Il Grande Attacco

original title:
Il Grande Attacco
other titles:
Battle Force, (Die große Offensive)
country / year of production:
Italy , Yugoslavia , Germany / 1977
original length:
97 min. , color
premiere:
7 February 1978
genre:
adventure
based on:
director:
Umberto Lenzi
film script:
Cesare Frugoni , Umberto Lenzi
producer:
Luciano Martino
cinematographer:
Federico Zanni
editor:
Vadim Sokolovsky , Eugenio Alabiso
composer:
Franco Micalizzi
cast (role):
Helmut Berger (Lt. Kurt Zimmer) , Samantha Eggar (Annalisa Ackermann) , John Marcellus Huston (Sean O'Hara) , Stacy Keach (Maj. Manfred Roland) , Henry Fonda (Gen. Foster) , Helmut Berger , Samantha Eggar , John Marcellus Huston , Stacy Keach , Henry Fonda
more:
Orson Welles (Narrator) , Orson Welles
plot synopsis:
Berlin 1936: After the Olympipc Games a British correspondent, a German officer and an American General get to each other. They exchange pleasantries and small tokens of friendship, denying that the three countries would ever be at war.
In North Africa during the Second World War the paths of the three men cross again.
keywords:
friends on opposite sides , tanks , desert , colonialism
war:
Second World War (1939-1945)
literature:
remarks:
The film was shot in the city of Tabernas in Spanish Andalusia.

Critics complaint that the film lacked continuity. Orson Welles provides ominous narration to try to keep the proceedings moving along, but characters are introduced, play their little scene, and are dropped immediately.
Lenzi seems to have been more interested in action than in dialogue.

Sadly, someone forgot to tell Huston he was playing a Brit, since he makes no attempt at an accent. It is funny to hear him call his protege "Yank" in a completely Midwestern American accent.
availability:
VHS NTSC, DVD