The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962)

A Masterpiece!

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This is one odd bird of a movie. It's really a time capsule of war movies that were meant to be date war movies in the 60's. In the 30's to 60's the traditional date war movie had our heroes in training meeting their love interest and then going to war, this is the way real life often goes and it works if it's done right, although it's hard to find a balance. When you have both elements you can get a decent summer time date war movie that keeps both sexes interests involved. In the 60's these type of films were still made and still are to this day I suppose, but the 60's tried to tweak the date war movie by adding comedy along with the love interest and war combat. This one has little war drama, little love interest (mostly light hearted) and sad to say, little comedy (that works well), it was made for its target audience of the day, mid aged WW2 vets and their wives, and it was probably very well received. I will say that I did chuckle a couple of times so it's not a total loss and everyone seems to act well and it was regarded well in it's time to receive some notice from the Academy, these points and with Charlton Heston makes it worth watching for war movie buffs. We've seen just about everything else. You can catch it on TCM (USA) when they do their 31 days of Oscar run as they did Feb 2009. 5 of 10.

I saw this film at a local theater in the '60s. I loved it. War movies are among my favorites but this one is special. The story of American spies doing recon in Rome is plausible. Capt. Heston, a no no-nonsense combat leader was chosen over the division intelligence officers. A very well made and entertaining movie resulted. The script, the actors and the Roman setting is perfect. As mentioned in other comments, the cast seems to enjoy making this movie. The Chinese will probably come up with a DVD. I have a very good recording I took off of TV. We love to watch it after seeing a list of serious shoot-em up war movies. It's very hard to find so I treasure my copy.

I also consider this a sleeper. Found it humorous, well played and well written. Heston as serious soldier on off beat mission. Ilsa Martinelli (far from plains of Africa) as love interest, but not so lovely as big chested actress who plays her sister. Harry Guardino in yet another GI role. Barry Fitzgerald even more typecast as Irish priest. Good character actors for kid and bumptious dad. Great bit by Randolph Anders as Werhmacht Oberst. Worth looking for. Couldn't help comparing this "war" movie with Band of Brothers.

Imagine Heston in role with elaborate costuming and playing second fiddle to one of the greatest upstagers of all time! The amazing thing is old Charlton even looks like he's having a good time. So, who's the guy continually pushing Moses Ben Hur out every scene they share? None other than the great basso from the Met, Salvatore Baccaloni. Now, you should know that Sal had a bad rep at the Met for being a bit of a joker and hard to work with, but the crew loved him. In this film, where Heston and Harry Guardino in his pre-TV days play two GIs in WW2 spying on the Germans, they have to inform the allies as to the morale and preparedness of the Germans. So, how are these two intrepids getting the word back to the Allies? Homing pigeons. No sweat...but, a problemo. The pigeons get eaten by Baccaloni's family for a festa and Sal, not wanting to get into trouble steals some pigeons from...the Germans to replace the ones his family ate. So, when the Germans start reading the messages, they suspect that ... well, it goes on from there. This film is an enjoyable comedy and gave Heston a relief from all those costume roles. Sadly, it was Baccaloni's last film, although he died 7 years later. No video, no DVD. Watch for it on the late show.