Film 11/52: Kelly's Heroes (1970)


Back in the day, the 3pm after-school time slot was the home to many a great movie during the week. My recollection is that Kelly's Heroes is one of those films I first experienced that way. As a long-time Clint Eastwood fan, I'm sure I had watched parts of the film multiple times over the years. But as with many of the films in our library, I hadn't gotten around to watching it on the big screen until now.

The film has a great cast, from Eastwood and the rest of the headliners (Telly Savalas, Don Rickles and Carrol O'Connor — all playing roles they were perfectly typecast for), to a wild Donald Sutherland as a free-spirit/hippie tank commander, to a number of smaller roles by recognizable faces: Stuart (Rockford Files) Margolin, Gavin (Love Boat) McCloud, (Harry) Dean Stanton... and Karl-Otto Alberty as the German Tiger commander who I recognized from The Great Escape (and who had quite a career playing German soldiers!). I kept my eyes out for John Landis in an uncredited role, but I missed him. When I looked it up and realized that he played Sister Rosa Stigmata, one of the nuns the tank crew drove past, I didn't feel so bad. 

I was actually surprised to find the overall film was not as comedic as my recollections (though I'm not surprised that the funny bits are the ones that stayed with me through the years). It's pretty dark at times, and by the end of the film, I was expecting things to take a turn for the worse. 

It starts out as Kelly (Eastwood) learns of a stockpile of gold bars stored in a bank across enemy lines. He gathers up a small crew to liberate the 16 million dollars in loot. Along the way, the associated crew grows larger and larger, as they need the support of a tank crew, and then a bridge-laying crew, which brings along a 100-piece band! All the while, their exploits are being followed over radio communications by a general who thinks there's a motivated assault underway, and decides he wants to join in on the action of this heroic squad. One wonders if they'll make it to the gold — assuming it's even there, how many people they will have to split the bounty with, and if they do find it, how the heck they'll get it out of enemy territory. 

Vonna was a bit disappointed with the pacing, which I felt was natural for an early seventies film, although I have to agree with her assessment that it's no Great Escape. For me, the cast of characters was more than enough to keep my interest, and while it's not one of my favorites, I always appreciate a Lalo Schifrin score! And the track Quentin Tarantino lifted for Inglorious Basterds, Tiger Tank, is a great one. 

Kelly's Heroes is another film I'm glad to have finally experienced in its full widescreen glory and in stereo in the Slaughtered Lamb Cinema, and it was a welcome improvement after the last two lackluster entries in this series. 


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