You Can't Win 'em All (1970)

You Can't Win 'em All aka: The Dubious Patriots / Soldiers of Fortune / Zwei Kerle aus Granit / Les Baroudeurs .

Directed by Peter Collinson, starring Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Michèle Mercier
Two former U.S. Army soldiers, Adam and Josh, join a band of Turkish mercenaries in 1922 Turkey whom are hired by Osman Bey, a local governor, to escort his tree daughters to Smyran and to protect a gold shipment that is to accompany them. Nobody is aware that Elci, a local colonel, plans to steal the gold for himself, while a rebel general persues all parties involved.

Aircraft sequences were flown and coordinated by Charles Boddington and Louis Benjamin. The aircraft were owned by ex-RCAF pilot Lynn Garrison who shipped several of his SE-5 replicas from Ireland to Turkey for the production. They had previously featured in The Blue Max and Darling Lili and would go on to star in Von Richthofen & Brown, Zeppelin, Waldo Pepper, and numerous TV commercials.

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The Great Escape

Put a fence in front of these men...and they'll climb it. 1963 Historical War Movie
Genres; War Movies, Adventure Movies, Historical, Dramas

Watch Movie - The Great Escape

In 1943, the Germans opened Stalag Luft North, a maximum security prisoner-of-war camp, designed to hold even the craftiest escape artists. In doing so, however, the Nazis unwittingly assembled the finest escape team in military history - Starring; Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance,James Coburn.
Based on a true story, "The Great Escape" deals with the largest Allied escape attempt from a German POW camp during the Second World War. The first part of the film focuses on the escape efforts within the camp and the process of secretly digging an escape tunnel. The second half of the film deals with the massive effort by the German Gestapo to track down the over 70 escaped prisoners who are at this point throughout the Third Reich attempting to make their way to England and various neutral countries.

War Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection  World War II in Color   The World at War (30th Anniversary Edition)


World War II Collection, Vol. 1 - Battlefront Europe (The Big Red One Two-Disc Special Edition / The Dirty Dozen / Battle of the Bulge / Battleground / Where Eagles Dare)



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Plot;
Having wasted an enormous amount of resources on recapturing escaped Allied prisoners of war (POWs), German forces move the most determined and capable escapees to a new, high-security prisoner of war camp. The commandant, Luftwaffe Colonel Von Luger, tells the Senior British Officer (SBO) Group Captain Ramsey, "There will be no escapes from this camp." The SBO replies that it is their duty to try to escape. After several failed escape attempts on the first day, the POWs settle into the prison camp.

Gestapo and SS agents bring Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (RAF) to the camp and deliver him to von Luger. Gestapo agent Kuhn suggests that Bartlett be kept under the strictest security confinement permanently, because they believe he is the leader of numerous escape attempts. As Kuhn leaves, he warns Bartlett that if he escapes again and is caught, he will be shot. Afterwards, Bartlett is put with the rest of the POWs.

Locked up with "every escape artist in Germany", and well known by them as "Big X", Bartlett recognizes the opportunity and immediately plans the greatest escape attempted—a tunnel system for exfiltrating 250 prisoners. The intent is to "confuse and harass the enemy" to the point that as many troops and resources as possible will be wasted on finding and detaining POWs, instead of being used on the front line.

Teams are organized to tunnel, make civilian clothing, forge documents, procure contraband materials, and prevent the guards from discovering their work. Flight Lieutenant Hendley, an American in the RAF, is "the scrounger" who finds ingenious ways to get what the others need, from a camera to identity cards. Australian Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick, "the manufacturer", makes many of the tools, such as picks for digging and bellows for pumping air into the tunnels. Flight Lieutenant Danny Velinski and William "Willie" Dickes are "the tunnel kings", and are in charge of making the tunnels. Forgery is handled by Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe, who becomes nearly blind from intricate work by candlelight; Hendley takes it upon himself to be Blythe's guide in the escape.

The prisoners work on three tunnels simultaneously, codenamed "Tom", "Dick", and "Harry". Work on Harry and Dick is stopped so that more work can be performed on Tom. The worst of the work noise is covered by the prisoner choir led by Flight Lieutenant Cavendish, while dirt from the tunnels is concealed by POWs who carry excavated soil in their trousers to the camp's gardens.

Meanwhile, USAAF Captain Virgil Hilts, "The Cooler King", irritates the guards with frequent escape attempts and irreverent behavior. His first attempt, conceived while in the cooler, is a short tunnel with RAF Flying Officer Archibald Ives; they are caught and returned to the cooler.

While the mostly British POWs are enjoying a 4 July celebration, organized by the three Americans in the camp, the guards discover tunnel Tom. The mood drops to agonizing disappointment, and hits Ives the hardest. He is impulsively drawn to the barbed wire fence that confines them in the camp and climbs it in desperation, in full view of the tower guards. Hilts runs to stop him but is too late, and Ives is machine-gunned dead near the top of the fence. With Tom discovered, the prisoners switch their efforts to Harry.

After the death of Ives, Hilts' escape partner, Hilts agrees to a previous request made by Bartlett, to change his escape plan and reconnoiter in the vicinity outside the POW camp and then allow himself to be recaptured. The information Hilts brings back is used by POW cartographers to create maps of the area, including the nearest town and railway station.
End of the real "Harry" tunnel (on the other side of the road) showing how it doesn't reach the cover of the trees

The last part of the tunnel is completed on the night of the escape, but is 20 feet short of woods that are to provide cover. Danny nearly snaps from claustrophobia in the tunnel and delays those behind him, but is helped by Willie. Seventy-six escape before the guards discover the escaping prisoners.

After attempts to reach neutral Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain, almost all the POWs are recaptured or killed. Hendley and Blythe steal an airplane, intending to fly over the Swiss border, but the engine fails and they crash-land. Soldiers arrive on the road a distance away. Unknowingly, the blind Blythe stands in their view and when he turns away, he is shot. Hendley comes to his friend's aid, waving his hands and shouting "don't shoot", and is captured as Blythe dies. Flt. Lt. Cavendish, having hitched a ride in a truck, is captured at a checkpoint, discovering another POW, Haynes, captured in his German soldier disguise.

Bartlett is recognized at a distance in a crowded railroad station by Gestapo agent Kuhn. Another escapee, Ashley-Pitt, sees this and sacrifices himself when he kills Kuhn with his own gun, and soldiers then shoot and kill him. In the commotion, Bartlett and MacDonald are able to slip away, but they are caught later. Lastly, Hilts steals a motorcycle, is pursued by German soldiers, jumps a barbed wire fence with the motorcycle to get away, but becomes entangled in another barbed wire fence and is captured.

Three truckloads of captured POWs go down a country road and split off in three separate directions. One of the trucks, containing Bartlett, MacDonald, Cavendish, and others, is shown to stop in a field and the POWs are told to get out and "stretch their legs". They are then shot dead with a machine gun. In total, 50 escapees are executed. Meanwhile, Hendley and nine others are returned to the POW camp. Von Luger is relieved of command and driven away by the SS to face the consequences of failing to prevent the breakout.

Only three escapees evade capture and make it to safety. Danny and Willie steal a rowboat and proceed downriver to the Baltic coast, where they board a Swedish merchant ship. Sedgewick steals a bicycle, then rides hidden in a freight train boxcar to France, where he is then guided by the Resistance to Spain.

Hilts is brought back alone to the camp, and taken to the cooler. A fellow POW gets Hilts' baseball and glove and throws it to him when Hilts and his guards pass by. The guard locks him in his cell and walks away, but momentarily pauses when he hears the familiar sound of Hilts bouncing his baseball against a cell wall. The film ends with this scene, under the caption, "This picture is dedicated to the fifty." Read More....
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Dirty Dozen

Classic Wartime movie from 1967
The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 American war film directed by Robert Aldrich, based on the novel by E. M. Nathanson and starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson and Jim Brown.

Kelly's Heroes / The Dirty Dozen (Double Feature)

Watch Movie - The Dirty Dozen

Lee Marvin portrays a tough as nails major volunteered in the Army way to command a squad of misfits on a suicide mission against Nazi brass. Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Trini Lopez, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland and Clint Walker are among the 12 jailbirds who will earn their freedom if they survive.

Plot Synopsis

In England, in the spring of 1944, Allied forces are preparing for the D-Day invasion. Among them are Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin), an OSS officer; his commander, Regular Army Major General Worden (Ernest Borgnine), and his former commander Colonel Everett Dasher Breed (Robert Ryan). Early in the film the personalities of the three men are shown to clash and the characters of the individualistic Reisman and the domineering Breed are established.

Major Reisman is assigned an unusual and top-secret pre-invasion mission: take twelve American criminals convicted of capital offenses, either serving sentences of hard labor or awaiting execution, and whip them into a unit capable of carrying out a specific task. They are asked to infiltrate a château near Rennes, in Brittany, used as a retreat for senior Wehrmacht officers, on the eve of the invasion. Without having complete intelligence as to the identity of the guests, it was felt that the elimination of officers in the German high command or senior staff could cripple or confuse the German military's ability to respond at the time of crisis. It is quickly established that both Reisman and the generals with whom he frequently clashes consider the mission to be a suicidal long shot.

The film unfolds in three major acts; the first act identifies and "recruits" the prisoners, depicts the unit in training and highlights the interpersonal conflict between the men, some of whom see the mission as a chance for redemption and others as a chance for escape.

The second act places the mission, and the characters, in jeopardy when a breach of military regulations on Reisman's part forces General Worden, at Breed's urging, to have the men - now dubbed the Dirty Dozen by Sergeant Bowren (Richard Jaeckel) because of their refusal to shave or bathe as a protest against their living conditions - prove their worth as soldiers.

 The Guns of Navarone (Special Edition)

The final act, which was a mere footnote in the novel, is a set piece action sequence detailing the attack on the chateau.

Lee Marvin as Maj. John Reisman Ernest Borgnine as Maj. Gen. Worden Charles Bronson as Joseph Wladislaw Jim Brown as Robert T. Jefferson John Cassavetes as Victor R. Franko Richard Jaeckel as Sgt. Clyde Bowren George Kennedy as Maj. Max Armbruster

Trini Lopez as Pedro Jiminez Ralph Meeker as Capt. Stuart Kinder Robert Ryan as Col. Everett Dasher Breed Telly Savalas as Archer J. Maggott Donald Sutherland as Vernon L. Pinkley Clint Walker as Samson Posey Robert Webber as Brig. Gen. Denton

Tom Busby as Milo Vladek Ben Carruthers as Glenn Gilpin Stuart Cooper as Roscoe Lever Robert Phillips as Cpl. Carl Morgan Al Mancini as Tassos R. Bravos Colin Maitland as Seth

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