I just saw this on TNT (or TBS) this weekend. I enjoyed it more this time around. Don Rickles was a pretty good actor - I hadn’t remembered.
Donald Sutherland was outstanding as Animal.
I’m going to add this to my DVD collection.
Always with the negative waves, jali! 
Yeah, I enjoy this Ripping War Yarn when it’s on. I tend to collect, for my DVD library, war movies that leave you thinking about war and its causes and consequences. But sometimes a good ole Ripping Yarn, that uses a war setting almost incidentally, is enjoyable too. This is one of the better of that type.
Damn straight. The best war movies, like the best romance movies, place the war into a context. It’s not about ‘these guys fight battles’ but about ‘these guys want to accomplish X. During their activities there’s a war going on.’ It leave much more room for character and plot.
This movie was the first time I had ever seen Carroll O’Conner as some character other than Archie Bunker. And though Clint Eastwood was the nominal star of the flick, it was really Telly Savalas’s movie.
A while since I’ve seen it, but wasn’t his hippy tank commander named Oddball?
{Starts whistling All My Burning Bridges}.
Nitpick: His character was called ‘Oddball’.
Anyway, yeah, I love this movie, despite the fact that, judging from my father’s tales of the period, I seriously doubt fighting in the European theater was anywhere near as lighthearted a lark as it’s portrayed in the film. I thought all the actors were pretty good, if somewhat stereotyped, like Telly Savalas(!) Sgt. Rock-like noncom.
Some great set pieces, including the opening scene, with Eastwood trying to sneak his captive out of a German-held town, his unit’s pell-mell rush through the same town under an artillery barrage, the attack by Oddball’s Shermans on a rail depot to the sound of country music, and the Tiger-Sherman cat and mouse game as the Americans try to get to the bank where the gold is stashed.
Useless bit of trivia: I seem to recall reading somewhere that the ‘Tiger I’ tanks Spielberg used in Saving Private Ryan were the ones originally built for this film.
Dang, I might just put the DVD on tonight.
I love this movie. I lovedit as a kid and recently rented it to see if it still held up. I loved it even more.
Sutherland is just amazing as Oddball.
I love Uncle Leo from Senfeld in it as well.
This was the Video I bought, way back in 1987.
Love this movie.
Jim
This was the **FIRST ** Video I bought, way back in 1987.
D’oh :smack:
Telly: What kind of deal?
Rickles: A DEAL, deal! Maybe he’s a Republican.
It was a fun movie but Sutherland as a hippy in 1944 Europe as a little much. About 25 years too early for that sort of carry-on. Great ending though.
This was my first dvd purchase and ive probably seen it 70-80 times. One of my favorites. In fact, I just watched that and The Big Red One this weekend (the extended director’s cut of TBRO - good stuff).
Oddball doesnt fit in w 1944-45 ETO, but his character is great. I especially like the phone call to the Sergeant w the bridge-builders. And for whatever reason I like his crew member that wears the fez. Little things like that make it a great flick.
Definitely count me as a huge fan of this movie too.
A great cast but I definitely think Donlad Sutherland as Oddball is the real star of the movie.
Nowadays I prefer to watch it as a commentary to the ongoing war in Vietnam, the same way MAS*H’ was also about Vietnam, but set in Korea. What clued me in was when Savalas was selling the robbery to the German tank driver (paraphrased):
“You and me, we don’t know what this war’s about” and he goes on about them being little guys running around pointlessly because some guys higher up has decided so.
I doubt there were very few soldiers in WWII who didn’t know what the objective of the war was - as opposed to Vietnam. Oddball makes a lot more sense in this context too. I doubt the filmmakers ever thought that the contemporary audience would view it as being about WWII.
[aside] - Was there ever a wide realease movie that was openly against the Vietnam war before '75?