Save your money for something good and enjoyable

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Sometimes a movie can get lost trying to make a point. The Last Valley is one of those. An excruciatingly bloody tale which is excruciating to sit through as well. All I could think of watching this mess was how humans ever survived this period of history. It is little different than all the rest of the movies made about this period of history when slaughter, butchery and destruction were commonplace.

Film is usually so absorbed with superficiality and "drama." Not in this case... a rare and satisfying journey into the heart of the storm winds of change called "history" which discharge their energies against the movable objects of each individual pathetic individual person during the relatively brief and, in the big picture, barely noticeable time of our lives.The film is literature, in the sense that it uses the art of the Story to shed light on the immense and incomprehensible Themes that force us to take sides - religion, philosophy, love, destiny - and plays out in dramatic form a tale about the consequences of our choices and the impossibility to escape them, or to escape the fate that awaits each of us, regardless.

Michael Caine said that personally he thought this was his best performance in his autobiography and you can see why. He plays the Captain during the thirty years war in Germany. A man who has seen too much killing yet has retained some of his humanity. This film is a great study of the political and religious impact of warfare and the complex relationships between the social classes as a result. The screenplay tackles bigotry and religious issues in a way that few films if any had before it. This movie was ahead of it's time and is accompanied by a beautiful film score by John Barry. A rich, rewarding movie worthy of repeat viewing and a great history lesson from a little known period of European history.

Touted on IMDb as a lost gem, as you know this is set in Germany in the 1600s, during the 30 Years War, where Protestants are fighting Catholics and death and destruction is commonplace. It stars Omar Shariff as a wanderer who happens upon this idyllic valley hidden from the rest of the world, and a bearded but still handsome Michael Caine as the head of a bunch of mercenaries who've seen their share of fighting and massacre.James Bond composer John Barry does the score and there's an early prototype of Moonraker's Space March as the main war theme, though Space March is more melodic to my ears. I know Barry can do no wrong supposedly, but it does seem to be that he and Bond were a perfect match. In other films his signature style is often distracting and the romantic theme of this film, used repetitively and sometimes inappropriately, is intrusive and pretty corny.Caine has an early protype too - the "Ve ALL love you Freddie" German accent he would adopt 15 years later in the comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. It's pretty iffy and unintentionally comic at times, he's the only one who bothers with a German accent, perhaps to take away the London wideboy. "You're only supposed to sack the bloody church!" The film didn't quite grab me. For a start, it's odd that Omar Shariff should be fleeing a plague pit and soldiers for only 2 minutes before stumbling upon this idyll. The valley doesn't seem too hidden to me, and if it is, how come the other soldiers found it at the same time? The happy and lovely aspects of the village passed me by, as the inhabitants - especially the women - had that neurotic German temper and look characteristic of the Luthran era, if you believe historian Kenneth Clark's take on it. The Lost Horizon did all this much better.Still, it's a noble and unusual idea, just let down by unintentionally risble moments. It only really picks up when there's a bit of discord, which runs counter to the film's message.