User Reviews

Copyright 1959 by Raymond Stross Productions. Released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at neighborhoods: 15 July 1959. U.K. release: 8 March 1959. Australian release: 4 June 1959. 9,461 feet; 105 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Wounded by a Nazi collaborator, a war correspondent in 1941 Athens, flees to the hills.

COMMENT: This confused and muddled tale of espionage in war-torn Greece, is the result, Aldrich claims, of savage cutting and mutilating by producer Stross after shooting had been completed. This would certainly explain the totally inept concluding sequences, but not the general slackness and lack of suspense throughout the last hour or so of a rather rambling yarn. (Even an attempt to tighten the movie still further has worked no magic. The print under review runs only 97 minutes, not 105).

Some of the acting is best described as hesitant. Aldrich states in a rather roundabout way (he blames himself rather than the actor) that Mitchum was totally uncooperative, although it is really only in the last third of the movie that Mitchum suddenly decides to stop taking direction. Up to that point, he is quite acceptable. Perhaps he simply lost confidence in the script. Indeed, until the sudden introduction of Elizabeth Mueller, the screenplay is one of Bezzerides' best. The plot deploys some memorable characters and out-of-the rut dialogue. I particularly enjoyed Marius Goring's brilliant portrait of a punctilious, hypochondria-cal German major who dreams of a little man as big as his thumb.

The first half of the movie is all directed in an appropriately bravura style. A swinging light in a museum sequence, heralds a really breath-catching chase scene. The interrogation sequence with Baker running his finger along the map, the night raid and the execution episodes are also prime examples of Aldrich's masterly directorial flair.

Like so many post world war era films, this war film is a bit of a disappointment, featuring great rural location footage and gritty situations, but the film overall is hampered by a poor narrative. Just one of many exactly like that, and under the direction of Robert Aldrich, all the more disappointing because of that and his star, Robert Mitchum, who is overshadowed by the darker characters in the supporting cast.

Simply walking into a Greek countryside airport hotel and inquiring how much time before the next plane leaves, he attracts the attention of an obviously sinister person, and from there, he's surrounded by them. He's determined to get out of the war torn country and is recruited by Greek freedom fighters to get secret papers into the right hands and keep them out of the Nazis. His contact is pretty Greek young lady Elisabeth Müller who promises to get him safely away.

Then there's the fabulous supporting cast: Stanley Baker, Gia Scala, Theodore Bikel and Sebastian Cabot, much more showy than the rather bland Mitchum (barely showing any kind of emotion), as well as sensational photography and location footage, utilizing every thin one lane road they could get permission to use. Ultimately this is a letdown that didn't fulfill its purpose, although Aldrich does a great job at least keeping the viewer intrigued by what could have been.

Reporter on his way home to America is given a list with the names of Greek collaborators, as Nazi Germany is about to gobble up Greece in 1941.

He is chased throughout the country by the Germans and has his lover, her brother and father killed in the process. He also falls in with one of the collaborators, who is also in love with a Nazi official. Theodore Bikel portrays a cowardly Greek man working for the Nazis.

To me, the ending is rather bizarre and questionable. Stanley Bakes plays the conflicted lover of the collaborator, who ultimately questions his duty when it calls for the killing of her two young children from a failed marriage.

The movie is not satisfying.

Droll scenes, broken storyline, ridiculous villains, a yummy actress (Gia Scala), Mitchum not soaked by the general silliness, and Aldrich severely clueless. Directed by Aldrich and starring Mitchum, it's an uninspired, eerily misdirected war _actioner, often droll, as if a half-wit hired Aldrich, Mitchum, Goring, Cabot, Bikel, Baker, to see this movie done, like someone's ambition came through, say a war movie by E. Wood, the lousiest scenes are saved for Heisler (head of the Gestapo in Athens), the undecided mother and the fat benefactor; the twists seem bizarrely inefficient (when the car shows up at the nunnery, I gathered the Gestapo sent it, but it didn't, the double agent broad, Lisa, was merely acting on her own, only then do the Gestapo try to convince her), the gimmicks look childish and unlikely (Heisler's map, also Mitchum's attempt to shoot the Gestapo head, then the fooling of Tassos …), the Germans track Mitchum in the hut where he hided, but aren't able to arrest him when the broad hosts him in Athens …. Both script and, save Mitchum, Goring and the Greek girl, acting are uncannily clumsy, with a random storyline and unlikely scenes meant to look intriguing, many scenes have a droll look, and the character seem sly-boots, jokers, hoaxers. This movie disappointed me, the director and the cast looked promising, though the title almost gave away the silliness; there are a few nice scenes, till the Germans step in, and the warrior (who is in fact a foreign correspondent, and remains mysterious till the finis) wakes in Elefteria's house, but even these exciting initial scenes, from Mitchum's arrival in Athens (it remains undecided whether he was only pretending to be an officer) until his jumping in an army car, have droll forebodings (like Tassos spying at Mitchum's door, or Mitchum leaving the museum unharmed). I don't believe I have ever heard about it before finding it, and in this situation it seems reasonable. Aldrich deserved a spanking for angering those hills. Perhaps less for giving a wholly positive image of the Greek patriotism and life in the country, with the nunnery meant to give Western audiences a sense of familiarity, and endearing, though later entirely anti-ecumenical, Greek priests.

Mitchum's true job, the officer with whom he spends his evening in a cabaret, Lisa's arrival at the nunnery, Mitchum's secret presence in Athens, the benevolent and useful pawnbroker are random items in a zany, aimless plot. Heisler and Lisa are supposed to reveal puzzling depths. The actors who embody them are the most deluded of the cast. If the comic book intrigue is derisory, the melodrama is sick. Aldrich earned himself a spanking.

Yet somehow, Mitchum alone manages to be likable, with his coolness, nonchalance and handsomeness, in this hallmark of phoniness and unbelievable nonsense. I wrote Mitchum alone, but I should mention also Elefteria, played by the yummy Gia Scala. And there's also a 3rd actor.

Goring, as colonel Oberg, does an enjoyable role as an eerie sickly officer, outspoken, who complains about the leader's campaigns and about his own shattered health, a role wasted on this formless silliness.

Cabot is the fat pawnbroker, Th. Bikel is Tassos (a comic book henchman of the Gestapo); like Goring as the hypochondriac colonel, they seem to believe they act in a comedy. The plot is so childish, unconvincing and thoughtless, that it could of been an instinctive choice of subverting it. The drollest scenes belong to E. Muller and Baker, as Lisa and Heisler, both with delusions of fine acting; on the other hand, Mitchum misread Heisler, who, though from a nation bent on killing an entire other nation, shows unexpected largeness, so he's not the heartless wretch his enemy supposes him to be. Mitchum's outburst of anger when he finds out about Lisa's story and kids is his critique of the movie, at least of its plot.