Last week was the 68th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that began the liberation of Europe.
Rather than re-hash my first post on Forces of Geek, I’m going to talk about another of my favorite WWII movies.
Kelly’s Heroes came out in 1970. Clint Eastwood was already a huge Western star (A Fistful of Dollars, Rawhide, For a Few Dollars More; The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly; Hang ‘Em High; and Paint Your Wagon). He’d already made a WWII movie (Where Eagles Dare). So he was ready for a light-hearted action film.
Plus the movie stars Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O’Connor, Donald Sutherland, Gavin Macleod, Stuart Margolin, and Harry Dean Stanton.
No wonder it’s 86% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, where 85% of the audience reports liking it.
Synopsis
A bunch of American GIs in WWII France discover that the German army is guarding millions of dollars worth of gold bars in a bank, about 60 miles behind the lines. If they can get to the bank before the Germans move the gold, and before the American army breaks through German defenses, it could be the perfect crime…
Verdict
If you can handle your war action mixed with some humor, you’ll love this movie.
So what, exactly, makes Kelly’s Heroes work?
Well, for one thing, it’s anti-authority. Everyone above the rank of sergeant is some kind of idiot. The movie portrays the very bureaucracy of the military as stifling the initiative it needs to win. As a former Army officer, I can say that’s often accurate.
For another, it’s easy to understand. I think that even today, most people understand why we fought in WWII. We all understand being fed up with the authorities in our lives, and wanting to do things for ourselves. We intuitively understand the fear the soldiers must overcome in battle. The movie reinforces how much the men want to live and see their homes again by letting them talk about what they want to do with the money.
It just works.
Oddball (Donald Sutherland) makes it easy to follow the movie’s three-act story structure.
In Act I, Oddball learns about the gold. He then fights his platoon through to the river. At the end, Oddball learns that no matter how positive he thinks, there are no mother-beautiful bridges.
In Act II, he struggles across the bridge and fights alongside Kelly (Clint Eastwood) and the infantry to reach the village. At the end of the act, he learns about the Tiger tanks in the village.
In Act III, Oddball fights the Tiger tanks until his tank breaks down. Then he has to work with Kelly and Big Joe (Telly Savalas) to figure out how to get the last Tiger tank away from the locked bank.
Because there are so many characters, they’re all simple, stock, character types. That makes it easy to keep track of who is who, and to develop connections with them. Kelly, Big Joe, Oddball, and Crapgame (Don Rickles) are the most strongly drawn, but you’re not likely to forget Little Joe (Stuart Margolin) or Major General Colt (Carroll O’Connor) either.
Overall
In the First Gulf War, my platoon sergeant and I both wanted to be Oddball.
We’d even heard that some American Express and Western Union offices kept gold on-hand, and were perfectly willing to go shares if we ever came across such places.
Which, of course, we never did. It was just a fantasy to keep our spirits up, but it’s funny how even 20 years later, Kelly’s Heroes still had an impact.
If you like WWII action movies, see this one.
