Italiano brava gente

I saw this many, many years ago under the title "Attack and Retreat". It is about the Italian participation in World War II on the Eastern Front - where Mussolini sent soldiers to die for his own grandiose vision of himself as an equal partner in German conquest.

I'm not able to recall many details, but there are a number of remarkable scenes that stand out in my memory. One was of a young soldier and a Russian girl in a field of high wheat. Quiet bullets whisper through the windblown stalks in deadly counterpoint to the young love of the boy and girl. In another scene Peter Falk, looking very small and lonely in a bleak and forbidding landscape of snow and ice, struggles to get to the rear while artillery rockets streak through the sky behind him. In still another scene, an Italian guard plays the Internationale on his harmonica to show some human solidarity to a group of Russian civilian prisoners. A mocking German guard demands that the prisoners sing, and a singer stands up to sing.

Shot in very striking black and white, it was an effective antiwar and anti-fascist film with powerful visuals and a strong message of humanity.

I liked it very much and wish it were shown more often.

So many remakes get produced these days, and so many of those turn out to be HORRIBLE decisions. Here is a screenplay that, with just a wee bit of work and a reasonable budget, could be made into one fine film. As it stands, this is an uneven picture with many moments of sheer brilliance. The saber-charging Cossacks are a terrifying lot. The scream of the rockets over the horizon, even with the deficient mono soundtrack, is truly hair-raising, especially considering the limited technology and budget that must have been available in that time and place. Other reviewers have objected to the heroic status conveyed to the Russians, both combatant and non-. Well, some of them WERE heroes, and but for their heroics there would have been a lot more Nazis for US to fight! I'm sorry if that upsets those laboring under neo-con delusions out there, but too bad for you.

And there was certainly no shortage of heroes, and victims, among the ranks of the Italians. If you ever visit Italy, tour some of the little villages in the countryside. In the town square you'll often find an ornate statue dedicated to their World War I dead, usually five or six names, or maybe a few more, depending on the size of the town. Somewhere near you'll typically find a simple block of granite bearing the names of their sons who never came back from North Africa, Greece, and the Eastern Front in the next war, names that may number in the dozens or even hundreds. Just as the story of Corelli's Mandolin deserves to be told correctly, so does this one.

I would certainly rate this film as one of the greatest war movies of all time. Certainly one of the most poignant. This film is in the league with Saving Private Ryan, Patton, Paths of Glory and a hand full of other important films about the lives and deaths of soldiers....any soldier, from any country....life is cherished and death has the same bitter taste to all young soldiers. A marvellous piece of work is this film.

A leftist version of the Fascist Mussolini's death sentence of his undergunned,unmotivated (generally) cannon fodder on the Eastern Front. Being made with the cooperation of the then Soviet government,the Russkies get all the sympathetic colors while the doomed Italians come off as unenlightened peasants who hadn't been shown the Marxist Way. They get walked over in the final battle scenes by the Noble Soviets including some Cossacks in a saber charge against the retreating Germans and Italians. I told my friend who was watching it with me that things like this did happen on the Eastern Front but any coherent unit could envision horsemeat in the mess plate. Unlike Cross of Iron or the German movie Stalingrad a very weak and very prejudiced look at the hell that was combat in WWII Russia. Unlike Paths of Glory or Breaker Morant doesn't have universal anti war message but comes across as weak attempt to show WAR IS HELL but winds up a dull movie on the subject a purgatory to watch.

An excellent movie especially if your interest is depicting the horrors of war. No war is ever easy or fun-producing, especially when you consider that the vast number of killed-in-action are from age 18 through age 23. Permanently maimed are in excess of 8 times the number of dead. This movie "Attack and Retreat" seems to depict the German soldiers more monsters than fighting men, and the Russians as gentle and kind - hardly a good description of either. Because of its excellent acting and moving scenes, I rated this movie an 8. It is true that the Italian soldier has been regarded generally as humane. It may be because Italian soldiers have strong family and Catholic values. Also, war is not Italy's strong point or sphere of interest. Too bad that no inference was made as to the many millions of Stalin's own people who were starved to death or killed in his murderous rampages. Of all the war pictures I have ever seen - this movie stands out as one of the most engrossing.