Had Dickie still been in O What a Lovely War musical war mode, he might have called this What a Balls Up! as one disaster follows another in Operation Market Garden, in particular the decision to ignore the presence of a Panzer division - the might of the tank is exploited here to the full. (An alternative title: Tanks for the Memory). Shouldn't laugh, either at the events and waste of life, nor perhaps the decision to make such a big budget blockbuster about such a mess, which must have depressed the audience. I can't recall really on my viewing of August 8th, 1977, though I do remember when Elliot Gould says 'Oh, shit!' in big Panavision close-up, no one laughed. My review then was to give it 8/10 'Well-directed action-packed epic of a famouse [sic] failure.'
The production is told in full by William Goldman in 'Adventures in the Screen Trade', who wrote the screenplay; liked the way it begins with the Dutch boy noticing something's up. Joe Levine risked everything by producing it as an independent but was so successful pre-selling it to foreign markets he had already covered the cost before it was released.
Some if it is a bit obvious now - would the air force really drop a canister of spare berets; the blood dropping on the carpet by the kids' toys; though the scene of Caan driving his 'dead' buddy through the German-infested forest is a good one.
Great cinematography led by Geoffrey Unsworth (Harry Waxman second unit), Tony Gibbs cut the many miles of film.
With Bogarde, Connery, Caine, Edward Fox, Redford, Olivier, Ryan O'Neal, Gene Hackman, Jeremy Kemp, Maximillian Schell, Hardy Kruger, Liv Ullmann, Denholm Elliott, all of whom somewhat mysteriously survive (only 2000 of 10,000 men did). Alun Armstrong and Stephen Churchett are in there somewhere amongst the millions of extras.
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