Wow! Such a good movie.

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Basically 'Errol Flynn vs. the Nazis, Round 1' Battleground: GermanyThis experience was hampered for me by a freak situation in which either my flatscreen TV or my blu player, for the first time, didn't have any audio, so, nonplussed yet equally dauntless, I just said 'what the hell', put on the subtitles and watched the film with no audio. (Later, I discovered that I could have just unplugged both for ten minutes and everything would have been normal. You live, you learn. It taught me to pay more attention to what was happening on the screen, so it wasn't an entirely wasted endeavor.)Here, the weakness, as always, was Ronald Reagan, who makes Keanu Reeves look like a great actor. Still, he wasn't bad (it was a war film, after all, with a role he was born to play), and he and Flynn were assisted by great supporting players, such as Raymond Massey and Alan Hale, who are always 'cash money' for me IMHO. As well, you have one of the greatest American directors of the period in Raoul Walsh, so it's basically win, win, win--except if you're a Nazi.

One more work of the times when propaganda ala Frank Capra was must in the Ally countries. It is one of the movies which suggests that Germans conquered European Continent in less than two years by being rude, shouting and making evil Disney Cartoon faces. Above all, our heroes over here are not only walking inside the Nazi Germany successfully, but are making successful diversions and beating the whole German army and SS that are after them. All in all, movie was made like Dunkirk had never happened before. Just two years later in reality of WWII Part II, the Ally Forces won't be able to achieve any major victory against heavy crippled and outnumbered German Army on the Western front after the landing, without simultaneous Soviet attacks in the East. Americans will lose much more soldiers in these eight months of war engagement in Europe than in Pacific for more than four years of warfare. Still, movie has this old cute style of making a corny war story and above all good all cowboy Ronnie in it.

I stumbled onto this beauty on TCM a few weeks ago, and could not believe it. It is the closest thing I have seen to a prototype for the much-maligned Hogan's Heroes television program. We have a multinational Alied group in Germany doing as much damage as they can to the Axis war effort, with laughs all along the way wherever they can be found. It even has received some of the same criticism that Hogan's Heroes received.There are some substantial differences: Sargent Schultz is on the Allied side; I am not sure if he, played by Alan Hale, is supposed to be American or English. There is a sort of Sargent Schultz for the Germans, in Sig Ruman (who I believe also played Schultz in Stalag 17), but he is a little tougher and a little smarter than Schultz. Colonel Klink in this picture, played by Raymond Massey, is a thoroughly bad baddie, sort of a Major Hochstedder with a monocle and a promotion. The biggest difference is that the boys are on the road, not stationed in a prison camp. But then, to turn it into a long running TV show, putting them into a prison camp makes perfect sense.Most reviewers think this movie is totally silly with unrealistically stupid and incompetent Germans and too many hair's breadth escapes by the boys. I do not agree, as the Axis German establishment showed themselves to be not the supermen they were billed to be. After all, with an incompetent lunatic leader and incompetent lazy assistant leader in Hitler and Goering, and a German military and Gestapo drilled to blind obedience, it should not be surprising that people brought up in an environment that values independent thinking are able to outwit them time and again. And in spite of that, only three of the bomber crew survived to get out of Germany - the majority of the crew perished, mostly on-screen. Two things that did not ring true did capture my attention: 1) I don't think the railway junction that was the target existed, or if it did it was not where they said it was; and it appeared that the mission failed to hit it anyway. 2)I am not familiar with the Lockheed 2-engine bomber that was supposedly used, but I doubt that it could have made the round trip that would have been necessary to reach the target and return.A couple other notes: Regarding the "Japs" comment. It may or may not have been racist, but the Japanese military government of the time earned a reputation for evil, and deserved no polite consideration. Their treatment of Chinese civilians and American and British prisoners of war is sufficient evidence (see "Rape of Nanking" and various documentaries on the Bataan Death March). Even today, it is my belief that the Japanese have never officially apologized or made any atonement for what they did. This is in sharp contrast to the Germans, who I believe murdered fewer innocent non-combatants than did the Japanese (or Joseph Stalin throughout his career for that matter).

I just love this picture. It was the first movie I ever saw and I keep coming back to it because it's pure escapism. Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan were never better than in this World War II saga of Royal Air Forcers downed behind enemy lines. They escape Nazi capture and take the audience on a rousing adventure as they make a high spirited bid to reach home. Never a dull moment, this is an obvious precursor to the Indiana Jones films. Raymond Massey is pure evil as the Nazi commandant who relentlessly pursues the fliers. Arthur Kennedy and Alan Hale provide able support and welcome humor as RAF comrades sharing in the robust flight across Germany. Not to be missed!