Night of the Generals in The Psycho Ward Forum

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Night of the Generals

Author	Comment
Grant	Night of the Generals	Lead	[-]
May 19 12 7:50 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	What are some opinions about this film? It might nor be perfect, but I've always been very attached to it. One of my favorite things, though it's a halfway "superficial" thing compared to the rest, is that it's one of those RELATIVELY rare films that do without the accents (except the French ones). So you have Nigel Stock's Cockney-sounding German, the radio announcer who sounds almost like Gary Owens, and of course Charles Gray's German aristocrat who sounds just like an English one (and those are just the obvious ones).
Heathenson		#1	[-]
May 19 12 9:00 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've always liked it. Picked up a DVD a few years back.
Monsterpal		#2	[-]
May 19 12 6:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Is there a fantasy element to it?
Grant		#3	[-]
May 20 12 8:13 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Not really, but it gets very strange along the way.
steviebaby		#4	[-]
May 21 12 5:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This is a great, overlooked movie which flits back and forth between the mid 1940s and the 1960s. A prostitute is murdered in occupied Warsaw toward the end of WW II and the evidence points to the killer being one of three high-ranking German generals. Omar Sharif plays the investigating officer who risks his career (and his life) to bring the killer to justice - which climaxes in the mid 1960s. Great performances by Sharif and a cast of mainly British actors including Peter O'Toole, Tom Courtenay, Donald Pleasance, Charles Gray, and Joanna Pettet. Atmospheric score by Maurice Jarre and competent direction by Anatole Litvac. Check it out...because they've forgotten how to make good movies like this!
Monsterpal		#5	[-]
May 22 12 2:17 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks, Stevie. Your comments make me want to see it.
James Pagan		#6	[-]
May 22 12 4:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This film is certainly worth watching. Gore Vidal's screenplay contributions are, alas, uncredited. Hans Hellmut Kirst's 1963 source novel is darkly comic and is also highly recommended.
Monsterpal		#7	[-]
May 22 12 7:33 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'll put in on my Netflix list if they have it.
Grant		#8	[-]
May 22 12 10:06 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Donald Pleasence in particular gets a whole string of "acid-tongued" lines, partly because he's the obvious anti-Nazi German general, but partly in other ways. When Omar Sharif's detective character goes on a little about the murder, Pleasence's sarcastic line is "A charming story." I often have the urge to say that when someone hits me with some depressing or gruesome story, at least when they seem to do it FOR THE PURE SAKE OF IT. The thing is, no one can say it quite the way he could, so I chicken out.
steviebaby		#9	[-]
May 23 12 3:16 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, last night I dusted off my old DVD copy of this mid-60s classic and viewed it again. I have to say that (because it was already a period piece when it was made) it hasn't aged at all. It's lengthy (almost 2.5 hours) but it doesn't drag. I'd say that after about 40 minutes or so, we have a pretty good idea which of the 3 Nazi generals is the killer - but it doesn't hurt the story at all. For those of us who loved Columbo we recall that the culprit, victim, and method were clearly revealed to us right at the start; Columbo was never a who-dunnit it was a how's-he-gonna-catch-him. The title, of course, has a dual meaning. Apart from the night of the murder where the 3 generals are suspects, the story is set against the events leading up to the plot to kill Hitler by a group of his top generals in Rastenburg (now Ketrzyn, Poland) on July 20, 1944. This was codenamed "Valkyrie", as in Tom Cruise's recent movie of the same name. There is so much to recommend about this movie. For me, the main acting honours are shared between Peter O'Toole and Tom Courtenay, but fellow suspects Donald Pleasance & Charles Gray (who both played Bond supervillan Ernst Stavro Blofeld) are highly watchable too. Omar Sharif gives a good account of himself as Inspector Grau who investigates the murder(s) and it's clear that he relishes the obvious dangers of having to bring a high-ranking, superior officer to justice.
Grant		#10	[-]
May 23 12 4:52 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm glad someone made a Columbo connection, because I've always seen such a thing. Grau is a kind of Columbo, except that he's one who becomes more and more reckless about his own safety. And there's a great scene where he goes to see Pleasence (who later played a Columbo murderer himself) on the day the assassination's supposed to happen, and ask him questions on a day when he can think of nothing else BUT the plot. "You and your damned murders!"
Rick		#11	[-]
May 23 12 7:11 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, shoot. I guess I have to watch this thing again. From its initial release I really wanted to see it because the idea of it seemed so compelling -- the notion of what was basically a community of psychos (the Nazis) searching for a particular psycho in their midst. It seemed like a can't miss idea, especially with what looked like a first-rate cast. I didn't catch up with it till sometime in the '80s, and I was enormously disappointed. I don't remember particulars except that I found the whole thing notably uninteresting and even a bit of a bore. But, with all these positive comments, maybe I need to give it another shot. Maybe I was hoping for too much.
Monsterpal		#12	[-]
Jun 11 12 8:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I watched a Netflix copy of this last night. It's an excellent film, and a unique blend of WW2 drama and murder mystery. It's a big production and the location shooting is impressive, particularly the scenes of the Nazis subduing resistance fighters in Warsaw. Peter O'Toole is great (his scenes in an art museum are chilling), and the supporting cast is top-notch, including a lot of familiar British characer actors and the great Philippe Noiret as a rather charming French detective. Where else can you see Donald Pleasence and Charles Grey together? I thought Omar Sharif would be miscast as a German officer, but he pulls it off. You guys were right. This is an unsung gem.
telegonus	Night Of The Generals	#13	[-]
Jul 5 12 3:26 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I agree that Night Of the Generals is a fine film, well acted, written and directed. It seemed tio have slipped by unnoticed when it was first released, was aired on television not too long after. There are a fair number of good to excellent films from that period (1964-67) like that. It was a transitional time, and some very good movies were, unfortunately, hard sells in the years of their release. I think of Sidney Lumet's The Hill, even with Sean Connery in the cast. Mirage is another like that, though noiristas like it. Fate Is the Hunter is also good, not great, and features a prominent cast, is near forgotten these days. Some of have been "rediscovered" (36 Hours), others (Return From the Ashes) remain obscure. Night Of the Generals, bigger budgeted than most, even with its international-David Lean-ish cast, has managed to fall of the radar screen. It needs to be shown. What maybe hurt it when it came out was that it might have come off as overproduced, which in a sense it is. It's a big film, covers a lot of ground, has different time frames, and yet it's not a spectacle. Big as it is it's basically the kind of story usually filmed on a smaller budget with good actors rather than big stars, which isn't to say that the actiors in the film aren't good,--they're excellent--but with its cast I can imagine that many moviegoers were expecting a sweeping, in the grand manner epic Lawrence Of Arabia-Dr. Zhivago kind of film, which Night Of the Generals isn't. Last Edited By: telegonus Jul 5 12 3:29 AM. Edited 2 times.
ryanbrennan		#14	[-]
Jul 11 12 11:14 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	People had reason to expect a spectacle since it was a Sam Spiegel production with his LAWRENCE OF ARABIA stars Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif as well as that film's composer Maurice Jarre. The book was quite good.
Monsterpal		#15	[-]
Jul 12 12 5:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, the novel won an Edgar.

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