a5c7b9f00b During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his isolated castle hoping they will defend it against the advancing Germans.
Toward the end of World War II, a small company of American GI's occupy an ancient castle. Their commander has an affair with the countess in resident. One guy falls in love with a Volkswagon. A baker among them moves in with another baker's wife. A group of shell shocked holy rollers wander the bombed out streets. A GI art historian tries vainly to protect the castle and its masterpieces.
It's a good thing the title is ambiguous because the movie is. If you can enjoy the fairy tale plot, this is a cute movie not to be taken seriously. It is set in "Battle of the Bulge"-Belgium locale. It is NOT a WW-2 epic in the historical sense but rather, is a philosophical plot dealing with each characters personal reaction to the brutality of war. Technically speaking, one can't fault a fairy tale on technicalities but, although a floating Volkswagen is common knowledge, one that is bullet ridden and sinks, only to refloat itself, that's another matter. This movie is worth an evening's view in front of the TV.
A cult film that Columbia Pictures has done the devil to bury, keeps resurfacing because of it's exceptional poetry, invention, and flawless execution - on the part of director, editor, and camera crew, but also thanks to some of the most powerful acting on film, especially from Lancaster and Falk.<br/><br/>The writers and the director have striven hard to push the boundaries of cinematic story telling, and to do so without looking 'low budget', as many other more intellectually advanced films of the period did.<br/><br/>In the last analysis, calling this film 'anti-war' is as inappropriate as saying that of Sam Fuller's "Big Red One". Like Fuller's film, this is simply war as it was fought - garnished, for dramatic (and comic) effect, with more than a touch of the undeniably surreal. But as Fuller made plain in his wholly realistic film, war creates just the sort of environment where the surreal happens.<br/><br/>BTW, what made this a cult film in the first place is not any 'anti-war' message (the message is actually more 'anti-European' if you follow the dialog closely), but rather its remarkable comedic sense of the absurd, made most famous by the affair with the Volkswagen, but actually more impressive with Falk's baker (who moves in with the Belgian town's baker's wife, because, well, that's what bakers do, they live with baker's wives).<br/><br/>All this adds up to a stunning, even shocking film, that is still highly entertaining. I suspect those that find it confusing haven't lived much life yet, or don't want to. This film is not dated in the least; it will survive all the CGI crap that Hollywood vomits up, as long as there are people who want to think and to feel while watching a film.