From my favorite movies..

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

I love Jack Palance, I love Italian movies. Only I don't love when someone has to talk in an accent. Irish, Scottish, Hebredian, Welsh, Gaelic who knows the difference. Who cares especially when it is not relevant to the plot. Remember, contrary to popular preconditioned view, because of that stupid song "It's the singer not the song". It is the story that counts. It is the song and not the singer.

As much as I love Italian cinema I'm not much for these sixties war films - every single one of them is a rip-off of The Dirty Dozen, but when I spotted Aldo Sambrell wearing a turban my index finger jabbed the record button on the remote so hard I'm sure I broke a bone.As well as an Italian imitating an Indian, we have Jack Palance sporting some sort of Scottish accent (it's says on the IMDb that it's Irish? That's even worse) and some terrible miniature effects, but the usual story of a bunch of Allied misfits sent behind enemy lines to do something or other is so dreary it still manages to end up being a boring experience.Jack is Colonel Haggis McKiltguy, raging in a really bad way about his last mission, where his entire platoon got wasted. He's all out to give up on all this army business, until he learns that his opposite number in the mission is the German guy in command of that last mission, Major Bratwurst Von Laderhosen. He signs up for the mission pretty shortly after that! However, he needs a new platoon - how about that bunch of jerks acting like jerks in the jerk squad. You know, all them criminals? That doesn't sound like the Dirty Dozen at all! So Jack and his bunch of Italian and German actors pretending to be British (except the guy pretending to be Indian) head of to Normandy to do some stuff that'll help the D-Day invasion. You've also got a sub plot about the German guy not being so bad, trying to warn his command about the invasion and going head-to-head with the SS, but who cares? It's the usual barrage of sneaking, knifing, wearing the enemie's uniforms, possible double crossing (hinted at then forgotten), paper thin romance, and confrontation that you get in these films. There were some laughs to be had from the miniature work at the end (I rewound to see that tiny dummy flying out of the train carriage) and was tickled pink as the last scene seemed to show Jack throwing his gun away and giving up the life of a soldier, then seemingly remembering that he can't actually leave the army that way and picking his gun up again.I'm sick of these Umberto Lenzi films! Give me an Umberto Lenzi film!

I saw this WW2 movie under the title LEGION OF THE DAMNED and was more an a little disappointed with the quality given the pedigree of the cast members and especially director Umberto Lenzi, a man who more often than not made films that were pure entertainment. This one feels just too low budget and too tired to succeed, and the cast of misfit characters (clearly modelled on THE DIRTY DOZEN) are just too unlikeable for the viewer to truly enjoy their presence.The cast is headlined by the great Jack Palance, but the bad news is that he's been dubbed by a Scottish guy with a completely ridiculous, over the top, and stilted accent, which means that you just can't take him seriously at any point in the film. His men are an entirely undistinguished group apart from Aldo Sambrell's Indian fighter who is an unusual and welcome addition. Wolfgang Preiss and Curd Jurgens play the Nazi officials and really both roles are a walk in the park for the actors.The story does feature plenty of action which is in the film's favour, but unfortunately it's not very well shot and it is very cheap-looking too. It's only at the climax that things get really exciting with some stand-out moments that come close to iconic, but otherwise this is par for the course, let down by the presentation which really could have been better.

Jack Palance plays a British colonel - and is dubbed as such. From then on it is downhill all the way. Weaponry of all sorts completely wrong for the story period. American APCs !! The actual target - a huge rail gun shown firing is patently absurd while the SFX used for its demolition are so crushingly amateurish to insult the intelligence.So sad to see a cast of actors capable of achieving masterpieces when given scripts and production values to match their talents, have had to stoop to such a level to earn a living.This European co-production is a perfect example of how a film was ruined by the necessity to finance it following the constraints of percentage co-production budgets. Jack Palance had to be cast in the lead to ensure US / international distributor interest. All the various nationality European cast then fitted in to fulfill the budget percentage requirements for talent.