Reviews

It blends current film with historic footage seamlessly. We are shown actual film from Kurt Gerron's movies. Gerron became a famous German actor but didn't have the looks for a lead man, so he became a director. One of the best of his time.

Then the Nazi's came to power and started to round up the Jews. Gerron moved from one country to another that was still out of reach of the Nazi's. Eventually as the German's overran Europe, Gerron ran out of time to flee to America. He was sent to the Terezin Concentration Camp. This camp had some of the most talented people in Europe. They were forced to perform for Nazi elites. Many were singers, dancers, actors, etc........

The documentary is tragic of course, but since the most horrific acts are told about and not shown, it isn't as heart wrenching a film to view as say, 'Escape From Sobibor'.

This movie has a good heroic story but it never builds up much tension. If caught at any point in time, Fusia and the 13 she hides would all be executed. Most of the time the suspense of this is lost. People from the camp come by themselves at night, they arrive at Fusia's apartment and that is that. Only a couple times is there a sense of the danger involved.

One can tell the budget is low because after the battle between the Russians and Germans, the town is virtually 'new' looking. No signs of the battle. For the type of story this is, the path through danger is too soft.

This is a dialogue laden movie that covers a lot of ground. There is enough material to cover three movies really. The escape from Cyprus to Palestine could be a single movie. Yet Exodus continues on to the point when the United Nations votes to partition Palestine. Then it briefing covers the Arab's trying to drive the Jews out after the UN vote.

The movie never flags over its 3 hour plus length. It makes a very complicated event in history understandable and shows the human suffering and anguish caused by a people with no place to call home.

The length of the movie may give some pause. I suggest watching it in two parts. Try pausing it once the Exodus ship reaches Palestine. Then watch the rest later on.

I don't understand the knocks on this movie for not showing more of the Arab/Jewish conflicts after Israel becomes a state. That would require another 3 hours. Also, the movie was made in 1960, so it couldn't possibly show what happens in 1961 or later.

I have a copy of the film that was one of a 3 film set. The other two films were 'Battle of Britain' and 'A Bridge too far'. I had no idea what 'Exodus' was about and it turned out to be perhaps the best movie of the three. Just keep in mine the heavy dialogue with only occasional action in 'Exodus'. You have to appreciate it for the type of movie it is.

A product of the video game culture I think. If you want non-stop action, its here. However this movie is masquerading as a wwII flick. Much of the movie is from inside or just outside a Sherman tank. This makes about 1/5th of the movie claustrophobic, not unlike a submarine movie. Its this intimacy of a close knit group of men that is the strongest suit of the movie.

The movie seems to try to explain how innocent young men become ruthless killers. With a couple of the American characters portrayed as complete animals. Perhaps more ruthless than the SS themselves. The film is shown more through a young American recruit who only has office training. He gets thrown into a tank and loses his virginity on the battle field and literally later on. His innocence is played off the animalistic crew members who resent him for not yet seeing the cruelty of war. They try to destroy his innocence. This happens in everyday life as well, but is more obvious in this movie.

I just can never get over how the tank captain doesn't button up the tank in such obvious situations. Such as numerous sniper opportunities in towns, traveling on roads right next to heavy woods.....etc. Obviously it is to create scenarios that the script requires.

The violence in the movie is realistic and maybe over the top for shock value. The utter disregard for caution by the lead tank and the German SS battalion at the end is beyond belief. This movie just uses the wwII setting to set up impossible situations to create the main hero.

The one tender scene in the middle of the movie is just there to contrast against the brutal animals in the tank crew.

The spy plot in the movie is a bit weak. However, John Wayne is in prime form here, and the onscreen romance between his character and Janet Leigh's works well. It is a happy go lucky cold war love story that is enjoyable to watch. The footage of early jets in close maneuver is also worthwhile.

Everyone who is not perfect will relate to this movie. Colin Firth gets the cadence of King George VI's pre-war speech down pat. The movie features the strong relationship between King George VI and his speech therapist. The king meeting a commoner in his home as an equal is priceless.

The journey along the way is full of personal challenges. The lesson here is overcoming an individual's greatest weakness. Having the courage and perseverance to come through at the most important time.

While there are no action scenes the wide range of emotional drama is the action and keeps the viewer invested in the outcome. A rare masterpiece in film. All the more so because it is based on a true story with the backdrop of the start of WWII.

Overall this movie was poorly done. The plot has been used many times before and the low light filming is very grainy. There is a lot of low light filming so it stands out right from the beginning.

Then they sort of judge World War II by 70's vietnam views by adding a medic who is a conscientious objector. He refuses to fight when the Brits take over the German convoy. A wwii movie should have the value systems of the 1940's, not the 1970's. The British knew why they were fighting the Germans.

They added a lady character for no reason, she has no development and serves no purpose other then to have something to look at I guess.

I liked Karl-Otto Alberty in his small role from 'Kelly's heroes so seeing him again in 'Raid on Rommel' was fun. He just fits the German soldier role so well. Wolfgang Preiss was excellent playing as Rommel. So the film does have some good points.

At the end the party of what looked to be no more than 2 dozen men loses about 50 men and still has 50 men when they take the shore batteries. This is from using film from a previous movie and just slapping it together haphazardly. The movie should have ended after the tank scene at the fuel dump. If it had ended there I think I could rate it higher.

This is a feel good movie where high morals are exhibited by the crew on both sides. For its time it is an excellent movie. However, certain events are unbelievable. In particular the time the American destroyer has lost the German sub for 50 minutes...then reads the mind (of the German captain) as to where the sub will be and is right on top of it without having to ping or anything and instantly drops depth charges.

Before the German movie 'Das Boot' was released, the realism wouldn't have stood out so. 'Das Boot' did to sub movies what Star Wars did to sci-fi. After Star Wars, any sci-fi movie had to have higher visual standards, while after 'Das Boot', all sub movies needed higher realism. Of course 'Enemy Below' was released in the 50's and was as good as any sub movie in its day.

The end of the movie, where the German sub surfaces.........that defies all logic of a German U-boat commander. That might only happen vs a freighter, not a destroyer. So how does one rate a decent sub movie released over 60 years ago? By the standards of its day or the standards after 'Das Boot'? I gave it an 8. The story is so good, but the unrealistic command decisions at times threw me even years ago. If your a stickler for realism you may want to avoid this title. Its good as a sort of history lesson of sub films. Also great performances by the main actors and a lot of good lines in it.

The film portrays the stark contrast between the beauty of the countryside before WWII and the barren and scorched landscape after repeated battles and shelling. Bigger than that is the loss of innocence of a boy referred in script as about age 12. (the actor was age 14 at the time of filming)

This movie shows the dark side of war with out the shock factor violence of many of the latest wwII flicks. This is what sets this 'artsy' film apart from others that resort to non stop action. In 'Ivan's Childhood', we see the destruction after it occurs and in contrast to a previous happy dream scene. This gives the dark aspect as much impact as violent scenes would, but perhaps with more time to pause and reflect on it. The trouble with action wwII movies is the latest film tries to top the previous film, until there is so much violence that we become either inoculated to it or numb.

As a poetic film, about half of it is told with the film scenes, with only minimal dialogue. The nice part is aside from the main character, Ivan, there are only three other characters with a fair amount of lines. This allows the characters to be fully developed with the fewer dialogue intensive scenes.

The poetic scenes in the movie portray certain feelings and sometimes leave room for interpretation to their exact meaning by the individual viewer. Though I found the film to be self explanatory after the 1st viewing.

One example is a scene of Ivan and his sister riding in a wagon pulled by a horse. The background trees were shot in negative. Both siblings are at first smiling while eating apples in the rain. Then the camera focuses on Ivan's sister for a closeup. She is smiling but no longer eating an apple. The camera pans to the right which should in reality show the end of the wagon and then just the trees, but instead it pans to the same closeup of his sister. This time she is still happy, but not as much as before. The camera again pans to her right only to to do another quick closeup for the 3rd time. This time she looks slightly sad. The film next cuts to a scene where the wagon is tipped over. All the apples are spilled out along the roadside. It is no longer raining and there are several horses in scene. The closest horse is eating the apples on the ground.

To me the scene above signifies a time before the war, when life was plentiful and abundant. His sisters changed mood and then the overturned apples seams to signify the loss of his sister. Perhaps also now a need to forage for food is implied by the overturned cart.

Many of the scenes could stand alone without anything being added. The meaning of early scenes comes later as more of the mosaic gets filled in by later revelations in the movie.

I think the thing to be aware of with a poetic film is they generally don't always appeal to a wide audience. This movie does not show a single shot being fired, nor a single battle of any kind. An upcoming battle is implied and shots are heard but not seen being fired. Quite a few flares land in the water. There are maybe 6 vehicles and 2 or 3 artillery pieces shown in the entire film. Its definately an atmosphere type film.

There are two main themes to this movie: A war time mission carried out by French intelligence and a story of true love and lost love. The main character is a colonel. He is the one referred to in the text that scrolls over the opening shot of the Arc de Triomphe............ He is stated to be a cold and ruthless agent of the Deuxième Bureau.

I like this movie but it isn't meant for everyone. It is really not an action movie, though it does have about 12 minutes of action towards the end. The longest continuous action sequence is about 4 minutes. I counted 65 explosions during this span. That doesn't happen until 67 minutes into the movie. When there is action it is very well done by 1968 standards anyway.

In Enemy Country (IEC) has relatively short scenes. Movies after 1961 tended to have scenes that averaged from 1 to 3 minutes. IEC scenes average 1 minute 56 seconds, however, the first 21 scenes are shorter, averaging only 1 minute and 41 seconds. Its not just the shortness of the scenes but also the fact that almost every scene at the beginning is in a completely different physical location. This movie covers a lot of ground in the first 30 minutes. My feeling is it could have been better if the movie ran for around 140 minutes. Events at the beginning unfold rather fast, making it hard for the viewer to get their bearings. I imagine it was intended to give a sense of the chaos as must have been felt around 1939-40.

Initially I had a hard time figuring out where some of the scenes were located. Like when the movie goes from 1939 to 1943, I thought the German Baron was still in France since Germany occupied France after 1940. It turns out he is in Germany somewhere near Kiel. I had to re-watch the beginning to catch this and a few other details. When Charles parachutes onto a beach, he is in Poland.

Essentially everything that happens in the first half hour is to convince the Germans that Denise is a French traitor. Charles character doesn't blink an eye while he destroys (directly in some cases and indirectly in others) innocent peoples lives to carry this out.

Since Anthony Franciosa's role as Charles requires him to be rather cold and all business, he doesn't get a chance to show much emotion in his part. If you watch closely, Charles is not as cold as his exterior shows. By using subtle pauses in lines and just a quick reflective look, you can see that sometimes he is internally questioning the cost this mission is taking on his soul.

The majority of the movie is very serious, one of my favorite scenes is where Charles is playing a drunk to fool two German guards. This is the lightest scene in the movie. Other than that there really is no comic relief.

There are a couple of really good lines from this movie. One is about not being able to love and appears very near the movies end. The other I will give below.:

After Charles feels responsible for causing the death of General Marchois, he volunteers himself to do the dangerous mission rather than picking a subordinate. Charles superior, General Grieux exclaims,"Sometimes working out a sense of guilt is good for the soul." To which Charles replies," I don't have a soul, and neither do you."

The take aways from the movie: Its hard to really tell how much good the Deuxième Bureau really did (in this movie anyway) There was a cost to convince the Germans that Denise was a traitor. There were unintended casualties and consequences. My thought is that the fast pace of the movie was by design of the director. It helps to show why Charles character is all business and never takes time for niceties.

By the way the Deuxième Bureau didn't truly exist in 1943 as it was dissolved in 1940 with the armistice France made with Germany. However the term Deuxième Bureau was still used to refer to the remaining French intelligence.

To sum up. This isn't a typical World War II movie. It doesn't cover any specific battle. The plot gets fairly involved so the viewer has to do a bit of work to get the enjoyment out of the movie. I find it to be a wonderful change of pace from WWII action flicks. Michael Constantine gave a great performance as Ladislov. Constantine would have been a perfect roboman in a Doctor Who series. There was nice friction between Anthony Franciosa's and Anjanette Comer's characters. Watch the faces of Charles and Denise at the end. It shows more of what was lost than any spoken words.