Back in the glory days of the Second World War movie, you could always count on selfless acts of heroism to save the day as brave soldiers would hurl themselves into the fray (often metaphorically waving a flag as they did so) in order to ensure peace and freedom for generations to come. However, by the time the seventies rolled along, faith in our leaders and what they stood for had dwindled as the peace and love generation built up a sizable distrust of authority that not only owed a huge dept to the Vietnam war (which was still raging), but even predated the Watergate scandal to boot.
It’s in this petri dish of social and political unrest that we find Kelly’s Heroes, a cheekily cynical war comedy that saw it lead characters galvanised into action, not for the love or their country or a sense of overriding duty, but for the lure of a massive payday as they mobilize to get their hands on a vast stock pile of Nazi gold. Controversial? Maybe, but it’s also a hell of a lot of fun…
It’s 1944 and the units of the 35th Infantry Divison are hunkered down just outside a French town by the name of Nancy and not only are they beset by driving rain and an advancing German counterattack, but to make matters worse, they’re even being bombarded by a mortar attack from their own side and getting it worse of all are the members of the unit’s reconnaissance platoon.
This proves to be something of the last straw for Private Kelly, who has had issues with the army in general since bring bumped down from lieutenant after being made the scapegoat for an earlier, failed mission, and after capturing a member of Wehrmacht Intelligence, discovers that he has a hefty gold bar hidden away in his briefcase. After getting the German drunk, he finds out that there’s a cache of 14,000 gold bars squirrels away in a vault in a bank located 30 miles behind enemy lines and as the unit flees the town, he starts to cook up a plan.
Proposing to take the three days leave the unit has just been granted and use it to stage an audacious heist, Kelly starts gathering the things he needs in order to pull of this whacked-out mission starting with getting the reluctant thumbs up from hard-nosed Master Sergeant “Big Joe” and the rest of his men. Next, he obtains the supplies he needs from crooked supply Sergeant “Crapgame” who also insists he tags along and completing this rag tag platoon of gold thieves is spaced-out tank Commander known as “Oddball”, who volunteers three Sherman tanks and their crews into their service for a cut of the loot.
As this mercenary band head off to secure their fortunes, they find numerous road blocks on their way to making their fortune such as destroyed bridges, minefields and a little something called the German army, but as their determination to get the gold increases, their actions are misconstrued by the higher ups as something far more noble. At this rate, this band of gold hungry goofs might end up accidently winning the war…
I’m not sure what people made of Kelly’s Heroes when it first came out, but the first thing you notice is that utter disdain for the chain of command that been ground down in the characters since the Normandy landing. In fact there’s a definite feel of the late sixties radiating from the mood of the peace that stems from the uncertainty of the period. While we’d seen disgruntled grunts bemoan their their superiors before in other war movies, there’s something that feels very anti-establishment about the attitude of troops who are sick and tired of being let down by their own forces. Not only has Clint Eastwood’s Kelly been demoted for something that wasn’t his fault, but Telly Savalas’ bellowing Big Joe is constantly screaming about whatever screw up he has to deal with next, be it despondent troops, impossible orders, or a mortar crew who not only can’t keep the proper time, but bombs the wrong spot. However, surely the most obvious sign that Kelly’s Heroes isn’t your average war flick is Donald Sutherland’s hippy tank Commander, Oddball, who spends the entire film in a dopey haze while bemoaning other people who throws out “negative waves”. While the idea of a bearded, blonde hippy desperately trying to put out positive vibes while riding around on a bloody great tank may sound a step too far for a war film set in 1944, it adds to that strung out, Vietnam vibe that director Brian G. Hutton seems to be shooting for.
Somehow, it works; and not only that, it works well as this admittedly unconventional group of actors help carry the bizarre tone along without matters getting so jokey the film loses the weight of the situation. I mean, Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland and Don Rickles would make for an outlandish cast for a Muppets movie, let alone one set during World War II, and yet this eccentric ensemble proves to be a lot of fun to be with, even if the rest of their platoon (save a harmonica playing Harry Dean Stanton) tend to get lost in the struggle. It’s a far breezier movie than Hutton last Clint Eastwood starring war film – the unfathomably tense Where Eagles Dare – but where that movie was all about teeth grinding twists, the joke here is that everyone is fighting for their lives for their own selfish reasons with the notion of duty being rudely shoved to the side.
However, what makes Kelly’s Heroes really work is that despite its cynical nature, it never lapse into the nihilistic territory of, say, Cross Of Iron, and uses its central heist to keep the tone jovial and full of loaded wisecracking and snappy dialogue like, “To a New Yorker like you, a Hero is some type of weird sandwich!”.
While the movie is unquestionably too long (the preparation for the climatic heist goes on for ages), the final reel is an impressive action sequence loaded with funny incident (Crapgame gets covered in the contents of a collapsing outhouse) and some sizable explosions (the production impressively detonates entire buildings for real) and the final solution to cracking the safe proves to be the darkest, most sardonic and yet the most humane solution available as they simply just buy the remaining Germans off with a share of the gold.
The final guffaw comes when the military brass hears of the heist and misinterprets it as extreme, old school, selfless heroism that proves to be as inspiring as it actually is self-centred thus proving that the targets of the movie’s jokes isn’t the brave men who fought tooth and nail, but those who would unthinkingly sent them into battle.
Add to this a hilariously unsubtle jab at Eastwood’s western roots and Sutherland’s stand out bohemian flower child born in the wrong generation and you have a war film that’s worth its weight in gold.
Stolen Nazi gold, admittedly, but gold nonetheless.
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