I am proud to say that I love Peter O'Toole! He's not only one of my favorite actors ever, but he's starred in more of my all all-time favorite films than anybody else. But playing an insane Nazi General who kills women to "relieve his tensions"... was not a good career move. Provoking giggles where you intended to create fear is never a good idea.
If you see this film in your TV guide, I'd advise you to skip the first hour. The first hour is a standard WWII thriller, where good Nazi cop Omar Sharif (there's casting for you) suspects three Nazi generals of gruesomely murdering a woman. We meet all the major characters - Omar, the generals, the pretty daughter of one, a nice young corporal who doesn't want to fight, etc. We watch some intrigues and see O'Toole's character icily destroy a Polish ghetto. And then we lose track of what's going on when two years pass and they don't say so until you're completely confused it - and forget about it everything when O'Toole reappears and hijacks the film with his magnetic badness.
Being an Evil Nazi is driving General Pete insane, and by this point even his superiors have noticed that he's getting a few clowns short of a circus. He's on forced leave in Paris, and driven around by the nice corporal and shadowed by Sharif. The plot screeches to a halt as and we get endless closeups of him staring sweatily at art and prostitutes, and walking so unnaturally to the silly "madness" music that we were yelling "Klaatu, gort barada niktu" at the screen. This is the kind of bad performance that can only be given by a really good actor - it's easy to see why the director let him get away with it and overpower the rest of the film, this must have looked like great acting when seen piece by piece in the editing room.
The finale was very badly handled indeed (somebody wasn't doing his homework on how to adapt a book for the screen); for a suspenseful ending there's nothing like stopping at the exciting part and taking things up 20 years later, is there? Check it out if you love Peter O'Toole - even when he's bad - or if the last half is coming up and you have nothing better to do that watch some seriously bad cinema.
If you see this film in your TV guide, I'd advise you to skip the first hour. The first hour is a standard WWII thriller, where good Nazi cop Omar Sharif (there's casting for you) suspects three Nazi generals of gruesomely murdering a woman. We meet all the major characters - Omar, the generals, the pretty daughter of one, a nice young corporal who doesn't want to fight, etc. We watch some intrigues and see O'Toole's character icily destroy a Polish ghetto. And then we lose track of what's going on when two years pass and they don't say so until you're completely confused it - and forget about it everything when O'Toole reappears and hijacks the film with his magnetic badness.
Being an Evil Nazi is driving General Pete insane, and by this point even his superiors have noticed that he's getting a few clowns short of a circus. He's on forced leave in Paris, and driven around by the nice corporal and shadowed by Sharif. The plot screeches to a halt as and we get endless closeups of him staring sweatily at art and prostitutes, and walking so unnaturally to the silly "madness" music that we were yelling "Klaatu, gort barada niktu" at the screen. This is the kind of bad performance that can only be given by a really good actor - it's easy to see why the director let him get away with it and overpower the rest of the film, this must have looked like great acting when seen piece by piece in the editing room.
The finale was very badly handled indeed (somebody wasn't doing his homework on how to adapt a book for the screen); for a suspenseful ending there's nothing like stopping at the exciting part and taking things up 20 years later, is there? Check it out if you love Peter O'Toole - even when he's bad - or if the last half is coming up and you have nothing better to do that watch some seriously bad cinema.