A classic

Since this movie has a pretty good reputation, I thought I should give it a try. Basically, it is a decent and really entertaining WWII feature. To be honest, it might not be really original or mind-blowing but it was still a nice watch. Anyway, it was a pretty expensive movie, one of the most expensive ever made at the time, and it was a huge success at the box-office, apparently the highest grossing movie released in 1961. It wasn’t really surprising since there was a really nice cast (Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Irene Papas, Richard Harris) and even though Gregory Peck felt miscast as a British soldier, I thought he was pretty cool, as usual. An another interesting element is that it was meant to be an anti-war feature but it is apparently something that was missed by the mainstream audience at that time. Eventually, they would make a sequel starring an up and coming actor called Harrison Ford. Not only this sequel was made only 17 years later but also none of the actors were coming back (on the other hand with such a gap between the two movies, that wasn’t really surprising…) and both movies didn’t have much to do with each other. Anyway, to conclude, I thought it was a pretty neat WWII war feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10