One of my favorite movies, and unless it was edited, I can assure you that there is a helicopter. Eastwood steals the distributor cap from it to disable it.
I got sucked into watching the last part as well. I was again struck by the number of vast improbabilities/physical impossibilities in the film that made the helicopter appearance pale by comparison.
(In case anyone wondered if WWII commandos were unique in being able to plunge into icy cold water in the dead of winter without so much as shivering afterwards, the same feat was accomplished in the 2003 remake of “The Italian Job”).
The best movie to deal with this is “What Did You Do In The War Dad?”. The German force comes to the aid of the Italians who appear to be fighting against the Americans, somewhat successfully, in southern Italy.
German commander says to the Italian “Sprechen sie Deutsch?”
The Italian relies “Nein! Parla Italiano?”
The German says “No. Do you speak ze Englisch?”
“But of-a course!” says the Italian.
For the rest of the film, any dialog between the Italians and the Germans is in heavily accented English.
There are many many things they get wrong. Note I once knew a Hollywood writer and he could not change the oil in his car. He was “technically challenged” to say the least!
I don’t really mind when English is spoken. It’s a plot device that implies the characters are in actuality speaking whatever language they should be. In this film, nearly the entire movie would be in German if you didn’t do this, and who wants that? Not even Germans, probably. The allies in Germany wouldn’t even be speaking English to each other.
It’s a fine plot device. The only subtitles I want to read are for films by German directors, of which there are so many brilliant ones.
But of course. Hollywood. Germans always speak heavily accented English, as do Russians. Even the American Indians speak badly accented English, since they’re all Caucasian. So do Orientals, as demonstrated by Mickey Rooney and David Carradine (and most recently Matt Damon).
I like how, as a reconnaissance synchropter, its task was to keep an eye on things. I expect its pilots wore jackboots and its cockpit design incorporated a place to securely hold a mug.
