Movie Review: Breakthrough (1979)

Also Known As: Sergeant Steiner-Cross Of Iron 2  

Genre: World War 2 Action  

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen  

Starring: Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Curd Jurgens, Rod Steiger, Michael Parks, Helmut Griem  

Running Time: 93 minutes (original version: 115 minutes)  

Synopsis: After the German defeat at Stalingrad, the legendary Sergeant Steiner (Richard Burton) tangles with his careerist superior Captain Stransky (Helmut Griem). Instead of a reprimand, General Hoffman (Curd Jurgens) grants Steiner a Paris vacation. After the Normandy landings, Steiner is assigned to the French village of St. Bologne, where Stransky is organizing a defence. Leading the planned American assault are Colonel Rogers (Robert Mitchum) and General Webster (Rod Steiger). With the battle looming, Hoffman reveals to Steiner the plot to kill Hitler, asking him to arrange a surrender negotiation with the Americans to avoid a bloodbath.

What Works Well: This lower-budget sequel to Cross Of Iron benefits from a gritty and grimy front-line aesthetic that captures the German army in retreat, packed with soldiers in full cynical mode. Although they are mostly too old for their roles, the grizzled presence of Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Rod Steiger, and Curd Jurgens adds a suitable layer of war weariness.

What Does Not Work As Well: The truncated version is action oriented, with anti-war philosophy reduced to a few glib comments. The editing is clunky (some footage is recycled from Cross Of Iron), the music uninspired, and the plot points border on ridiculous, including amateurish treatment of the Hitler assassination sub-plot and potential surrender negotiations. The messy staging of combat scenes reveals the budget limitations, director Andrew V. McLaglen mainly concerned with shuffling his aging stars away from danger and failing to generate any momentum. 

Key Quote:

General Hoffman (to Steiner): I don't think it's escaped your attention that our situation on this front is rather fluid. That's military jargon for chaotic.

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Movie Review: The Enemy Below (1957)

A tense naval warfare action movie, The Enemy Below distills World War Two to a classy battle of wits between an American destroyer and a German U-boat.

The destroyer USS Haynes is patrolling the South Atlantic under the command of Captain Murrell (Robert Mitchum). The days are long and the men are itching for action. When the radar picks up signs of an enemy vessel Murrell gives chase and catches up with a German U-boat commanded by Captain von Stolberg (Curd Jürgens) on its way to an important rendezvous.

Murrell carries a fatalistic attitude, having already faced the horrors of military loss at sea, while von Stolberg is tired of war and sceptical about the Nazi party. Both men are wily commanders, and a lethal game of cat and mouse ensues as the two vessels take turns outmanoeuvring each other. Murrell attempts to anticipate von Stolberg's every navigational turn and drops depth charges to attack the U-boat, while the German commander deploys subterfuge and courage to escape, hide and launch torpedo strikes when the opportunity arises.

A chess match at sea with lethal consequences, The Enemy Below seeks the characters behind the war and strips the conflict of its geopolitical complexity. An adaptation of the 1956 novel by Denys Rayner, a veteran of the Battle of the Atlantic, here the struggle for global supremacy between competing ideologies becomes a one on one duel between two enemy vessels that happen to come across each other in the vast and otherwise lonely ocean.

Director Dick Powell builds the film's strength on the personalities of the two commanders, and invests the time to define Murrell and von Stolberg as men of war who wish they were not. Murrell carries emotional scars of a lost ship and a lost love, but instead of withdrawing now projects a steely determination and gutsiness to challenge the limits. von Stolberg is too canny to buy into the Third Reich's fervour and carries a particular disdain for Hitler, evidenced by nonchalantly throwing his jacket to cover the word "Fuhrer" dominating the sub's interior. He also views with a mixture of bemusement and disgust a young submariner's fervour for the cause.

Both Robert Mitchum and Curd Jürgens are in fine form, displaying quiet authority and analytical leadership laced with calculated risks to earn the respect of their men. In a relatively underpowered supporting cast, the captains are surrounded by loyal officers. Theodore Bikel is Heinie, von Stolberg long-time friend on board the U-boat. Al Hedison is Lieutenant Ware, Murrell's executive officer, while Russell Collins is the USS Haynes doctor, and the captain's most trusted colleague.

The Enemy Below is set entirely at sea, and the special effects are excellent for the era. The second half of the film reaches and maintains a deliciously elevated level of tension as the two vessels close in each other and both captains realize they are up against a worthy opponent. The climax combines the close quarters showdown between hardware built for war with the humanity of men who understand that when the fighting is done, there will be a world waiting to be rebuilt.

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Movie Review: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

After almost expiring from low budget neglect, James Bond comes back to life with a bang: The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the best entries in the series, an engrossing spy thriller with a twinkle in the eye and no shortage of show stopping moments.

After escaping an assassination attempt by Soviet agents in the Austrian mountains, Bond (Roger Moore) is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a British Polaris class submarine equipped with nuclear missiles. The initial clues lead to Egypt, where local criminals are hawking submarine tracking technology. Bond meets Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach), otherwise known as Agent Triple X of the KGB. She is on a similar mission for her country, a Soviet submarine having also gone missing. Bond also tangles with a steel-mouthed killer known as Jaws (Richard Kiel).

Eventually Bond and Anya team up, the British and Soviet governments agreeing to work together to find out who is stealing their subs and why. The trail leads to Sardinia, and then the off-shore base Atlantis, where the marine-obsessed megalomaniac Karl Stromberg (Curd Jurgens) is plotting the destruction of the world. Stromberg's supertanker Liparus is designed with a bow that opens up and swallows submarines, and Stromberg wants to use the sub's nuclear missiles to trigger a war of annihilation, allowing the oceans to again be the one source of new life. Bond and Anya need to find a way to stop Stromberg, but instead they find themselves his prisoners when an American sub is next to be captured.

Easily Moore's best outing as Bond, almost everything in The Spy Who Loved Me clicks together, in a satisfying arrangement not seen since Thunderball. The pre-credit sequence makes the strongest possible statement about the film's intent. The legendary - and insane - ski jump off a sheer cliff boldly announcing that Bond was done with the low budget cheese. This is a movie seeking serious, and stunning, action.

Of course, not everything is absolutely perfect with the film. The streets and nightclubs of Egypt are surprisingly sparsely populated, the budget apparently not affording a convincing number of extras, and no explanation is provided as to why Stromberg needed that third submarine. And once Anya teams up with Bond, she does seem to lose most of her edge, becoming too often the exclamatory decoration at the end of his arm.

But these are quibbles. The Spy Who Loved Me delivers superlative entertainment. Carly Simon's evocative theme song, Nobody Does It Better, sets the stage by breaking with tradition as the first Bond song to not carry the name of the film, and it plays against one of Maurice Binder's most daring opening silhouette sequences, filled with gun-loaded playful sexiness.

The story is coherent, the basic elements borrowed from You Only Live Twice but with the overall narrative dramatically improved. Bond tracks down a succession of middle men in scenic Egypt to identify Stromberg as the villain of the piece, and Curt Jurgens creates a menacing mastermind, refreshingly not looking for any sort of ransom or pay-off. He just wants to reset humanity and start again from where it all began, the depth of the oceans. Meanwhile, Jaws quickly establishes himself as one of the series' most intimidating and lovable henchmen, and director Lewis Gilbert does not hesitate to colour the screen with blood when needed to demonstrate Jaws' ability to kill.

Central to the success of The Spy Who Loved Me is Agent Triple X, and for the first time Bond is provided with a partner for an elongated part of his adventure. The competitive rivalry between Bond and Anya, particularly in the early scenes, adds plenty of spice to the film, Bond meeting his opposite number in a sustained encounter of equals. Barbara Bach was never going to win any acting awards, but she looks stunning in what turned out to be the one significant role of her life.

The showcase gadget is the Lotus Esprit, a tricked-out hybrid car / submarine that immediately enters the hall-of-fame of Bond toys. Gilbert also gets the timing of the chase scenes exactly right: short, sharp, and varied. None of the pursuits, whether on land or in the water, outstay their welcome.

The Spy Who Loved Me boasts two stunning sets, the inside of the supertanker Liparus, and Stromberg's base at Atlantis. The cavernous Liparus set features room enough for three abducted submarines, and hosts a grand battle for control between Stromberg's men and the submarine crew members led by Bond. Atlantis is the first bulbous, organic-shaped lair in the Bond series, an intimidating mechanical creature ready to dominate a destroyed earth.

The Spy Who Loved Me marks the revival of filmdom's most famous secret agent, and just as Anya falls in love with Bond, in this form so does the rest of the world.

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