OPERATION CROSSBOW (1965)
DIRECTOR: Michael Anderson
CAST: George Peppard, Sophia Loren, Trevor Howard, Jeremy Kemp, Tom Courtenay, Anthony Quayle, John Mills, Sylvia Sims, Richard Todd, Lilli Palmer, Helmut Dantine, Maurice Denham, William Mervyn, John Fraser, Patrick Wymark, Robert Brown, Richard Wattis, Paul Henreid, Richard Johnson, Ferdy Mayne, Allan Cuthbertson, Karel Stepanck, George Mikell and Wolf Frees.
REVIEW: An explosive British-Italian co-production, with a first-rate "guest cast" and an awesome, action-packed finale sequence. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is very talky and, while serviceable, lacks strong visual excitement.
The British high command must thwart German rocket development as V1s rain down on London. They send in a specialized team of commandos to infiltrate the rocket base and stop the threat at the source.
George Peppard (From Hell to Victory), Jeremy Kemp (The Blue Max) and Tom Courtenay (King Rat) are the commandos in question. The movie runs 2 hours, and the first half hour is dedicated to setting the stage. The leads aren't even introduced for 30 minutes, and they only appear in about half of the film total. Each actor does fine but is offered little material to work with. Anthony Quayle (The Guns of Navarone) plays a British double agent who is really an evil Nazi; Richard Todd (The Longest Day) has a small cameo as a British intelligence officer; Lilli Palmer is a German housekeeper; Patrick Wymark (Where Eagles Dare) is almost unrecognizable as Churchill; and Richard Johnson (The Fifth Day of Peace) is the minister of defense.
On the bad side of the coin: Producer Carlo Ponti's wife, Sophia Loren, is onhand for a really pointless part. She plays the wife of the scientist Peppard is impersonating, and complicates matters for a time (for no purpose other than to suck up time) until she is simply taken out and shot by the resistance. She plays the sappy role to the core, but it's still a waste of talent and good looks. Trevor Howard (Von Ryan's Express) has a horrendous role as a skeptical scientist. It's easily his worst acting role ever and you can tell he hates his part.
The action scenes are - for the most part - limited to the final act. There are some great suspenseful sequences of V-1s raining down on London, but these are hampered by some second-rate miniature/animation work, pretty bad even for its day. (A lot of this footage ended up in Mosquito Squadron a few years later. The last 15 minutes, with Peppard and Kemp holding a huge underground factory at bay is excellently filmed. Perfectly edited, with great Ron Goodwin music, the long scene is a perfect example of how a suspense sequence should run. When the factory does go up, it's by a mere miracle - and looks fabulous. Filled with awe striking special effects including a rocket blowing up while launching; detonating jet fuel and men trying in vain to escape an exploding tomb are mind-numbing.
Turner Classic Movies gives the film proper treatment, showing it in widescreen format from a beautiful master print. Everything looks and sounds perfect. The letterboxing is necessary to absorb the scope of the big action scenes and take in the scenery which fills the screen in others. The German scenes are adequately subtitled in the bottom letterbox band.
Most critics give this film a top-notch rating and I fail to understand why. I used to think it was a superb movie until I started writing this review and realized there's nothing really great about. Even as an action movie, it lacks the stunts of WHERE EAGLES DARE; the strong characters of THE LIBERATORS; and the scope of THE LONGEST DAY. It still works just fine, but it's no more than an ordinary war-action film with a good Ron Goodwin music score and little else to offer of any interest.
SGT. SLAUGHTER'S RATING: 3 Bullets
