I have to say, the air raid with explosions all around but nothing falling from the sky to cause them was funny from my perspective sitting 50-odd years in the future from when this was filmed. Say what you will about 1960s movies—many of them are still great, but the effects do tend to show their age.
The other technical comment I have is that Burt Lancaster must have rolled down that hill an awful lot to get all of the camera angles done. Just look at how much footage they have of him tumbling over the grass toward the road!
Overall, I award this film 8.4/10 — not quite enough to round it up to a 9, but close.
There are some great moments in here, especially as far as the trains are concerned. I applaud the production for making the train "accidents" realistic, rather than having everything explode at the brush of a feather as is so common in more modern Hollywood films. Although the air raid near the beginning does suffer from this a bit—many of those explosions seemed driven by the creation of a spectacle. But no film is perfect, right?
I got some real Die Hard vibes from this, which was unexpected but welcome.
Review by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2017-12-24T04:06:07Z
I have to say, the air raid with explosions all around but nothing falling from the sky to cause them was funny from my perspective sitting 50-odd years in the future from when this was filmed. Say what you will about 1960s movies—many of them are still great, but the effects do tend to show their age.
The other technical comment I have is that Burt Lancaster must have rolled down that hill an awful lot to get all of the camera angles done. Just look at how much footage they have of him tumbling over the grass toward the road!
Overall, I award this film 8.4/10 — not quite enough to round it up to a 9, but close.
There are some great moments in here, especially as far as the trains are concerned. I applaud the production for making the train "accidents" realistic, rather than having everything explode at the brush of a feather as is so common in more modern Hollywood films. Although the air raid near the beginning does suffer from this a bit—many of those explosions seemed driven by the creation of a spectacle. But no film is perfect, right?
I got some real Die Hard vibes from this, which was unexpected but welcome.