Indeed was no joke to those who went there. The 50s remember that famous gag about being sent to the Russian front forĪny infractions of Nazi rules and etiquette. Those of us who watch the MeTV channel or remember Hogan's Heroes from Matches Coburn with his performance and there's a good one by James MasonĪs a more realistic German general than those he reports to back in Berlin. The battle scenes as created by Peckinpah are outstanding. Cross Of Iron gives us one of James Coburn's top performances on the big Coburn won't lie for him so Schell puts him in a position Uriah the The problem is he wants Coburn to testify to his activity in repelling a RussianĪssault. As a matter of pride he wants to earnĪn iron cross like everyone else in his militarist family. Made it's bed with Hitler before the war. Nazi per se, but he is part of that Prussian aristocracy which runs the army and Southern France where so far he's had a nice and easy war. Into Coburn's life on the Russian front comes Maximilian Schell a transfer from Motivation the German soldier has to fight at this point is to stay alive. And the attitude is bestĮxpressed by lead character James Coburn who says quite candidly the only The little known andĬovered eastern front of World War 2 is covered here. Sam Peckinpah did a real classic war film with Cross Of Iron. The Corsair, at the time, was possibly the best fighter plane in the world and you NEVER would have seen them in the Soviet Union-only in the Pacific. While the Americans did send a few planes to the Russians, they were all rather obsolete (such as the P-39s). The worst I noticed were American Corsair fighters dropping bombs on German troops. By the way, although the mood of the Front is pretty accurately portrayed, crazed purists will notice a few anachronisms here and there. The bottom line is that if you want to see realism and feel really, really depressed, this film is for you. And, it's a rare film in that it is shown from the German point of view. Depressing and fatalistic, that's for sure-but very effective in conveying the hell that this war was for both the Germans and Russians. It all makes for a very tense and realistic story. While this is the main story, the film only focuses on this a bit, Mostly, it focuses on Steiner and his men as they attempt to make it back to their lines after the troops are overrun by the Russians. Now, the only man who can contradict his fake story is Steiner-who knows the Captain was no where to be seen when they were being attacked. So, in order to 'earn' one, Stransky pretends that he was responsible for a brave act-one he never committed. And, it seems to gall him that Steiner has one and he does not. However, quite the opposite is Captain Stransky-a cowardly officer whose only goal is to get himself an Iron Cross. He has just been promoted to sergeant and the infantry men serving with him love him and look to him for leadership. The story is about a particularly indestructible German soldier named Steiner (James Coburn). But, compared to the usually sanitized war films, this one is superior in this sense. All this can be forgiven, though I have NEVER thought director Peckinpah's slow-motion scenes were particularly good-just indulgent.
Yes, you will see soldiers with limbs blown off, corpses being run over by tanks and blood, blood, blood. And, considering that it's supposed to be set on the Eastern Front during WWII, it SHOULD be an incredibly depressing film! So, although I don't like all the blood and gore, it was appropriate to the time and place.
"Cross of Iron" is a seriously depressing war film.