Breakthrough (1979)

Beautiful, moving film.

A lot of fun.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

With old line actors Richard Burton and Robert Mitchums this movie is watchable. The best action footage is stock stuff st the very this group of actor worked a lot with Andrew W Mclaughlin - the director quite often and this movie represents nearly the end of the assembly line for these folks who liked to make movies together.At the end of the Mitchem throws away his gun. He does better in The Wind of War without this gun anyhow. A beginning. The budget at Republic Studios in 1979 shows up quite a bit. Not a real important war film and it makes ABC'a made for TV movie the Winds of War look better than this effort in comparison. Because of the stock footage it does compare favorably to the more recently made Valkyrie which is dreadful.If your a fan of these actors it is worth a look. Nothing serious.

This movie never had the direction or production costs to make it a BlockBuster therefore with only B-Movie aspirations in mind this one is a gem of a WWII movie. I mean with actors such as Robert Mitchum,Richard Burton and Rod Steiger together in a War movie with a pretty decent script with some good one liners and a touch of nudity.Come on, it was made in 1979 on a budget. Every War movie can't be Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List. Don't listen to the nay sayers on this one. If you're a WWII movie fan and like the old ones and can find it(VHS only, I think), WATCH IT. I rated it a 9 out of 10 for a B-movie!

This film is a sequel to Sam Peckinpah's CROSS OF IRON (1977) which I have not seen. The lead character, Sergeant Steiner of the Wehrmacht, is played by an aging Richard Burton who, despite only being 54 at the time, looks more like 74 because of his dissolute private life. He only had five more years to live. The story of the rebellious German sergeant who does not support the Nazis, has twice refused promotion as an officer and wishes to assist an anti-Hitler general make peace with the Allies in Normandy against the wishes of Berlin is intriguing. The fact that Burton looks so old and 'past it', and is so wooden and stiff in the role, actually makes it more believable. After all, such a man could convincingly be at the limit of what he is prepared to put up with, and might really rebel against his own side in this way. In contrast to the comatose Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, aged 62, seems twenty years younger than Burton and has all the energy and verve of a twenty-something as he big-shoulders his way through his scenes with all of his usual aplomb and confidence, as an American colonel who meets up with Burton and tries to facilitate a 'deal on the side' to break peace early. Unlike Burton, he had another 18 years to live. Curd (or Curt) Juergens is superb as General Hoffmann, who is part of the plot to kill Hitler and asks Burton to carry a secret message to a senior officer on the other side of the lines. Rod Steiger is also only 54 like Burton, but he looks, let us say 70, not quite as ravaged as Burton but still pretty ropey. He plays an American Brigadier General, but is getting too fat for it, and has lost most of his fire by this stage of his career. There is not much 'young blood' visible in this wartime tale. There are the usual nasty Nazis and gum-chewing Yanks. The result is a mediocre film which has never been issued on DVD, so that I watched an ancient video of it. It's just interesting enough not to switch it off, but not interesting enough to seek out and watch.

I posted a review on the 1950 Breakthrough movie page as I didn't see it right away on the page with movies having Breakthrough in the title. It makes sense now that this was a rather low budget European production. It's not a bad movie but not a great one either. With Mitchum and Burton, I'm surprised it was this obscure. Anyway, without rehashing a plot synopsis all over again, it centers around the impending defeat of the Nazi's around the time of D-Day. It's basically a subplot concerning an effort by some of Hitler's generals trying to bump him off and negotiate a cease-fire with advancing Allied and Soviet forces before Germany is completely defeated and occupied. Not a stirring epic by any means, but no worse than a lot of John Wayne's stuff either.