This starts off well - shepherd Anthony Quinn is asked to escort a scientist to Spain during World War Two. There's some excellent actors and scenery. It should work. It doesn't.
Compare it with another guys on a mission movie from J. Lee Thompson - The Guns of Navarone. That had a ticking clock, a definite imperative; and the characters all interacted in interesting ways.
This one has James Mason, his wife Patricia Neal, a son and a daughter - there's no character differential or interaction, no byplay. Why not have one a traitor? A Nazi? Why not kill one? Daughter Kay Lenz is forced to have sex with Malcolm McDowell. Lenz goes topless but because it's rapey it's not fun.
McDowell camps it up - Swastika underpants, hammy acting, throwing matches over his shoulder. His scenes involve torturing Michael Lonsdale by pouring boiling water over him, dousing Christopher Lee in gasoline and setting fire to him, shooting his own men, raping Lenz. At least he has energy, I suppose.
But at the end when he turns up after surviving an avalanche I wanted to kick the screen.
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