Karl Otto Alberty Movies

Scenes of the real Munich are interspersed with shots of studio mockups in Assignment: Munich. Roy Scheider stars as an American expatriate running a saloon in Munich (shades of Casablanca). He agrees to help the US government locate a cache of gold, appropriated by the Nazis during the war. This TV pilot was a long time in getting a network commitment--so long, in fact, that star Roy Scheider took another job in the interim. By the time the series premiered in the fall of 1972, the role played by Scheider had been rewritten several times for several actors; Robert Conrad, who was then "between jobs", ended up playing the part. The city of Munich was also "replaced", and the series was retitled Assignment: Vienna. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The British fleet is enroute to North Africa to engage the Germans, and the best port for them to use is Tobruk. There, they have problems: Germans occupy Tobruk, and have fortified it with devastating heavy artillery which would prevent a British landing. The original scheme for sabotaging the guns, by using British commandos planted behind the lines as prisoners of war, has gone awry. Posing as a Nazi officer, the man who was to lead the attack (Richard Burton) arrives at the rendezvous point, but all he finds are genuine prisoners of war, all of them sick, accompanied by their medics who are pacifists. A great many British lives hang in the balance, and a failure here could affect the outcome of the entire Second World War. Somehow, he must make use of these unlikely recruits to carry out the raid. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Like M*A*S*H and Catch-22, both released the same year, this military comedy takes place in an earlier war but is really a thinly disguised treatise on the modern-day insanity and avariciousness then unfolding in Vietnam. Clint Eastwood stars as Kelly, a former lieutenant whose illusions about the glory of war, if he has any, are lost when he is busted in rank for following some poorly considered orders in World War II France. After capturing a friendly German officer, Kelly learns the whereabouts of millions of dollars in gold bars, earmarked to finance a military payroll. Taking advantage of a three-day liberty, Kelly assembles a motley trio of fellow soldiers to help him sneak behind enemy lines and retrieve the booty. They include Big Joe (Telly Savalas), a gruff sergeant; Crapgame (Don Rickles), a supply sergeant already enriching himself as a black marketer and con man; and the hippie-like tank commander Oddball (Donald Sutherland). Since crossing into enemy-held territory means heading in the opposite direction of the retreating Allies, Kelly and his men encounter armed resistance. Receiving word of their campaign, the vain General Colt (Carroll O'Connor) mistakes the quartet of freelancing scam artists for all-American heroes. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In 1969, The Damned (La caduta degli dei) was director Luchino Visconti's most controversial film to date. Set in the 1930s, the film zeroes in on a Krupp-like family of German munition manufacturers. The Essenbeck clan is headed by the Baron (Rene Kolldehoff), but daughter Sophie (Ingrid Thulin) wants her Nazi boyfriend to take over the business. Soon the Baron is dead and Bruckman (Dirk Bogarde) becomes company president. Son Martin (Helmut Berger) is the dope-addicted teenager who sleeps with his mother and drags her into her own dependence on drugs. Ever in pursuit of more millions to add to their already bulging coffers, the family plays along with the Nazis, descending into corruption, betrayal and murder all along the way. The film was originally released in the U.S. with an X rating. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A disgruntled British secret service officer and an aspiring author turn to crime when they are again passed over for prominent career advancements. John Pedley (Fred Astaire) is the agent who has been passed over for knighthood one too many times for his liking. He proposes a plan to university professor Mike Warden (Richard Crenna), who has been fired for taking part in a peace demonstration. With the help of Sylvia Giroux (Anne Heywood), they recruit a retired SS officer and a former Italian fascist as they attempt to hijack a fortune in gold bricks from the British crown. Pedley deals with double-crossing opportunists who covet the gold for themselves. Sir Ralph Richardson, Roddy McDowell and Cesar Romero also star in this engaging crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

This 1967 spaghetti western stars a master of that genre, Lee Van Cleef, as an aging, half-mad gunfighter. In an effort to regain his fearsome reputation, Van Cleef shoots down a local sheriff. He then finds he must deal with his young protégé Giuliano Gemma, who happened to be the sheriff's best friend. The climactic showdown finds Van Cleef facing down his former Gemma, with each man knowing the other's every move and thought. Also known as Day of Anger, this superior Italian oater was originally released as I Giorni dell'Ira. Its director was onetime Sergio-Leone-assistant Tonino Valerii. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In December of 1944, the Allied high command is convinced that German forces in Belgium are in a low state of readiness, and perhaps even about to withdraw. Only one officer on the front lines, intelligence specialist Lt. Col. Kiley (Henry Fonda), believes otherwise -- that the Germans are actually planning an attack. His opinion is rejected by his immediate superior (Dana Andrews) and his commanding general (Robert Ryan). Kiley spots several suspicious signs of German activity behind enemy lines on a reconnaissance flight, and he is at the front looking for evidence when the German counter-offensive starts. Taking advantage of Allied unpreparedness and a weather front that grounds all aircraft, their heavy tank units, supported by infantry, roll over the American forces, assaulting the lines at five different points in an attempt to ultimately divide the Allied forces in the west. The German top tank officer, Colonel Hessler (Robert Shaw), has planned his operation perfectly, but he is in a race against time, to take as much territory as possible before the weather front moves out and American aircraft can fly again, and to capture the American fuel supplies so that the offensive can continue right to the port of Antwerp. He has the total dedication of his men, but engenders doubts from his aide, Conrad (Hans-Christian Blech), who is weary of the fighting and wonders what it is all for. Meanwhile, Kiley is trying to uncover the weak spot in the German offensive, and he crosses paths with several other key players in this drama: Charles Bronson as a combat officer charged with the defense of the collapsing American position, James MacArthur as a neophyte lieutenant who becomes a leader, and Telly Savalas as a conniving sergeant in command of a tank who unexpectedly finds a nobler, less mercenary side of himself. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

The Great Escape is based on the true story of a group of Allied prisoners of war who managed to escape from an allegedly impenetrable Nazi prison camp during World War II. At the beginning of the film, the Nazis gather all their most devious and troublesome POWs and place them at a new prison camp, which was designed to be impervious to escapes. Immediately, the prisoners develop a scheme where they will leave the camp by building three separate escape tunnels. Richard Attenborough is the British soldier who masterminds the whole plan, and who commands his motley squad--featuring Charles Bronson as a Polish trench-digging expert, James Garner as an American with a talent for theft, Donald Pleasence as a masterful forger, and Steve McQueen as an American rebel--through the construction of the tunnels and, eventually, their escape. An epic adventure film, The Great Escape runs nearly three hours, featuring a rousing Elmer Bernstein score and exciting action sequences -- including a notorious motorcycle chase between McQueen and the Nazis -- the likes of which had never been seen before in Hollywood productions. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi