World War Two film that has always been in the shadow of The Dirty Dozen even though it was developed before that film came out. You can understand why people think it was a rip off though because the American soldiers are all meant to be troublemakers/ex prisoners and so on. They are combined with Canadians to make a special force unit - this was a real thing, though the film has lots of conflict between the rough and ready Americans and more staid Canadians.
I get why they did this - for conflict etc etc - and appreciate the nod to Canadian history (there's a Frenchman, a Scotsman, a Brit among the Canadian troops) - but it feels contrived. Maybe there's some historical basis to it, but you never really sense why the American troops should be rowdy and the Canadians stuffy. In The Dirty Dozen the reason for conflict was clear - they were all prisoners - here it just feels made up.
William Holden is at his alcoholic best as the tough American commander. Cliff Robertson is alright as the Canadian - I wish they'd given the gig to a real Canuck, like say Christopher Plummer, Lorne Greene, Leslie Nielsen or Glenn Ford. Actually none of the Canadian soldiers feel like Canadians - I could be wrong about that it's just how they feel to an outsider.
The story also lacks a personal element. In Dozen there were great personal stories - Lee Marvin's insubordination, John Cassavetes' rebelliousness, Charles Bronson's dignity, James Brown's battle against racism.
Here it's hard to recall a personal dilemma. Jack Warden and Claude Akins seem to fall in love. Soldiers learn how to kill in hand to hand combat. I wasn't sure what Vince Edwards was meant to be. Holden just kind of stayed above the fray - there was no love-hate between Lee Marvin and Cassevetes in The Dirty Dozen.
Of the support cast a shaven headed Richard Jaekel and a growly Carroll O'Connor make the most impression, but the film would have been better with less main characters, and more time spent on the relationships of the ones that were kept.
Story wise the film has trouble. There's no interesting character relationships except maybe between Akins and Warden. Act two is a successful run against the Germans. So is act three. Really act two they should have been half wiped out or something. The ending at least has a surprise with Robertson being shot by a German after the German has claimed the right of surrender.
Some of the visuals are pretty. The training sequences were shot in Utah which feels different. The end assaults were done in Italy. It's filmed a lot in long shot.
The battle sequences are okay - I don't think Andrew McLaglen was a particularly gifted action director (I remember thinking that about The Wild Geese).
Michael Rennie for some reason is cast as General Mark Clark. Patrick Knowles is Mountbatten. And Holden's character was a real person, so it has some novelty (as does the fact it's about Canadians).
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