The Angry Hills

Based on the Leon Uris novel 'The Angry Hills' is a disappointment. This is a long rambling film and and Mitchum has a long ramble through it, just about acting. Characters appear and disappear, the plot wavers, stops and starts. There are other interesting actors equally wasted; Sebastian Cabot, Donald Wolfit, Marius Goring, and tough guy Stanley Baker doesn't even get to face off with Mitchum. Theodore Bikel comes out better with a sad but sympathetic performance, even when being nasty.The female characters are thinly drawn.

The best things are the clear, crisp photography and the extensive use of location shooting. The hills may be angry but they sure look pretty.

Stephen Dade's noirish black-and-white cinematography is the best thing on view in Robert Aldrich's early (1955) and all-too standard-issue tale of an American (Robert Mitchum) involved against his well-developed instincts for survival in resisting the Nazis in a periphery (Athens and the title hills of Greece). There's a conventionally cold-blooded Nazi commander (Marius Goring), Theodore Bikel in the Peter Lorre role of the cowardly collaborator, a wooden Stanley Baker as a less-cowardly one, Elisabeth Müller and Gia Scala as brave love interests, and Robert Mitchum in what might be considered the Humphrey Bogart role if Mitchum had not essayed it a number of times himself. And in a variant on the Sidney Greenstreet role, every bit as rotund but more jovial is Sebastian Cabot. The set-up is handled well, but the middle of the movie drags through reprisals and miraculous escapes by the antihero. The low point is a discussion about values between Mitchum and Müller and the final scene is a bolt from the blue of redemption. The movie is watchable, not least for the Greek locations, but inferior to earlier Aldrich westerns and his superb WWII melodrama "Attack!"

There are only two hills worth seeing in this film; and you will see them early on in the film. The movie could have been titled "The Hills are Alive With the Sound of Nazis", but deferred to The Angry Hills. Mitchum tries to rescue this turkey, but the script is hopeless. The rest of the cast is uninspiring (and Mitchum, too, at times, seems uninspired. The events are convoluted and, at times, repetitive. Both Stanley Baker and Sebastian Cabot are horribly miscast, and look embarrassed to be in this production. The production values are of the lowest quality, and one gets the feeling of a home movie being made at times. Don't waste your time.

Considering that this film was made from a Leon Uris novel AND stars Robert Mitchum, you might easily assume it would be a wonderful film. However, it's very ordinary and nothing more. The novel is certainly among Uris' weakest and the story simply isn't that extraordinary. It's watchable enough--but not compelling enough to make it a must-see for anyone but die-hard Mitchum fans.

The film is set in Greece during the Nazi occupation. An American reporter (Mitchum) is given a list of collaborators--a list he's entrusted to get to the British. However, the Nazis learn of him and the list and spend most of the film pursuing him across the nation. Basically, he hops from one tiny village to the next and the Nazis commit atrocities in the towns in order to try to get the folks to turn in the American. Along the way, there is a woman (naturally) who falls in love with him as well as another woman who MIGHT be in love with him. Can he make it out of the country and deliver the list? See the film if you really need to know.

Overall, the film is fair to middling. While not a bad film, there really isn't a lot to make it stand out--unless you adore Mitchum or want to see Sebastian Cabot in a VERY unusual role.

The Angry Hills casts Robert Mitchum as an American foreign correspondent embedded to use today's terminology with the British troops who are evacuating Greece after the German invasions blitzkrieg catches them flat footed in the summer of 1941. The Germans were invading to pull their Italian ally's chestnuts out of the fire as the Italians got bogged down in the Balkans. This took needed troops from their Russian invasion and in my personal opinion it was the point where Hitler started losing the war.

But who knew that then. Mitchum comes into possession of a list of underground contacts and the Nazis in the person of SS Colonel Marius Goring and Gestapo head Stanley Baker spend the entire picture covering both Athens and the countryside in search of him. Neither Baker or Goring are too squeamish in their methods.

I think the film might have been better had Mitchum been a bit more interested in the project. According to Lee Server's comprehensive biography on him, he was most indifferent. For the usual reasons with him he was on the film simply for a Greek vacation.

The supporting players took up some of the slack and the ones to watch out for are Baker and Theodore Bikel. Especially Bikel he was truly hateful as Nazi collaborator who pimps out his sister to Baker who has her children as hostages. The sister is Elizabeth Mueller who in turn is pimped out to Mitchum to draw him into a Nazi trap.

Bad or mediocre pictures never prevented Mitchum from having a good time. Server's book tells a rollicking story of Mitchum and Stanley Baker matching drinks with Mitchum a clear winner. Baker was no slouch in the hell-raising department, but apparently he was outclassed.