor, who plays a bumptious general who thinks the men are advancing toward the enemy out of patriotism, and wants to give them medals.
The movie has a little fun with Eastwood's reputation, by having he, Savalas, and Sutherland standing in the square of the French town like gunfighters, with faux Ennio Morricone music and jangling spurs.
Kelly's Heroes is pretty good fun, though it could stand some trimming. It still works as a war comedy, but it is better as a time capsule.
It's an interesting curio although I think it's a bit overrated. It's never as funny as it thinks it is and thinks shouting and activity equal humour. But the ending is pretty good and the title song is certainly catchy!
ReplyDelete