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Escape to Athena (1979)
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Overview
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Director:
Writers:
Release Date:
6 June 1979 (USA)
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Tagline:
The patriot, the professor, the comic and the stripper, were fighting for what they believed in. Getting rich!
Plot:
During the World War II, the prisoners of a German camp in a greek island are trying to escape. They don't want only their freedom...
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NewsDesk:
Film Junk Podcast Episode #233: Summer Recap and Fall Preview
(From FilmJunk. 30 August 2009, 11:19 PM, PDT)
(From FilmJunk. 30 August 2009, 11:19 PM, PDT)
User Comments:
The Reluctant Nazi
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Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Roger Moore | ... | Major Otto Hecht | |
| Telly Savalas | ... | Zeno | |
| David Niven | ... | Professor Blake | |
| Claudia Cardinale | ... | Eleana | |
| Stefanie Powers | ... | Dottie Del Mar | |
| Richard Roundtree | ... | Nat Judson | |
| Sonny Bono | ... | Bruno Rotelli | |
| Elliott Gould | ... | Charlie | |
| Anthony Valentine | ... | SS Major Volkmann | |
| Siegfried Rauch | ... | Braun | |
| Michael Sheard | ... | Sergeant Mann | |
| Richard Wren | ... | Reistoffer | |
| Philip Locke | ... | Vogel | |
| Steve Ubels | ... | Lantz | |
| Paul Picerni |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
125 min | Sweden:119 min | Argentina:120 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Color (Eastmancolor)
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Singapore:PG |
Australia:M |
Norway:16 |
Argentina:13 |
Finland:K-16 |
UK:A (original rating) |
UK:PG (video rating) (1986) |
USA:PG
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
Last feature of Paul Stassino.
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Goofs:
Anachronisms: Richard Roundtree's character wears the shoulder patch of the US 8th Army, which served only in the Pacific theater in World War II.
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Soundtrack:
Keep Tomorrow For Me
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Roger Moore is the Austrian commandant of a German POW camp located in the Grecian Isles in Escape to Athena. He's got a couple of favorites among the prisoners, an Italian cook in Sonny Bono, an archaeologist in David Niven and a black GI magician in Richard Roundtree. In addition USO entertainers Elliott Gould and Stefanie Powers are shot down in their transport plane and become Moore's prisoners.
Moore really hasn't got his heart in the commandant business. He's an antique dealer in civilian life and he relishes the assignment only because of the location where he's also involved in Adolph Hitler's looting of Greek antiquities of which there are many in that area. Niven and company aid him because if they didn't they'd be in the hands of the SS. STill they want there freedom.
Which they get when they join with resistance leader Telly Savalas and his mistress, bordello madam Claudia Cardinale. It's rumored there's a lot of hidden loot in a monastery on a nearby hill, whatever Moore hasn't taken for his own private stock for after the war. But Savalas is interested in some prototype V2 rockets located there.
Escape to Athena mixes the plot elements of The Guns of Navarone and Topkapi, but they're not stirred too well. The scenery is quite nice and I'm sure the prospect of some paid time in the Aegean Sea might have been a big inducement for all these people signing on for the movie.
As he was involved with Stefanie Powers at the time, William Holden gets a small unbilled cameo in a brief scene with Elliott Gould. As it turns out Moore's Prison Camp is also Stalag XVII. That might have been part of the package for Stefanie to go to Greece.
It was also plain dumb to make Richard Roundtree a black GI. Americans were not involved in that theater, let alone black soldiers. Now if they had made his character be part of the African colonial troops of the British Empire, it would have made more sense. Then again we couldn't have heard Roundtree call a German soldier a 'cool cat'.
The action sequences are done well enough, but the cast here just collected their paychecks and walked through the parts.