BATTLE OF THE BULGE

U.S.A. | 1965 Directed by Ken Annakin Starring Henry Fonda Robert Shaw Robert Ryan Color | 170 Minutes | Not Rated Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC) Warner Home Video

Music/dialog from the film "Panzerlied" MP3 format - 0.5 MB

Hold your mouse pointer over an image for a pop-up caption

Read the true story

		Review by Brian Lindsey

4     6   10 = Highest Rating

Spectacularly stupid or a stupid spectacle... Take your pick.     By the onset of winter in 1944 American, British and Canadian armies had pushed the retreating Nazis back to the very borders of the Reich. For a time it had looked like the German Army of the West would disintegrate entirely, but a coherent defense eventually took shape just as the Allies began to experience major problems with their lengthening supply lines. A breathing spell was needed by both sides. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, used this lull to replenish and reorganize his armies, gearing up for the final "broad front" push across the barrier of the Rhine River into the heart of Germany. Hitler, who had to deal with the Soviet juggernaut in the east in addition to encroaching Anglo-American forces, did the unexpected: He launched a massive counteroffensive against the Americans in Belgium's Ardennes forest, with the goal of driving on Antwerp and splitting the Allied armies in two.     The Germans gambled their last reserves of armor and precious fuel on this assault, scraping the bottom of the barrel for troops and equipment. The right climate was essential, as at least two weeks of "Führer Weather" (fog and heavy overcast to keep the Allied tactical air forces grounded) were thought needed to achieve success. Also essential were operational security and surprise — the Americans must think the enemy beaten and on the verge of collapse, unable to mount any large-scale offensives. These conditions were fulfilled on December 16th when over 250,000 German troops attacked along an 85-mile front. But while Hitler's last great coup of the war had caught the Allies napping it would also be the last of his devil's luck. American forces in the Ardennes buckled under the onslaught and began a disorganized retreat, only to rally as the panzers bogged down and reinforcements arrived to slowly turn the tide. Having spent their strength punching a significant "bulge" in the American line, the Germans were thrown back by fierce counterattacks and the intervention, once the weather cleared, of Allied air power. By the end of January 1945 the Nazis had been pushed back to their original start line, the striking power of the Wehrmacht forever broken.     The story of this titanic struggle — the largest battle ever fought on foreign soil by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 80,000 casualties — is definitely not to be found in this film. A disclaimer just before the end credits states: "To encompass the whole of the heroic contributions of all the participants, places, names and characters have been generalized and action has been synthesized in order to convey the spirit and the essence of the battle." They weren't kidding... So "generalized" and "synthesized" that it bares almost no resemblance to reality! History is thoroughly, needlessly trashed in Battle of the Bulge, to such an ignominious degree that the movie is actually an insult to the men who fought in the Ardennes (on both sides) rather than any kind of "tribute". No less galling is the fact that it was made only 20 years after the actual battle, when most of the surviving soldiers were still very much alive. Many of the veterans who saw it were disgusted, pissed off by the screenwriters' blatant disregard of the facts. What I can't understand is why such a huge, big budget production would take this route... Why spend all that money depicting a famous battle using a script that makes stuff up completely out of whole cloth? Chronology, geography, topography, weather — you name it, this movie gets it wrong. On purpose.     The most obvious examples of this are the film's recreation of events at Malmedy, the assault on/capture of "Ambleve" and the big tank engagement that comes near the end. I won't waste space with point-by-point details, but the staging of the infamous Malmedy Massacre — one of the most thoroughly documented battlefield atrocities of World War II — is 100% divorced from reality; everything this movie shows you about it is completely false. One of the biggest set-pieces involves a German panzer attack on the besieged city of Ambleve, which did not, does not, exist — Ambleve is a river in Belgium, not a town. I suppose it's meant to represent St. Vith (which the Americans tenaciously defended for five days), but that only begs the question: Why the hell change the name? As for the major tank vs. tank action, not only did it definitely not really go down that way, but U.S. and German armor is shown dueling on a dusty, treeless expanse that would've made a terrific double for the steppes of southern Russia... but couldn't be less appropriate for the rugged, heavily wooded terrain of the Ardennes. And all the while there are clear blue skies above the Nazi panzers, giving the impression that the entire American air corps was too busy sleeping off a hangover to aid the beleaguered grunts on the front line. Nary a single fighter-bomber is ever glimpsed. (In fact, the role of the 9th U.S. Air Force was absolutely critical to eventual American victory at the "Bulge".)     As something of a military history buff I could rag the shit out of this film for days (Elsenborn Ridge isn't even mentioned!) but that's probably not what you're here for. Fictionalized or not, how is it as a movie? I certainly can't fault the cast, packed as it is with Hollywood greats (on the American side): Henry Fonda as a kindly, prescient intelligence officer, always in the right place at the right time, with just the right hunch; Robert Ryan as a stern, calm-under-pressure general and Dana Andrews (Hot Rods To Hell) his doubtful, by-the-book exec; Charles Bronson as a Kraut-hating infantry major leading a green battalion; and a hammy Telly Savalas as the gruff but lovable tank sergeant dabbling in the black market. The Germans are chiefly represented by British actor Robert Shaw (From Russia with Love, Jaws), whose "Colonel Martin Hessler" serves as a stand-in of sorts for notorious SS Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper, commander of the lead armored spearhead in the real battle. Locks dyed Aryan blond, stylin' in the snappiest of Wehrmacht couture and accessories, Shaw (smartly) doesn't play him as Red Grant in a panzer jacket. No cardboard Nazi, Hessler is a genuine patriot and professional warrior driven to the brink of madness by five years of ceaseless combat. Counterbalancing this 'super-soldier' is Hans Christian Blech playing Hessler's middle-aged orderly, Corporal Conrad. This character is Hollywood's ideal of the "Good German" — sick of Hitler and tired of the war, he knows that Germany has lost and just wants it to end. Blech imbues the role with authenticity in spite of the ham-fisted script, doubtless drawing upon his own personal experiences and feelings. (He was wounded fighting in Russia during the war, after which he took up acting.) Even with all that star power on board Blech's is easily the best performance.     Director Ken Annakin (The Longest Day) gives the film a proper epic feel befitting its massive scale; he gets plenty of mileage out of the legion of armored vehicles lent to the production by the Spanish Army. (U.S.-made M48 Patton tanks serve as German Tigers and Panthers.) Swooping aerial shots of all this equipment on the move remind the audience that the film is BIG!, a bona fide EVENT!, a fact hammered home by composer Benjamin Frankel's grandiose score, which positively screams EPIC! at every other turn (and is actually quite good, by the way). For a nearly three-hour film it is well-paced, moving briskly from scene to scene (and from continuity error to continuity error), but the dialog is bland and the various storylines, save Hessler's, rather uninteresting. Seasoned actors can only do so much with a cliché-riddled script and the one for Bulge is loaded with them. The relationship between George Montgomery's gung-ho sergeant and his scared, greenhorn lieutenant (James MacArthur) is especially cornball. Yet it's the dodgy special effects — poor rear-projection, models you expect to see Godzilla stomping on — that date the picture more than any lack of cursing or gory combat wounds.     Still, viewers who couldn't give a crap about historical veracity or realism will probably like Battle of the Bulge a lot more than I do, provided they're up for a very 'old school' Hollywood action epic. Oddly enough, to me the most memorable scene isn't one of the big set-pieces... It concerns an assembly of Hessler's junior officers, who — to demonstrate their fighting spirit — burst into an impromptu rendition of "Panzerlied" (the marching song of German tank crews) accompanied by an invisible orchestra. Shaw lustily joins in. Suddenly it's a musical!

Warner's Bulge DVD restores all the footage inexplicably cut from the VHS release — namely sequences lensed for the film's original super-widescreen Cinerama theatrical exhibition and the often-missing "shoot the father" scene — as well as the Overture, Intermission and Exit music. The disc's widescreen 2.70:1 anamorphic transfer is absolutely marvelous, up-gunned with a new 5.1 audio mix. Zero complaints regarding A/V quality — the film truly looks and sounds excellent here... I strongly recommend that it be screened only on the biggest honking 16x9 TV you can plant your butt in front of. (56" in my case; it was like I'd never really seen the movie before.) Extras: Apart from the long theatrical trailer, two vintage black and white promotional featurettes are on deck. As hackneyed puff pieces they're pretty much worthless. The first, The Filming of Battle of the Bulge, at least shows some of the actors hanging out between takes. You'll know that the second one is pure bullshit merely from its title, History Recreated (given that this movie is the subject). 2/11/09

HOME | REVIEWS | TOP