De Dunquerque a la victoria

The idea behind this film of 6 friends caught up in WWII promises so much but fails to deliver dismally. The idea of 6 friends, of differing nationalities, being forced to chose sides, their countries or their friends, alludes to the futility of war and that only nations make war, not individual people. The acting in this film, despite the presence of some very good actors, is strained and wooden. The combat sequences are awful with British aircraft having German markings and American aircraft having British markings. Those looking for historical actuary re. Equipment and uniforms should look elsewhere. This film just doesn't live up to the idea under lying it. Having said that the idea behind this film is excellent and if executed properly, and with a descent budget and cast, could rank along side the greatest war films of all time.

Not that George Peppard and George Hamilton were any kind of buddy duo in the way Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas were, but they did do two well received films together, The Victors and Home from the Hill. But for a reunion film it would have been nice if they had gotten something better than this.

In fact this is a reunion film of a bunch of players who seem to hit the heights of their careers around the beginning of the Kennedy years. Peppard, Hamilton, Capucine. Horst Bucholtz all were at their respective peaks around 1961. None of them ever really reached any kind of screen immortality and with only Hamilton left among them were not likely to see another reunion film.

Thankfully not another one like Contro 4 Bandiere. It's a cobbled together film of action sequences from other products and newsreels. The plot has six friends of varying background in Paris having good times a week before the start of World War II. They pledge to see each other at that Paris cafe every year, but war does intervene and they're all not on the same side.

Some make it, some don't and if you're interested to see who shows up then watch Contro 4 Bandiere.

There is something deeply anachronistic and oddly revealing about this 1979 film, one of those late attempts at cinematic patchwork that stumbles under the weight of its own ambitions and yet, paradoxically, exposes much about the mechanics of European co-productions in the waning years of the Cold War. Ostensibly a sweeping WWII saga, it aims for grandeur while relying heavily on recycled narrative devices, cross-national casting, and even the direct reuse of visuals-giving it the appearance of scale while it operates within the economic constraints and aesthetic formulas of spaghetti war cinema.

This film's core weaknesses can be summarized in four major flaws that severely undermine its potential: cinematography, casting, narrative, and props.

Technically, the cinematography is notably uneven and disjointed. While there are moments of genuine visual tension-such as the well-staged shootout atop the Eiffel Tower-these stand out precisely because much of the rest of the film is plagued by incoherent and patchy visual storytelling. The narrative flow is balbuceante, or stammering, with incoherent scene transitions and a lack of consistent visual language. Much of the battle footage is actually stolen from earlier productions, awkwardly inserted into the film, creating an inconsistent texture and tone. This lack of homogeneity in the cinematography prevents the film from establishing a solid atmosphere or emotional rhythm, robbing it of immersive power.

Casting, although filled with familiar faces from the previous generation of European and American cinema, is a case of miscasting and underutilization. The director apparently relied on name recognition rather than suitability for the roles. George Peppard, who delivers one of the more controlled performances, still does not elevate a character that is thinly written. George Hamilton's portrayal, by contrast, veers towards caricature, hinting at a performance more interested in charm than complexity. Horst Buchholz's character arc, involving a sudden and poorly motivated ideological transformation, is especially difficult to swallow and suggests that the casting choice did not fully match the psychological depth required. This misalignment between actor and role leaves the ensemble looking disconnected rather than cohesive, detracting from any emotional engagement.

Narrative is perhaps the film's greatest shortcoming. It attempts to juggle too many subplots and emotional registers simultaneously, resulting in a disjointed story that never coheres into a meaningful whole. The film tries to explore the multifaceted impact of WWII through six friends from different nations, but these attempts feel superficial. There is no real psychological depth, either at the individual character level or within the broader thematic framework. Instead, the narrative flits from one vignette to another without fully committing to character development or moral complexity. This scattering of focus results in a story that is both cluttered and shallow-ambitious yet ultimately hollow.

Props and historical details constitute the fourth glaring flaw. Throughout the film, anachronisms and inaccuracies abound: tanks and aircraft that never coexisted, uniforms that do not correspond to the correct units or time periods, and military roles that shift inexplicably. The American character, for example, inexplicably shifts from OSS officer to commando to airborne trooper without logical narrative justification. Similarly, the German character oscillates from colonel to tank commander during battle sequences with no sense of military hierarchy or coherence. These inconsistencies not only break the illusion of historical authenticity but also disrupt the viewer's suspension of disbelief, highlighting the film's patchwork nature.

Musically, the score by Riz Ortolani provides a functional but uninspired accompaniment. While not detrimental, it lacks memorable themes or emotional weight, merely underscoring the on-screen events in a generic manner. The music annotates rather than enriches.

Placed in the context of late 1970s European war cinema, this film illustrates the transitional phase where spaghetti war films, once more visceral and ideologically charged, had become increasingly formulaic and market-driven. It borrows heavily from successful Hollywood epics like Midway (1976) and ensemble war dramas such as A Bridge Too Far (1977), yet it lacks their narrative coherence and production values. The film's multinational cast and sprawling narrative reflect a desire to appeal internationally, but this ambition is undercut by the four major flaws outlined above, resulting in a product that feels neither fully European nor Hollywood-an uneasy hybrid that ultimately fails to satisfy.

Interestingly, when compared with the director's previous work, this film shows a degree of restraint in direction, perhaps an attempt to disguise its spaghetti war roots. Yet, beneath this surface lies the familiar formula: recycled storylines, repeated action set pieces, and patchwork visuals lifted from earlier productions. The film's structural and technical shortcomings are a revealing testament to the economic and aesthetic pressures shaping European genre cinema at the time.

Though it stumbles at every turn, the film retains a nostalgic watchability. It moves like an epic, sounds like an epic, and acts like an epic, without ever becoming one. The uneven cinematography, miscast ensemble, fractured narrative, and glaring prop errors together form a series of fundamental flaws that prevent the film from rising beyond a middling, forgettable entry in the WWII war subgenre.

Infamous hack Umberto Lenzi returns to the war genre, this time to remake his own 1977 epic "The Greatest Battle". Both films are rather uneven, muddled attempts to capitalize on the success of Hollywood's huge 1976 money-maker, "Midway".

Although "From Hell to Victory" is definitely the stronger of Lenzi's two back-to-back epics, the storyline is completely convoluted and a complete rip-off of the previous film. In August, 1939, six friends meet in Paris and vow to reunite every year at a café no matter what the circumstances. Needless to say, WWII changes that plan. Brett (George Peppard) returns to the United States and becomes an OSS officer; Maurice (George Hamilton) finds himself on the beach at Dunkirk; Jurgen (Horst Buchholz) joins the German army and becomes disillusioned by Nazism; Fabienne (Anne Duperey) joins the French resistance. Rick (Jean-Pierre Cassel) joins the RAF, and Ray (Sam Wanamaker) becomes a war correspondent. Their paths will cross throughout the film, concluding with a bittersweet reunion in France during the summer of 1944.

Okay, that said, let's analyze this "story" a little bit. Lenzi presents us with thumbnail sketches of his characters, and then jumps right into the action. Throughout, there is little to no character development; we simply follow several people through the war. This mess should not be as entertaining as it is. And, at first glance this looks like a very original piece of work, but fans of the director will realize that it's just a complete hack job: for one thing, Lenzi's characters are straight out of "The Greatest Battle": Peppard mirrors Henry Fonda, in fact, even Ray Lovelock shows up here to play his pretty-boy son who turns into a hero (again); Hamilton is a takeoff of Giuliano Gemma, and even accompanies Lovelock on a mission to France (as Gemma did to North Africa in the previous film). Buchholz and Duperey fall in love, despite the fact that they are on opposite sides, a la Stacy Keach and Samantha Eggar… the list simply goes on. A series of climaxes are taken straight out of "The Greatest Battle" as well: main characters kill one another from a distance without realizing they're killed a friend; the attack on a German bunker looks awfully familiar – this is the third time Lenzi has shot the same type of shoot-'em-up sequence! Secondly, Lenzi also stages much of the action around stock footage from other, better films. A good deal of the expensive-looking tank battles is lifted from the 1967 epic "The Dirty Heroes", and almost all of the aerial battle photography is taken right out Enzo Castellari's "Eagles over London". The Dunkirk evacuation, in particular, is a total sham. What's amazing is how well this stock footage is edited with the original sequences – I first saw "From Hell to Victory" a few years before "The Dirty Heroes" and "Eagles over London" and was awed by the scope; it wasn't until I saw these films that I realized how much of Lenzi's "work" was just cut from other movies. The only strong action sequence that stands out is a shootout atop the Eiffel Tower, which has got to be one of the most suspenseful, best-edited scenes ever shot. It compares to the most memorable moments in "The Last Hunter" and "The Dirty Dozen" – it's just that good.

For all of the lack of originality, this piece still manages to be fairly entertaining. The cast are all confident and able; it's finally nice to see Peppard in a role where he doesn't have to constantly chew the scenery (he's only a decent actor, not a dramatic genius); he simply is laid back and completely at ease with his surroundings. The ensemble cast does a pretty fair job as well: Ray Lovelock seems a lot more serious about his role than he did in "The Greatest Battle" and George Hamilton seems to be having plenty of fun as a French commando. Buchholz's performance is a little hard to swallow at times, and his character transition from pacifist to die-hard Nazi is not very rational because it is barely developed. Even so, he tries hard and makes his material fairly believable, even if he is still just delivering dialogue rather than really acting.

Despite its many flaws, "From Hell to Victory" has become a widely circulated World War II film through the blessings of rental stores, flea markets and eBay. There's nothing to indicate to American audiences that it is a spaghetti war flick: the principles are familiar American and European actors, and the film plays a lot like a Hollywood drama. Lenzi's direction is somewhat restrained in comparison to his earlier efforts, almost as if he is trying to disguise his work. The credits list the crew and director under pseudonyms, rounding out its "Americanism". It's not a great film in any way, but it's packed with action and engaging situations. Don't go digging for this one, but if you see a dusty video copy, it's worth checking out.

Apart from the German and Allied uniforms in this film, there's not much else to it. I mean, come on, they painted German markings on British spitfires and funnily enough the Brits looked like they were flying Curtis fighters (US-made). And the whole sequencing of the air battles looked so fake, as if from a 1930s film. And some of the air shots looked like they were done in a studio with arm-sized aircraft models!! Did anyone remember the tank battle as well at the end. The 'German' Panzers were actually American Patton tanks, built around the late 40s. It just looked so amateurish and cheap when you compare it to a film like a Bridge too Far, made ten years earlier (and which I concede had a much bigger budget). I mean, why bother with air and tank battles when you can't even make them look half realistic? The other thing i noticed was that all the explosions that were supposed to be stopping the 'Panzers' actually exploded beside or in front of the tanks, and yet the tank would come to a grinding halt!! Ridiculous.

But I'll admit the military action not involving tanks and aircraft looked decent enough (such as when Peppard infiltrates enemy installations to plant explosives, etc.) But overall the acting was wooden, mainly from the main actors. The only good performance was from George Hamilton who played 'Maurice', a French commando. Peppard himself was ok, but he did have a better acting scope than this which was not utilised.

Overall, 3/10.