Italiano brava gente

Saw this movie only once, in the late 60's. I still remember it quite clearly. A close-up, unflinching look at the horror and futility of war. The endless, bleak Russian steppes, the shattered cities, the ice-bound winter landscapes, all combine to show how hopeless the German invasion was.

The winter retreat is one of the most frightening and depressing scenes in the movie, but it is just one of several. The film follows several characters through the war in interwoven threads, and each one is memorable.

I am eager to see this on video.

An excellent movie especially if your interest is depicting the horrors of war. No war is ever easy or fun-producing, especially when you consider that the vast number of killed-in-action are from age 18 through age 23. Permanently maimed are in excess of 8 times the number of dead. This movie "Attack and Retreat" seems to depict the German soldiers more monsters than fighting men, and the Russians as gentle and kind - hardly a good description of either. Because of its excellent acting and moving scenes, I rated this movie an 8. It is true that the Italian soldier has been regarded generally as humane. It may be because Italian soldiers have strong family and Catholic values. Also, war is not Italy's strong point or sphere of interest. Too bad that no inference was made as to the many millions of Stalin's own people who were starved to death or killed in his murderous rampages. Of all the war pictures I have ever seen - this movie stands out as one of the most engrossing.

I remember seeing this movie (Attack and Retreat) as a kid back in the seventies. There are many, many images which have stuck in my mind from this film: The young soldier and girl in the vast sunflower field, the lone Russian tank mowing down Italian troops in a Russian town, Soviet cavalry charging over the snow fields, "Stalin's Organs" rocket launchers filling the skies with fire, a good-natured chase to get to a dead snow rabbit in no-man's land, all this after 30 years!

I recently bought the video of this film, and forgot how good it really is. The best thing about it is the subject matter. One-it is a war film Two-it lacks a sappy romance angle Three-it deals with the Russian Front and Four-it deals with the Italian Army on that front.

Strikes against it (only from a modern film viewers point of view, not mine) One-it was done in Italian, then over-dubbed in English Two-it is, after all, a war film without sappy romance and Three-it is in black and white.

The feeling of loneliness, fear, panic, and desolation come out well in this movie. I can easily imagine the story of these men on the Russian front as having been real...it was as if the director himself had been there (not sure if he was). No character is expendable in this film (as it should be in a war film), so the fear of danger for each character is always there (much like Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front). The viewer is made to feel close to these men, because they are shown as being good, decent men caught in a huge man-destroying machine called the Eastern Front. The director shows much disdain for the German allies, portrays the Spanish allies as being rather silly running around with their banner even when the Earth was crashing down around them, and shows much respect for the Soviet soldiers, almost admiration. Pro-communist sympathy from a 1960's Italian director should be far from surprising. Even the characters liked the Internationale. One soldier liked to play it on his harmonica, and near the end two of them are whistling it. The Black Shirt "elite troops" were shown as thieves, cowards, and rapists. The average Italian soldiers were portrayed as victims along with the Russians.

One interesting thing about the film was the appearance of Peter Falk as an Italian Army surgeon/playboy, about ten years before he became better known as the TV character Columbo.

So many remakes get produced these days, and so many of those turn out to be HORRIBLE decisions. Here is a screenplay that, with just a wee bit of work and a reasonable budget, could be made into one fine film. As it stands, this is an uneven picture with many moments of sheer brilliance. The saber-charging Cossacks are a terrifying lot. The scream of the rockets over the horizon, even with the deficient mono soundtrack, is truly hair-raising, especially considering the limited technology and budget that must have been available in that time and place. Other reviewers have objected to the heroic status conveyed to the Russians, both combatant and non-. Well, some of them WERE heroes, and but for their heroics there would have been a lot more Nazis for US to fight! I'm sorry if that upsets those laboring under neo-con delusions out there, but too bad for you.

And there was certainly no shortage of heroes, and victims, among the ranks of the Italians. If you ever visit Italy, tour some of the little villages in the countryside. In the town square you'll often find an ornate statue dedicated to their World War I dead, usually five or six names, or maybe a few more, depending on the size of the town. Somewhere near you'll typically find a simple block of granite bearing the names of their sons who never came back from North Africa, Greece, and the Eastern Front in the next war, names that may number in the dozens or even hundreds. Just as the story of Corelli's Mandolin deserves to be told correctly, so does this one.

I saw this many, many years ago under the title "Attack and Retreat". It is about the Italian participation in World War II on the Eastern Front - where Mussolini sent soldiers to die for his own grandiose vision of himself as an equal partner in German conquest.

I'm not able to recall many details, but there are a number of remarkable scenes that stand out in my memory. One was of a young soldier and a Russian girl in a field of high wheat. Quiet bullets whisper through the windblown stalks in deadly counterpoint to the young love of the boy and girl. In another scene Peter Falk, looking very small and lonely in a bleak and forbidding landscape of snow and ice, struggles to get to the rear while artillery rockets streak through the sky behind him. In still another scene, an Italian guard plays the Internationale on his harmonica to show some human solidarity to a group of Russian civilian prisoners. A mocking German guard demands that the prisoners sing, and a singer stands up to sing.

Shot in very striking black and white, it was an effective antiwar and anti-fascist film with powerful visuals and a strong message of humanity.

I liked it very much and wish it were shown more often.