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Registered: 02-2005
Posts: 71
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The Quick and the Dead


The Quick and the Dead - 1962.

This film is one I purchased in a batch of three tapes from the USA. I was expecting a really poor low-budget movie, and though clearly the budget wasn't big is appears to have spent quite well.

The movie starts with some GIs on the front-line in Italy and the final moments of a returning patrol that all get wiped out by shellfire. A new group of GIs is then given the tast of accomplishing the same mission, that is to move behind enemy lines and knock out an ammunition dump. However these details are not explained in the movie as such, there is no narration, no scene-setting pre-credits sequence, no briefing back at base, nothing. None of the characters are introduced and indeed some are not even named before they get killed. I assume therefore that this was producer Robert Totten's deliberate intention - to hurl his audience straight into combat. With this intention he has spent his money on some nice pyros and explosions that are well staged. He even uses an amputee stuntman like in modern films to show a german with his arm blown off.

As the film progresses the 8 man patrol gets whittled down to just 2, as they encounter the Germans again and again, even, escaping after being taken prisoner during the confusion of a P51 Mustang attack. Along the way they blow up the ammo dump, meet up with two Italian girls and later the Partizans before a final concluding battle in a rocky valley.

Usually the authenticity of these low-budget movies is appalling, all the krauts have MP40s, the Americans carrying foreign-made SMGs and wearing generic 1960s fatigues. But here the GIs wear good looking M41 jackets, woollen pants and carry M1 Garand rifles, the Germans aren't too bad either carring Mauser rifles and with reasonable uniforms - the helmets are unfortunately a mix of 1916 and 1936 types, but overall they look okay.

The cast are unknowns Larry Mann, Jon Cedar etc, except Victor French who I remember as Michael Landon's buddy in Highway to Heaven and in Little House on the Prairie.

Though I enjoyed the film, I personally think that a narrated introduction to each character like in A Walk in the Sun might have been useful. But all in all a worthwhile addition to my collection and I am glad I found it.

Oh one more thing - I believe the final sequence of GIs and vehicles moving up a hill was taken from another film, maybe the Victors, though they were made in the same year, so maybe not.
2/18/2005, 2:46 pm Link to this post Send Email to warfilmman
 


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