The Secret Invasion

First thing I noticed was the clothes. Kind of hard to take a movie serious when the first scene is all wrong for the time period it was set in. Just went downhill from there. Not a movie I'd ever recommend.

An army major leads a rag-tag band of convicts on a daring mission behind enemy lines. THE DIRTY DOZEN, you ask? No, THE SECRET INVASION, a solid Roger Corman programmer released two years earlier, with a talented cast led by Stewart Granger, Mickey Rooney, Raf Vallone, Ed Byrnes, William Campbell and Henry Silva. Far less predictable than DOZEN, this film has some dynamite performances (Byrnes, Rooney and Silva are especially good), great action, and some surprising plot twists. See it!

Roger Corman got his largest budget to date and distribution through United Artists for The Secret Invasion. Even though the story is a combination of The Dirty Dozen and The Guns Of Navarone, it's all delivered in nice style.

Heading the mission is Major Stewart Granger and the time is during those days just before the Allies invaded Italy proper having already landed and occupied Sicily. He gets himself a choice team of criminals of varying kind all with certain specialties. His team includes Raf Vallone, Edd Byrnes, William Campbell, Mickey Rooney, and Henry Silva. With Granger that makes it a half a dozen.

These six are to go into occupied Yugoslavia and kidnap a popular Italian general. Remember at this point in time Mussolini had already been overthrown and the Allies were conducting negotiations with Field Marshal Badoglio to take Italy out of the Axis orbit. Command broke down in the Italian Army and Badoglio dragged his feet somewhat. So this was a move in Yugoslavia where the Italians had considerable troops.

Things didn't quite work out for Granger and the rest of his half dozen no more than they did for the Allies and Badoglio. Still the mission is completed kind of and a few actually survive to tell the tale.

Best in the cast is Mickey Rooney who adopts a nice Irish brogue as he plays an IRA man who's good with explosives. Like the rest he's fighting for a pardon if he gets back from Yugoslavia. He looks like he's having a great old time in the part. Given his last name you'd think the Mick would have played more Irish types in films. But remember he was born Joe Yule, Jr. quite Jewish.

The Secret Invasion will not be one of Roger Corman's cult classics, it had too big a budget for that. Still it's an enjoyable film, war film fans will like it.

This exciting and so-so war movie produced by Gene Corman packs thrills, suspense , plot twists , lots of action sequences and climatic ending , but doesn't quite hang together. Passable warfare film follows a group of convicts soldiers played by all star cast who undergoes assignment against the promise of free pardons. It deals with Major Mace (Stewart Granger) , a tough commandant , he assigns a motley team(Mickey Rooney ,Raf Vallone , Edd Byrnes, Henry Silva, William Campbell) for a dangerous mission whose aim is to free an Italian General (Enzo Fiermonte) . As Stewart Granger training an outfit of rebels and misfits soldiers for a risked assault in Yugoslavia where they contact partisans. The commando must participate in a suicidal mission, the first to wipe a Yugoslavian little town and after an assault over a strong position located on Dubrovnik , Croacia, where is imprisoned the Italian General. Each member of the squad keeps time by rhythmically snapping his fingers so the kidnap can be coordinated . They wreak havoc and kill Nazis to earn the respect of military higher-ups in an exciting final .

This low-budgeted and appropriate runtime warfare film concerns about an incredible lesson of courage set in WWII . This flag-waving film packs frantic thrills, perilous adventures, relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action and violence . The noisy action is uniformly well-made, especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring final scenes on the mountains and battle at Dubrovnik city . Fine location cinematography by Arthur Arling and powerful musical score by Hugo Friedhofer . Serious and rough Stewart Granger is good as leader of the motley pack together thwart the the Nazi schemes, as well as the largely secondary cast with particular mention to Henry Silva and Raf Vallone who finish developing a sincere friendship . The film belongs to Commandos sub-genre operating beyond enemy lines whose maximum examples result to be the classics as ¨Dirty dozen¨(Robert Aldrich) , ¨Guns of Navarone¨ (J.L. Thompson) , ¨When eagles dare ¨ (Brian G Hutton), ¨ and ¨Kelly's heroes¨ (Hutton) and other movies that were made during the 60s and 70s regarding wartime adventures about special forces in risked missions .

The motion picture is professionally directed by Roger Corman . After his period realizing poverty-budget horror movies as ¨Swamp woman, The beast with a million of eyes, Attack of the crab monsters , Undead¨, then came the cycle of tales of terror based on Poe as ¨ House of Usher, Pit and pendulum, The raven , Tales of terror, The masque of the red death ¨ , and meanwhile Corman made this passable war film that achieved limited success.

I saw this one today and I was very surprised by the film. Not only does it have a theme reminiscent of the later Dirty Dozen, but there's a scene towards the beginning that smacks of the Guns of Naverone. The casting is surprisingly top notch and I was overall pleased with the entire film. Stewart Granger is Good as the troubled British officer out for revenge. I loved Mickey Rooney, who seemed to be having the time of his life as an IRA demolition expert. The other members of the cast rounded out an almost perfect ensemble with notable mention to William Campbell & Edd Byrne. The only thing I found odd about this film was the speed at which the actors found themselves on their secret mission. It seemed within 20 minutes they were introduced, trained, and already in enemy waters. Other than that, it was a solid WW2 movie with plenty of action! I HIGHLY recommend it.