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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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5
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5 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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I
hazily recall seeing The Secret Invasion
on TV when I was around 9 or 10 years old, back when I'd watch
virtually any flick with explosions in it. The only thing
I could remember about this Roger Corman-directed action drama
was a scene in which a German sailor gets a grappling hook lodged
in his neck. (Funny the stuff a young mind will retain!) Having
not seen the pic in the 35 years since, I came to regard it
as Corman's "German-Sailor-Gets-Grappling-Hook-in-Neck
Movie" whenever coming across the title in an article or
filmography. So I was keen to check out MGM's new DVD edition
and fill in the rest of the timeworn blanks.
Cairo,
1943: Just prior to the Allied invasion of the Italian mainland,
British special operations officer Maj. Richard Mace (Stewart
Granger) assembles an unorthodox commando team for an important
mission. The five men chosen are all hardened convicts plucked
from Devil's Island, Dartmoor, Alcatraz, etc., each with his
own field of expertise. Scanlon (Mickey Rooney... Yes, that
Mickey Rooney) is an IRA demolitions expert with little love
for the English. Durrell (Henry Silva) — nationality unknown
— is a stone-faced killer, a hitman sentenced to death for the
murder of his mistress. The youthful Fell (Edd Byrnes) can forge
any document or signature on the fly after only a brief glance
at the original. Dapper Serval (William Campbell) is a master
of voice mimicry and disguise. And before being busted, the
highly-educated Rocca (Raf Vallone) was top man in a Mediterranean
smuggling cartel, renowned for his organizational skills. Full
pardons for all past crimes await this 'Dirty Quintet' upon
completion of the mission... Provided, of course, they make
it back alive.
Mace doesn't tell
them the nature and objective of the operation until it's already
underway. With the invasion of Italy imminent, the six-man team
is to infiltrate Axis-occupied Yugoslavia and rescue an Italian
general. This officer, the commander of Italian occupation forces
along the Yugoslav coast, is anti-fascist and prepared to defect
to the Allies. Beloved by his men, it is hoped he can turn his
soldiers against the Germans, opening a second front on the
Adriatic. But the general is under suspicion. Closely guarded
by the Germans, he's confined to the Axis headquarters fortress
at Dubrovnik. Mace's commandos are to establish contact with
local partisans, who stand ready to assist, and get the general
out.
The mission has barely
begun when it nearly suffers disaster. Approaching the coast,
the fishing trawler carrying Mace's team is stopped by a German
patrol boat. Rather than be discovered the men daringly board
the enemy vessel and slaughter its crew. (Time for that grappling-hook-in-the-neck
scene.) Once ashore they link up with the partisans and sneak
into Dubrovnik, where work on a tunnel into the fortress is
started. For awhile everything seems to be going according to
plan, but then the entire commando team is captured by the Germans
and imprisoned in the very fortress they intended to raid. Undaunted,
Rocca works out a desperate scheme... The six men must escape
the dungeon and rescue the general before the sinister Nazi
commandant (Helmo Kindermann) breaks one of them through torture.
Lacking
the star power and characterization
of Robert Aldrich's similar but much better known The
Dirty Dozen (made three years later), Corman's modestly
budgeted effort goes through the motions in fairly perfunctory
style. It's part commando movie/part prison break flick, competently
helmed but without adding anything new or innovative to either
genre. None of the characters is thicker than cardboard except
for Vallone and Silva's; fortunately the two actors are well-cast
and very good in their respective roles. That the script (by
R. Wright Campbell, Corman's Masque
of the Red Death) picks these guys from among the
group to focus on is in itself interesting. (Calm, quick-thinking
Rocco eventually becomes de facto leader of the team, with Mace's
consent; in his relationship with a female guerilla fighter,
the cold-blooded Durell develops a sense of humanity.) A twist
ending, which I didn't expect, makes up for an adequately staged
but otherwise run-of-the-mill climactic battle sequence.
The film is aided
considerably by excellent location photography, which not only
lends authenticity to the story but provides picturesque visuals
as well. It was shot in and around Dubrovnik, on the Dalmatian
coast, with historic Fort Lovrijenac used for the Nazi HQ and
prison. Since the opportunity to film in the area was his main
inspiration for Secret Invasion,
Corman takes terrific advantage of these beautiful locations.
The sequence depicting a firefight across the tiled rooftops
of Dubrovnik's "Old Town" is just one noteworthy example.
(Trivia note: Now part of the independent Republic of Croatia,
Dubrovnik was attacked and besieged by the Yugoslav Army in
1991.)
The Balkan setting
may be visually interesting but it's also an unusual one for
a U.S. or British-made war film; off the top of my head, I can
only think of 1978's Force 10 from Navarone
as another example. (Typically Yugoslavia is used as a cinematic
stand-in for other countries.) It's briskly paced, there's
a fair amount of action and the thesping is good (even with
Rooney's wobbly Irish accent), so fans of military adventure
pics should find it worthwhile. There is one boneheaded
flub which I, an inveterate nitpicker, mustn't fail to point
out... In the opening scenes, characters are shown wearing early
'60s-style suits (narrow lapels, skinny ties) instead of 1940s
attire. It's like these guys dropped into WWII straight out
of a Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode!
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Another
barebones, bargain-priced catalog title from MGM... While it would've
been nice to have a Roger Corman commentary track (I'd love to
hear his thoughts about helming large-scale battle scenes and
shooting on location in Yugoslavia), I fully understand that even
the big companies aren't going to produce supplements for every
release. But c'mon — not even a trailer?
The
important thing, of course, is A/V quality. Happily the disc is
a winner in this regard. A clean and colorful damage-free print,
in the original 2.35 AR (16x9 enhanced), shows off the film to
its best advantage — it really looks terrific. Brief snippets
of stock footage used to depict Cairo are excessively grainy,
but that's to be expected. (Just as one expects to see cost-cutting
stock footage in a Corman movie.) The English mono audio track
is pretty good, limited as it is by the weak foley used for gunfire
and explosions in the original film. Likewise for the Spanish
and French language tracks also included. A few instances of unintelligible
dialog in the English version are the fault of heavily-accented
actors (especially Vallone) and not the DVD. Subtitles are provided
in English and Spanish. 5/17/08 |
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