Since his obscure 1965 debut Wild Seed, director Brian G. Hutton has made only nine films. Of that handful, the 1968 and 1970 war films Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes, both starring Clint Eastwood, are his greatest achievements. The latter is an action-packed story about a team of soldiers who infiltrate a Nazi-held castle, not unlike 1967's The Dirty Dozen. The former is one of my favourite World War II films.

Taking place in the late stages of the war, after Operation Overlord and the Allied breakout from the Normandy beachhead, Kelly's Heroes follows the escapades of a group of men, lead by Eastwood's Kelly, as they deviate slightly from the grand strategy of the war and take a detour behind enemy lines to steal a cache of gold. Filling out the fantastic cast of characters (and actors!) are Big Joe, played with comedic machismo by Telly Savalas, supply officer Crapgame, a whiney Don Rickles and, the best of the bunch, tank commander Sergeant Oddball, an era-displaced Hippie played with flair by Donald Sutherland. No doubt a reference to the Vietnam War, which was very much going on when Kelly's Heroes was released, Oddball and his troupe, who lounge about in Flower Power glory, add an interesting dimension to film. A taboo subject in Hollywood until the late '70s, when both American involvement in Vietnam, and the war, was over, the Vietnam War had a significant impact on American filmmaking. That Kelly's Heroes, released in 1971, even raised the subject is somewhat amazing. Six years later, Taxi Driver, which dealt with a Vietnam vet in Travis Bickle, was still seen as breaking taboo ground. And it took Hal Ashby's 1978 Coming Home to finally take the finger out of the dam.

Regardless, Kelly's Heroes is still very much a World War II film. And its depiction of that war adeptly balances the tragic with the comic. There are scenes of utter brutality, such as a famous minefield shootout, and ones of easygoing laughter, provided largely by Don Rickles' character.

That the film is about soldiers making the best of their situation is interesting, if taken with the knowledge that "the good war", as World War II came to sometimes be called in America, resulted in an immense surge of prosperity in the United States. Are Kelly and his men simply taking their due (even more so, since the gold was likely stolen by the Nazis), or are they unethically profiteering while others are still fighting and dying? Since all they're doing is killing Nazis and taking back Nazi-occupied cities, and are beneficial to victory, do their ethics and motives even matter? Likewise, Industrialists like Henry Ford became rich during World War II, but the machines and weapons they supplied to the United States Army and Navy greatly contributed to winning the war. I don't think the film offers a concrete opinion on the subject.

Although usually left off the lists of Greatest War Films, or even Greatest World War II Films, Kelly's Heroes is a classic. And for anyone who doubts how influential the film is, just watch the last hour of Saving Private Ryan, which features a showdown, set in a small town, between a group of American soldiers and two German Tiger tanks. Two guesses at what happens near the end of Kelly's Heroes.

Rating: 3.5 / 4.0