Battle of the Bulge (1965)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Ken Annakin

Writers:

Philip Yordan (written by) &
Milton Sperling (written by) ...

Release Date:

16 December 1965 (USA)

Genre:

War | Action | Drama

Tagline:

Unlike anything you've ever seen before

Plot:

In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent this occurrence...

Plot Keywords:

Tank | Fuel Depot | Battle Of The Bulge | Time Table | Mother Superior

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Golden Globes.

US TV Schedule:

Wed. Nov. 11

6:15 AM

AMC

Cast

Henry Fonda	...	Lt. Col. Kiley
Robert Shaw	...	Col. Hessler
Robert Ryan	...	Gen. Grey
Dana Andrews	...	Col. Pritchard
George Montgomery	...	Sgt. Duquesne
Ty Hardin	...	Schumacher
Pier Angeli	...	Louise
Barbara Werle	...	Elena
Charles Bronson	...	Wolenski
Hans Christian Blech	...	Conrad
Werner Peters	...	Gen. Kohler
James MacArthur	...	Lt. Weaver
Karl-Otto Alberty	...	Von Diepel (as Karl Otto Alberty)
Telly Savalas	...	Sgt. Guffy
Steve Rowland	...	Eddy

Runtime:

167 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

West Germany:16 (f) | USA:Approved (Certificate #20947) | USA:Not Rated (DVD) | New Zealand:PG | Canada:PG (video rating) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (1986) | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, Madrid, Spain

Company:

Cinerama Productions Corp.

Trivia:

The character of the German Colonel was first intended to be the real life Panzer officer Joachim Peiper, the youngest man in the Nazi Army to be make the rank of full colonel (SS-Standartenführer, the direct SS equivalent to an Oberst or full colonel in the German army). However, since Peiper, a protégé of 'Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler' , the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the second most powerful man in Germany after Adolf Hitler, was promoted to the ran at the age of 29. However, as he was still living at the time the film was produced and was still a committed Nazi, his character was quickly changed to a fictitious Regular German Army officer, so as not to give Peiper any connection to the film or risk a libel suit. It was Peiper's unit of the Waffen-SS, Kampfgruppe Peiper of the 1st SS Division, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (German for "Adolf Hitler's Bodyguard Regiment") that was responsible for the Malmedy massacre of American prisoners depicted in the film. After the War, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted by the American Occupation Force as the trial had been fraught with illegalities, and he served only 11 years in prison, despite having perpetrated war-crimes on both the Eastern and Western fronts. Peiper was assassinated at his home in France, likely by French communists, in 1976.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Kiley is at the Our River bridge and sees Hessler, he asks the sergeant for his rifle to shoot Hessler. The rifle does not have the rear sight assembly installed. Only the sight ears of the receiver are visible.

Quotes:

Col. Martin Hessler: Our column has made the farthest advance! We have outrun the other Panzers! The eyes of Germany are on us! The Fuhrer himself will decorate me. We have done it Conrad! We have done it!
Cpl. Conrad: Then I was wrong. We have won the war.
Col. Martin Hessler: No.
Cpl. Conrad: You mean we have lost?
Col. Martin Hessler: No.
Cpl. Conrad: I don't understand. If we have not won, and we have not lost, than what is happening?
Col. Martin Hessler: The best thing possible is happening - the war will go on.
Cpl. Conrad: For how long?
Col. Martin Hessler: Indefinitely. On, and on, and on!
Cpl. Conrad: But it must come to an end.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Edited into Wizards (1977)

Soundtrack:

Panzerlied

The Battle Of The Bulge

"THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE"-was without a doubt an archetypal studio war movie,since this one is really quite faithful to the broad outlines and details of a real campaign,and then fills out the running time with ridiciously unrealistic Hollywood heroics. The combination is somehow much more entertaining that it ought to be. Veteran director Ken Annakin knows how to keep this sort of sprawling material in line,and even if the two leads are doing a bit of slumming,they're as good as they used to be.

As the synopsis of the story goes it is December,1944 and American troops and officers advancing toward Germany think that the war is over. They're on cruise control waiting for orders to return home. But Colonel Kiley(Henry Fonda)who's a cop in civilian life,has a hunch that the enemy is up to something. On a reconaissance flight,he spots Colonel Hessler(Robert Shaw)in the back of a big black convertible. Kiley also spots some Tiger tanks and thinks that he has discovered the first evidence of the counteroffensive. His superiors,General Gray (Robert Ryan),and Colonel Pritchard(Dana Andrews) are skeptical. Meanwhile,right at the point of the German attack,Major Wolenski's(Charles Bronson)men are hunkered in a bunker and trying to stay warm. Sargent Duquesne(George Montgomery)keeps wet-behind-the-ears Lt. Weaver (James MacArthur)from getting himself killed,and Guffy(Telly Savalas)uses his Sherman tank to distribute black market wine,eggs,and nylons. The script by John Melson and producers Phillip Yordan and Milton Sperling neatly juggles those plot elements,bringing them all together only at a wonderfully preposterous conclusion.

The various battle scenes vary widely in quality. Some of the destruction seems shockingly real while the occasional shots of model tanks and trains are so jarring that they're unintentionally funny. Director Kenneth Annakin realizes how those deep,ratting,clanking sound effects are to cinematic tanks,and he uses every note in his repertoire. He understands the importance of setting,and gives the film an appropriately bleak,muddy,snow-covered feel. Since the film was released in Christmas of 1965,and was originally made for the ultra-widescreen process Cinerama(the first film presented in this format for Warner Bors. Pictures and was filmed in Ultra Panavision), much of the scope of the big scenes is lost in the conventional pan-and-scan transfer(it has been restored for its release on DVD). The best way to see this is in theatres that had the Cinerama process. The tank battles in particular have almost nothing to do with the realiities of war,but the filmmakers don't take as many liberties as they might have.

The Germans did time the attack to take advantage of poor weather-"night,fog and snow,"as Hitler put it-to keep Allied airplanes on the ground. They hoped that stopping the Allies would give them take to take more advantage of their secret-weapons programs and V-2 attacks. The attack was led by a young tank general,and his supplies of fuel were so critically low that his forces were expected to forage for it. The filmmakers made use of all these points,especially with the battle sequences and stunning photography throughout. When it was released in 1965,the film's original running time of 167 minutes long. The most widely available tape version of the film is at 141 minutes and was re-released back in theatres with given running times of 156,and 163 minutes long. When it was restored,the producers resurrected the original negatives to its standard running time of 167 minutes,which is now out on DVD.