Before becoming real life battlefield in 1991, Yugoslavia used to be popular shooting location for foreign films dealing with Second World War. It had mostly to do with large quantity of American, Soviet or German tanks and other equipment being in arsenal of Yugoslav People’s Army, which helped film makers to reconstruct various battlefields. The most memorable film to benefit from that was *Cross of Iron*, 1977 Anglo-West German co-production directed by Sam Peckinpah.
The film is based on *The Willing Flesh*, novel by German writer Willi Heinrich partly inspired by his own experiences as the Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern Front. The protagonist, played by James Coburn, is Corporal Rolf Steiner, is a veteran soldier decorated with Iron Cross. In 1943, when the plot begins, fortunes of war have turned against Germany and Wehrmacht, which once penetrated into Caucasus, is forced to defend shrinking bridgehead at Taman peninsula against relentless attacks by Red Army. Steiner commands small band of soldiers and is now motivated only with desire to keep himself and his comrades alive, even if this means going against rules, regulations and his superiors’ orders. Lt. Colonel Brandt (played by James Mason), his regiment’s commander, knows that the war is about to be lost, so he shares Steiner’s sentiment, tolerates his insubordination and even promotes him to Sergeant. It’s quite different story with Captain Stransky (played by Maximilian Schell), newly arrived battalion commander, a Prussian aristocrat who volunteered for transfer from peaceful occupied France to Eastern Front with a sole desire to follow family tradition and get Iron Cross. Stransky is, however, incompetent and lacks courage to get into combat himself so he expects his subordinates to help him at the expense of their lives, which would inevitably lead to conflict with Steiner.
Peckinpah in *[The Wild Bunch](https://peakd.com/aaa/@drax/retro-film-review-the-wild-bunch-1969)*, his revisionist western masterpiece, revolutionised the way violence is depicted on the big screen and this approach seems quite fitting for the most violent event in the history of the world. Again we can see slow motion, bodies with exploding squibs, blood and agony, but this time it is on much larger level, with hundreds of victims and with more varied ways of killing – from stabbing and being bludgeoned to death to be torn to pieces by artillery shells or bombs dropping from sky. Those images are quite unpleasant, and even less pleasant because the violence includes women and children. This includes the character of Soviet boy soldier (played by Serbian actor Slavko Štimac) whom Steiner unsuccessfully tries to keep alive and the group of Soviet female soldiers whom Steiner and his men, some of them sex-starved, capture in the most disturbing scene of the film. Even in quieter scenes violence is always in the background, through sounds of distant artillery which sometimes shake the bunkers and improvised shelters where Steiner and his superiors discuss what they would do.
Yet, despite all that mayhem, there are characters the audience would not only notice, but in some ways, care about. That includes small band of Steiner’s men, being played by relatively unknown German actors but each of them display individuality and they play roles in a way that leave viewers with little doubt that those characters have strong bond and care about each other. James Coburn, one of the greatest stars of his time and also known for co-operating with Peckinpah in *Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid*, plays his character as combination of no-nonsense military professional devoid of any patriotic illusions, but who remains deeply loyal to his men as well as the last remaining traces of humanity within him. Coburn’s wide acting range is further displayed in the scenes depicting his recovery in military hospital following concussion, when the shell-shock manifests itself in his utter confusion, helped by Peckinpah’s skilful direction and editing that make quick cuts between his past and present, hallucination and reality. Maximilian Schell is very good in the role of Steiner’s adversary, who is patethic and useless when it comes to combat, but whose upper class connections and manipulative skills make him dangerous in Wehrmacht’s version of office politics. This is most evident in the scene during which Stransky blackmails his homosexual aide Lt. Triebig (played by Roger Fritz) into taking part in his scheme that would ultimately become murderous for Steiner’s men. Although they don’t have much to do compared with Coburn and Schell, venerable British actors Mason and David Warner (who plays Brandt’s cynical aide Captain Kiesel) are well-used here and given a brief but memorable scene in which they discuss what they would do in Germany after the inevitable defeat.
*Cross of Iron*, despite presenting huge variety of talent and benefiting from large amounts of creative energy, is not perfect. Some of the combat scenes are too repetitive and at times confusing. Anti-war message of the film is at times too explicit, especially in the end titles which tries to connect images of Second World War with the images of later conflicts in Indochina, Middle East and Africa. Film suffered a lot because of Peckinpah’s legendary abuse of alcohol and tendency to go over the budget, which at the end left its producer Wolf C. Hartwig nearly broke and forced Peckinpah to improvise the quick and much cheaper ending than the one originally envisioned in the script. Because of that the ending is unconventional and the main conflict remains unresolved, but *Cross of Iron* actually benefits from that, because such finale matches generally chaotic atmosphere of the film. Despite those flaws and hostility from US critics, *Cross of Iron* was commercial success on international markets and is now recognised as one of the classics of war film. This led to 1979 sequel titled *Breakthrough* in which Steiner’s role was taken by uninspired Richard Burton. We should hope that the historic event that had spawned *Cross of Iron* won’t get sequel of its own.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
https://youtu.be/AonZdAfEQgA
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