Battle of the Bulge
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VHS Movie Reviews of Battle of the Bulge
Movie Review: Quite literate and handsome but with emphasis on strategy rather than character...
Summary: 3 Stars
Battle of the Bulge or Battle of the Ardennes was the last German offensive on the Western Front during World War II, an unsuccessful attempt to push the Allies back from German home territory...
The name "Battle of the Bulge" was appropriated from Winston Churchill's optimistic description, in May 1940, of the resistance that he mistakenly supposed was being offered to the German's breakthrough in that area just before the Anglo-French collapse; the Germans were in fact overwhelmingly successful... The "bulge" refers to the wedge that they drove into the Allies lines...
To provide the huge, tri-part Cinerama screen its first combat film in this World War II adventure, Ken Annakin's motion picture forgets those who fought and died in the real 'Bulge'. The Ardennes offensive never occurred like it was related in the film...
The motion picture takes us to December 1944, where British and American armies are in the threshold of victory... Stretched across half of Europe, the Allies gathered themselves for the final assault on Germany... To the north stood Montgomery's Eight Army, to the south, Patton's Third, in the center, a few battle-weary American divisions rested in a quiet sector... To them, the war seemed already won... But for Col. Kiley (Henry Fonda) the German army, facing the Allies, is still an undefeated enemy... Kiley still believes that the Germans are planning one last major offensive... His superiors, Gen. Gray (Robert Ryan) and Col. Pritchard (Dana Andrews), are doubtful of a German move...
The cast is irresistible:
Robert Shaw leads the full-scale attack in a huge wave of tanks, eliminating everything in its way... His new 70-ton King Tiger tank has two-and-a-half times the firepower and double the armor of the American tanks...
Ty Hardin is parachuted, with his men, behind the American lines to disrupt enemy communications...
Hans Christian Blech realizes that his commander is a murderer... He 'would murder the whole world to stay in that uniform...'
Charles Bronson fights the good fight...
Telly Savalas uses his Sherman tank to distribute his merchandise...
George Montgomery keeps looking out for Lt. Weaver (James MacArthur) going where he goes...
"Battle of the Bulge" really isn't as historical as it should be, but it's a bloody war spectacle, quite literate and handsome but too noisy and with emphasis on strategy rather than character...
Movie Review: Wonderful flick...
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved Shaw's performance in this .......as always he gives a splendid touch to whatever he does.....great flick....great action....highly recommend to any of those that enjoy a good WW 2 Movie!!!Movie Review: Battle of the Bulge
Summary: 5 Stars
I am very interested in WWII movies and find this one to be one of the best out.Movie Review: Battlemaniac
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the best WWII films < Great actors, great scenery. It is a must have in any collection.Movie Review: One of the best WW2 epics, beautifully restored
Summary: 5 Stars
Battle of the Bulge is probably the least accurate but most enjoyable of the spot-the-star WW2 roadshow epics. When Samuel Bronston's Spanish production empire crashed, his head of story Philip Yordan teamed up with former combat photographer Milton Sperling and picked up the slack with a slew of Spanish-lensed epics of his own backed with blocked US funds - Custer of the West, The Royal Hunt of the Sun and this lavishly mounted affair that took full advantage of all that WW2 Nazi hardware that found its way into Franco's possession. It's dominated by Robert Shaw's disillusioned but still fanatical eternal warrior with the rest of the characters fairly standard issue, although the individual scenes are far better written than is the norm in the likes of Anzio or Midway. Like the Bronston films, the script is a surprisingly intelligent affair, establishing an interesting set of battle lines, with Germany reduced to rubble, its people vanished and its armies living underground while the over-confident Americans are virtual tourists in liberated territories, more interested in the menu for Christmas dinner than intelligence reports of a possible offensive. Not that it is without problems: the geography, like the `history,' is more than somewhat suspect. Indeed, you can even catch a glimpse of the Forum Romanum set from The Fall of the Roman Empire in the background of the "It can be done!" scene as Shaw inspects the tanks. Add to that the fact that the production was plagued by good weather, so sequences are prone to go from blizzard to parched, and the result should be a mess, but it works well both as widescreen spectacle - especially the incredibly impressive final shot of hundreds of abandoned tanks - and as an archetypal Hollywood war movie.
Unlike the previous video and laser disc releases, this DVD is fully restored to its original roadshow length, and also features the original trailer, featurette and 1965 interviews with Robert Shaw and Milton Sperling. The striking overture and entr'acte from Benjamin Frankel's excellent score are also included.