Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Fulke
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Allissa
.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
SimonJack
Other reviewers have commented about this being a takeoff from "The Dirty Dozen" of 1967. Hollywood has copied, borrowed or hijacked themes and plots that have worked well ever since it's beginning. The movie- going public doesn't mind at all – if the new films are good. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't. So, it's not a surprise that the makers of this 1978 Italian film, "The Inglorious Bastards," would try to copy the highly successful and entertaining earlier film. But many things were missing from this attempt, and other things were added that took away from the film. It lacks an all-star cast, and the cast it has is low on talent. The technical and other aspects of the film suffer from lack of talent as well. The script is weak and choppy in places; the direction is sloppy; and the film editing is weak. The camera work is good, but the special effects, props and sets in places are almost laughable and tend to reduce the otherwise good camera work. Other reviewers have noted the poor effects – when grenades goes off and bodies fly through the air, etc. All of the GIs have submachine guns (Tommy guns or grease guns) that appear to be fed by box magazines. They would hold about 30-rounds and the guns could fire 450 rounds per minute. We see the "heroes" mowing down the mostly inept German soldiers for most of the film, without ever changing magazines. Of course most of the Germans are stuck with plain old rifles and are terrible shots until the end of the film. Two scenes were particularly unbelievable and diminished in my eyes any interest on the part of the makers of "The Inglorious Bastards" to show a semblance of realistic combat action. The first was early in the film, when a German plane strafes the American forces on the ground. The MPs don't allow the prisoners to get out of the deuce and a half (truck). Everyone knows you abandon vehicles in a strafing because the planes try to blow up the vehicles. In real life, the prisoners would have been ordered to hit the ground. But this film takes it a step further and the MPs shoot and kill several of the prisoners who try to jump out of the truck to safety. That was totally unbelievable and unreal, and set the stage for the rest of the phoniness of this film. The second was the escapee group being able to kill all of the specially trained Americans who were in German uniforms, without the commandos being able to take down any of the renegade group. Most of the battle scenes appear stagy. At times they reminded me of a video war game. The stereotyping of characters like these in outfits had pretty much ended in the war films produced after 1960; but the producers of this film brought the practice back. Except for Bo Svenson's Lt. Yeager and Fred Williamson's Pvt. Canfield, the characters were mostly crude. I can imagine that someone with no combat experience or knowledge of the military and its equipment, and who others can suspend any thoughts about reality, or who just likes fantasy actioners might enjoy this film somewhat for its action. But most, I think, would find this a disappointment. There are many better ways to waste one's time.
Mark Honhorst
Forget about the Tarantino piece of $%!@ that came out recently, this is the original Inlglorious Bastards, and it's way better! It has almost nothing to do with the Tarantino garbage, which is one of the things that makes it good. Instead of having long, boring conversations, we get scenes that every guy like me loves: Violence, shoot-outs and gore galore! This is an action movie, and is therefore entertaining, unlike, you guessed it, the Tarantino movie with the same name! Plus this one's only 99 minutes long, unlike Tarantino's never ending turkey, and every minute is filled with action, one liners, and fun! There's not much more I feel I have to say. Inglorious Bastards 1978=Win! Inglorious Basterds 2009=Fail! I highly recommend this movie to anyone looking for a breakneck paced action movie. I highly recommend Tarantino's "film" of the same name to anyone who wants to be put to sleep.
edwardrevans
I viewed this film as i'm a great fan of the 2009 Quinten T version so I thought i would check of this as a reference. The two films are two different pieces of work except for one thing which is they are beautifully shot. This version really can't make up its mind what it wants to be as the plot somewhat changes as it goes along and is quiet boring in parts as there are sub plots and an abrupt clumsy ending however as a B movie its one of the better ones you could see. The acting is fine its just the script that lets it down. The Dirty Dozen has a start middle and end so does Inglourious 2009, still worth watching once.
zardoz-13
The prolific Italian helmer Enzo G. Castellari of "Any Gun Can Play "and "Payment in Blood" not only made terrific Spaghetti westerns, but he also made one of the best European B-movie World War II thrillers. This half-dozen "Dirty Dozen" actioneer consists of court-martialed American soldiers and a reckless Air Force fighter pilot. In 1944, they manage to escape from an armed escort of MPs after an enemy aircraft spots them. A German fighter attacks the convoy, and the MP guards actually shoot the prisoners as they jump out of the trucks for cover. Strapping tall blond Bo Svenson is cast as Lieutenant Robert Yeager; he was a pilot who used his P-51 Mustang to visit his girlfriend one time too many. As Private Fred Canfield, Fred Williamson endures racial slurs and prejudice from both sides. Williamson smokes his usual cigar and wears his handle-bar mustache. Once these fellows are free of the MPs, our anti-heroes head for neutral Switzerland. Along the way, they pick up a German deserter who agrees to lead them to Switzerland. Later, he dies tragically when he links up with a group of commandos and then is shot in the back by them. The deserters kill the commandos as revenge for their killing the German. Later, our heroes discover that they have killed Americans masquerading as Germans. Naturally, when the French Resistance come upon them, the Resistance believes that the deserters are in fact the commandos that they gunned down for killing the German. Consequently, they find themselves replacing those commandos to help a stubborn, hidebound colonel (Ian Bannen of "The Hill") accomplish his mission. Along the way, they allow the Nazis to capture some of their number so they can storm a stronghold and acquire motorized transportation. The Colonel and his commandos had trained to steal the gyroscope from the guidance system of a prototype of the new V-2 rocket warhead being transported on a Nazi train. Grudgingly, the Colonel uses them in place of his men. Our heroes are sympathetic and charismatic. "Eagles Over London" composer Francesco De Masi provides an atmospheric musical score, and Castellari orchestrates several machine gun clashes. He does an exceptional job with the firefight at the train, particularly with the use of slow-motion. The last battle displays energy with to spare with Nazis whirling as bullets riddle their bodies. At one point, they blow up a bridge, and one of the deserters makes a desperate "Great Escape" bid on motorcycle to pass along information to his comrades. There are couple of surprises and the guy who survives is not the one that you think will live. The matte work is reasonably well done in the long shots for this low-budget war epic. Five men wrote the screenplay. The train crash in the final quarter-hour is obviously a miniature exploding but looks pretty cool. "Inglorious Bastards" is diverting fun. Unfortunately, Quentin Tarantino's remake is nowhere as entertaining as Castellari's straightforward version. The graphics on the opening and the end credits was done by the same man who did similar graphics on Sergio Leone's "Fistful of Dollars."
