THE VICTORS Movie Review

1963 Carl Foreman

Producer-writer-director Carl Foreman's serious examination of the war in Europe is too serious for its own good. Far too serious. As often as not, when he makes a valid, original point about the absurdity of it all, he hammers it home so heavily that he condescends to the audience. Moviegoers do not like sermons. They hate long boring sermons.

A lengthy throat-clearing introduction establishes an unfortunately pokey pace. In England, two American soldiers, Chase (George Peppard) and Trower (George Hamilton), stand guard at an army depot during a bomb raid. The scene finally shifts to Italy, where one of their comrades, Baker (Vince Edwards), falls for a local girl, Maria (Rosanna Schiaffino), and tries to teach her a lesson in tolerance. That beginning sets the tone and theme for the rest of the episodic story. Virtually all of the naive American solders attempt to show the jaded Europeans the error of their ways and they learn that the Europeans do not want to change.

Sgt. Craig (Eli Wallach) spends the night in a bombed-out house with a frightened French woman (Jeanne Moreau). Trower falls for Regine (Romy Schneider), a violinist he meets in an Italian club. Chase falls into a sweet arrangement with Magda (Melina Mercouri), a wealthy black marketeer who tempts him to desert. Weaver (an impossibly young Peter Fonda) falls for a puppy. Finally, Trower falls for Helga (Elke Sommer), a German girl who fears the Russians.

Those are the longest stories but they're not the most interesting or important. One brief incident exposes the violent side of American racism. Another moment touches briefly and without comment on the horrors of the concentration camps. Neither scene is mentioned again after it's over, while the Americans’ romantic illusions resonate throughout the film. Two set pieces stand out from the rest of the action. The first involves a group of Germans trying to surrender to a French patrol. It's intense, short, and beautifully photographed. The second scene is an extended execution staged on a snow-covered field to the accompaniment of Sinatra's “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” But the dramatic staging and the ironic use of the music are ruined by a ham-fisted change in music at the end.

Foreman's focus is on the day-to-day realities of the war away from the battlefront, and his high-minded intentions are admirable. In many ways this can be seen as a transitional attempt to reach a level of realism and social seriousness that would never have been possible under the studio system of the 1940s and ‘50s. But that's not enough to overcome a fatal flaw. The Victors is still a long, dull, sanctimonious movie.

Cast: George Peppard (Cpl. Chase), George Hamilton (Cpl. Trower), Eli Wallach (Sgt. Craig), Vince Edwards (Baker), Jim Mitchum (Grogan), Peter Fonda (Weaver), Romy Schneider (Regine), Rosanna Schiaffino (Maria), Jeanne Moreau (French woman), Albert Finney (Russian soldier), Elke Sommer (Helga), Michael Callan (Eldridge), Mervyn Johns (Dennis), Melina Mercouri (Magda), Vanda Godsell (Nurse), Patrick Jordan (Tank Sergeant), Alf Kjellin (Priest), Albert Lieven (Herr Metzger), Peter Vaughan (Policeman), Senta Berger (Trudi), James Chase (Condemned soldier), Maurice Ronet (French Lt. Cohn); Written by: Carl Foreman; Cinematography by: Christopher Challis; Music by: Sol Kaplan. Producer: Carl Foreman. Running Time: 156 minutes.