Synopsis
A Shattering Entertainment Experience!
Intercutting dramatic vignettes with newsreel footage, the story follows the characters from an infantry squad as they make their way from Sicily to Germany during the end of World War II.
The Victors
1963 Directed by Carl Foreman
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Alternative Title
Les vainqueurs
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War and historical adventure Politics and human rights Epic history and literature war, soldiers, combat, military or fought war, wwii, combat, military or duty nazi, war, wwii, hitler or jewish propaganda, historical, war, political or historic historical, epic, battle, historic or fought Show All…
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Carl Foreman described The Victors as his personal statement on war, a film with which he spends almost three hours failing to actually make that statement.
An absolute chore of a film that's slightly redeemed by a big cast that seems in the mood for business, it starts with a great scene as Peter Vaughan fearlessly patrols the streets as bombs go off around him, and then just doesn't match that for the whole of the rest of the running time. Foreman decides to opt for a vignette style rather than having any major central story but it just doesn't work.
It ends up being a very long procession of half-formed relationships and events that Foreman probably thinks are extremely…
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The Victors is Carl Foreman's belated vision of World War II, and a film so destitute of merit as to qualify for emergency critical pity. The victors, according to Foreman, lose as much as the vanquired. This is true to a point, although the victors seem to be losing intangible things like honor, integrity, self-respect, and other banal abstractions, while the vanquished are losing tangible things like food, clothing, shelter, and in hack movies like The Victors, privacy in bed. How bad can war be when it enables American dogfaces to crawl into the sack with such continental booty as Romy Schneider and Jeanne Moreau? Civilians should have it so good. Of course, people get killed now and then, and no one is truly happy with all the beastly fighting, but hat only goes to prove that war is heck.
—Village Voice, January 2, 1964
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World War Two as seen through the eyes of two friends and their Sergent. Peppard and Hamilton have never been better before or since. Loved the inter cut propoganda films. An impression of War and all its myriad complexities. Brilliant right you til the final scene where it shows how we ended up where we are. Now bring out the full cut ffs!
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I haven't disliked a movie this much in a long time. It's not even a movie, it's just a collection of sub-plots masquerading as an anti-war film but really feels like a combination of an 80's Teen Sex Romp and the major revelation that "war has no victors!".
The most I got from this was that war might be hell, but at least foreign women will put out while you're overseas. INSERT EYES ROLLING OUT OF MY HEAD.
I almost turned this movie off about half a dozen times but my insistence on watching everything through to the end forced me forward. Slog doesnt even begin to cover it, it felt like the movie was running in reverse just to fuck with me.
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Hollywood did Carl Foreman wrong.
I know, how can a guy that writes a couple of the best films of the 1950s, wins an Oscar, and is regarded as one of the best writers of the era, be done wrong?
Well, buckling to warped political pressures and subsequently banning, but not really, one your best talents seems to be the way to do it.
So of course, when Carl Foreman got the chance to direct an ambitious piece of material, the industry that loved and hated him at the same time didn't know how to react, and responded the way it does when something too good appears- they try to pretend it doesn't exist.
Before I continue, I'd like to… -
Long, terminally dull drama that follows a US army company through WWII Europe, meandering from one pointless vignette to another. Most of these involve unlikely encounters with hot European women like Elke Sommer, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Rosanna Schiaffino, Senta Berger (and at a bit of a stretch, Melina Mercouri); given that the male stars are Eli Wallach, George Peppard and George Hamilton you’d have to say this is drifting into the realms of Inglorious Basterds fantasy. Credit where it is due, The Victors is shot mostly on location, and there’s one particularly effective scene in the middle, but it’s too much of a mess to bother sitting through, and I wouldn’t recommend attempting it. Don’t do what I did and watch it for Elke Sommer; if I’m spoiling it by saying she appears for about 5 minutes at the very end, believe me, I’m doing you a favour.
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This movie follows a group of American soldiers through different European battlefields in World War II: Italy, France, Belgium, Germany. It is composed of several short stories that share the same theme and characters, divided by sequences of actual newsreels from the war. This creates a very strong contrast between the stories served to the movie theater audiences at home in which the soldiers were portrayed as optimistic heroes and the dark reality: brutal conditions, exhaustion, depression, futility, sexual exploitation, the black market, war profiteers...
It was made at the time when Second World War movies were still big-budget epics, with an atmosphere of heroism and optimism very similar to the wartime newsreels, and most of the action was limited…
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The Victors is Carl Foreman's and novelist Alexander Baron's probing essay on warfare that fearlessly confronts the hypocricies and indignities that are woven inextricably into the fabric of any military conflict. Set in World War II, the film, based on Baron's wartime experiences, is constructed as a series of discreet morality plays performed by an ensemble cast comprising a squad of American soldiers that travels on an odyssey through devastated France and Italy. Meeting the squad on its journey are victimized civilians whose reaction to the American liberation ranges from servile gratitude to utter disdain. One vignette in particular pairs two the 20th century's greatest actors, Jeanne Moreau and Eli Wallach in a unique fifteen minute sequence that is really…
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The Victors is Carl Foreman's and novelist Alexander Baron's probing essay on warfare that fearlessly confronts the hypocricies and indignities that are woven inextricably into the fabric of any military conflict. Set in World War II, the film, based on Baron's wartime experiences, is constructed as a series of discreet morality plays performed by an ensemble cast comprising a squad of American soldiers that travels on an odyssey through devastated France and Italy. Meeting the squad on its journey are victimized civilians whose reaction to the American liberation ranges from servile gratitude to utter disdain. One vignette in particular pairs two the 20th century's greatest actors, Jeanne Moreau and Eli Wallach in a unique fifteen minute sequence that is really…
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When the execution of a deserter is carried out to the tune of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" you know you aren't watching a Valentine to America's greatest generation. These GIs aren't fit for a recruiting poster. One is a remorseless pimp, others loot or drink themselves into a stupor on duty. Eli Wallach is believable as a Sergeant, who may or may not have served a stretch in the Joliet pen. In one good scene, he stuffs his face with chow as a French widow wistfully recites her favorite poems. There isn't much combat, and even less glory.
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Some of the episodes are interesting but some are not and they make the running time a marathon.
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