Cross of Iron

CROSS OF IRON (18)

D: Sam Peckinpah

EMI/Rapid/Terra-Filmkunst/ITC (Alex Winitsky, Arlene Sellers & Wolf C. Hartwig)

UK/West Germany 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 1977

133 mins

War/Drama

W: Julius Epstein, James Hamilton & Walter Kelley [based on the novel "The Willing Flesh" by Willi Heinrich]

DP: John Coquillon

Ed: Michael Ellis & Tony Lawson

Mus: Ernest Gold

James Coburn (Steiner), Maximilian Schell (Stransky), James Mason (Brandt), David Warner (Kiesel), Klaus Löwitsch (Krüger), Senta Berger (Eva)

Like the 1930's classic All Quiet On The Western Front, Cross Of Iron is a war film from a German perspective, following a small battalion behind enemy lines and engaged in conflict with Russia.

Based on the novel, The Willing Flesh, the film does move quite slowly and has quite an unpleasant story of jealous rivalry and duplicity amongst top-ranking soldiers during WWII.

Sam Peckinpah brings his usual brutal, visceral and violent style to the movie and though it's not an easy film to watch, the futility of war message is quite apparent throughout.

8/10