7/10
Adventure and intrigue... Mitchum style
2 May 2014
With such an accomplished director (Aldrich) and author (Uris) involved, I was really surprised that this wasn't more of a success, but as previously discussed by others, this was probably over-edited and over-cut. Robert Aldrich also directed The Dirty Dozen, and TWO Bette Davis films (Baby Jane and Sweet Charlotte). Robert Uris wrote numerous books on the subjects of war and international conflict. The lead, Robert Mitchum was no slouch either, having starred in so many big films - Cape Fear, Out of the Past, Sundowners, Night of the Hunter. In Angry Hills, he is Mike Morrison, a journalist caught up in wartime Europe. He checks into his hotel, and meets someone who wants to give him a secret list that is to be delivered to British intelligence when he returns to London. He refuses, and that's when the adventures begin. Morrison escapes the clutches of the bad guys, (several times) and pops up in a village that has been conquered by the Germans. He is looked after by the beautiful "Eleftheria" and her family. (Gia Scala, who died quite young at age 38. she has an interesting write-up on wikipedia.org) He hangs around town, and then scoots off to another town. Keep an eye out for Sebastian Cabot, best known as the butler on the show "Family Affair", made a couple years after Hills. It's entertaining enough, and a believable tale, but the whole time, I got the feeling that he could have left the various villages much earlier to avoid trouble; he just seemed to dawdle around town for the sake of the script. Still, a good WW II adventure story.
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