Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Absolutely brilliant

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The plot is not quite credible, although it is splendidly acted. You actually can't fail to observe how Maximilan Schell enjoys his part, and Charlton Heston came into this film directly from the vaults in the Sistine Chapel as Michelangelo and makes almost the same hopelessly stubborn case of idiotic obstinacy here. However, the weak point of the film is the colonel, (Anton Diffring, who almost exclusively played wicked German Nazi officers). It's not plausible that any German officer would have treated musicians like that, coldly lining them up for execution with all their instruments with no respect or regard for music at all - this is extremely alien to German mentality. Of course, it makes an ideally dramatic plot, and you follow it with interest, while also Kathryn Hayes fails to convince, both as lover and musician. Nevertheless, it's a very enjoyable film, especially for musicians, as it is the music that makes the film, with Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Wagner dominating and leading the show. It's horribly exciting as well, and although, as I said, the plot is very far from convincing and not in the least realistic, you buy the end with delight. It might have happened that an American orchestra like this could have got caught behind the German lines in winter 1944-45, but if such an incident occurred, they have made a mammoth out of it, and in reality the outcome would have been no more than just a harmless incident. Here it is blown up with a lot of dead bodies, as the Germans in the 60s had to be made as wicked as possible.

I make a difference, referring to war movies. There are some that are very faithful to the history such as Midway, Tora, Tora, Tora and there are some that emphasize the epic and heroic aspects of soldier life in terrible circumstances. I have to say that I am more interested in the second ones such as The Dirty Dozen, The Eagle has landed, etc. Counterpoint belongs to the second category. A famous music director (C. Heston) and his orchestra is kidnapped by the Nazy army in Belgium. The German General (M. Schell) wants this orchestra to play for him but the director delays this concert as much as possible to avoid his musicians to be killed. I think Ralphn Nelson felt some empathy for the character, starred by Heston because he was in the Army in the II World War and participated in different plays in Broadway to entertain people in the same way Heston tries to entertain soldiers in the cold Europe. Schell and Heston perform their roles perfectly: they admire each other but war has placed them in different sides of the river. Schell is far from the archetype of the Germans in the Hitler era. There is a love subplot between Heston and one old love, his musician,Kathryn Hays, who is now married with a partner, a serious Leslie Nielsen. This love story and the sequence in which an American soldier is nearly discovered by a German Colonel but he feigns to be a musician of the orchestra, playing the U.S. hymn, remind me of Casablanca. The cinematography of Russel Metty, in which the shadows have a relevant role, is quite brilliant. So, it deserves to be seen.Juan Carlos del Castillo Álvarez

When I first walked into a showing of this movie, I thought I had made a mistake because it reminded me of another movie I had seen as a child (The Journey) because of the element of the bus in the snow trapped behind enemy lines. But it turned out to be refreshingly different.Lionel Evans (Charlton Heston), an internationally acclaimed music conductor touring Europe to entertain allied troops, is captured along with his entire orchestra by a German force commanded by a General Schiller (Maximillian Schell). The name is fitting because just like the towering intellectual, philosopher and lyricist, the general is highly cultured, sensitive and humane. That is not to say, however, that he was not like many Germans of his time in being ultra-nationalistic and therefore, discriminatory of other cultures. This dark aspect of his personality comes to fore when he insists that Evans play Wagnerian music rather than the latter's preference for Beethoven.Under the Nazis, Beethoven was frowned upon because of the widespread belief that he had Gypsy or perhaps even Jewish ancestry. He was said to be somewhat on the swarthy side of complexion. Wagner on the other hand extolled the purity of blood of the Germanic race in operas such as Parsifal with its veneer as an adventure of a Christian knight but is actually a neo-pagan worship of race. This musical bigotry of the Nazis was exploited by the allies as the BBC regularly played Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with special emphasis on the "Ode to Joy" movement in its broadcasts to occupied Europe and Germany.The atmospherics are great as the scenes are set in what seems to be a manor with its own castle and cavernous chapel where the symphony orchestra plays classical music. Despite their differences, the two men get to like one another and as the allied forces close in on the German forces, Evans acquiesces to play a Wagnerian piece for Schiller. The latter for his part invites him to share a bottle of cognac "which Napoleon left unopened" as they discuss the background and implications of the war. Between the two topics, however, I prefer to dwell on Napoleon's bottle of cognac. How would such a thing taste after well over a hundred years? I know we must be wary of very old wine which could still continue fermenting and thus spoil. But cognac is a distilled liquor and so with its high alcohol content, it could almost last forever under tight seal.I really can't spoil the ending of this movie for you because I don't remember it. But I can make a guess. Schiller lets Evans and his orchestra go while he goes on to face the overwhelmingly superior allied onslaught presumably to his death.

Let me qualify those 7 stars. You have to like Heston, Schell, WWII movies, and classical music in order to appreciate this movie. Heston is the conductor of an orchestra that is caught behind German lines during the Battle of the Bulge. Schell is a Prussian style educated yet cultured officer who is caught between his appreciation for culture and his orders not to delay the battle by wasting time on taking prisoners. The orchestra is USO. A side conflict is provided by the orchestra taking in 2 GIs who are also cut off behind enemy lines and hiding them as members of the orchestra. This is a war, "small w", movie. I remember a lot of grimacing from Heston and Schell, but that is what they do! Look beyond the cardboard characters and you may find a good little picture about a protagonist and an antagonist playing chess without a board.