American troops land unopposed on Italian beaches during World War II, but instead of pushing on to Rome, they dig in and the Germans fight back ferociously.
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Reviews
Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
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.
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
When Winston Churchill was asked to appraise the Anzio operation he said that instead of hurling a wildcat on the beach and flanking the Germans the 36,000 allied troops at Anzio were nothing more than a stranded whale.Of course the whole Anzio landing was Churchill's own idea, but to give him some credit it was an attempt to try and break the logjam of the Italian offensive. The Allies had landed back in 1943 at Salerno and Churchill's 'soft underbelly of Europe' proved to be armor plated. Progress was measured in yards. It wasn't like the trench warfare of the first World War, but it was enormous American, British, Canadian and other assorted allies casualties.Anzio Beach was selected for a landing up the Italian coast near Rome to both outflank the Germans and maybe take Rome. It worked, but the American commander John P. Lucas moved too cautiously having remembered the 21 Day pitched battle at Salerno in those first landings in Italy. Field Marshal Kesselring was able to bring down reinforcements from the north and contain the Allies on that beach. There in fact they stayed until they linked up with the main offensive months later, just before the American Fifth Army liberated Rome officially on June 5, 1944.The story of the military failure of Anzio is told with fictional names as Robert Ryan, Arthur Kennedy, and Arthur Franz play Mark Clark, John Lucas, and Lucian Truscott respectively. Truscott is the guy who relieved Lucas and kept the Allies from being driven off the beach, although to be fair to Lucas his priority was a secure beachhead and he certainly succeeded.The other story of the film Anzio is that of Ernie Pyle like war correspondent Robert Mitchum who drives all the way to an unguarded Rome and then gets caught with a bunch of American GIs and one Canadian in trying to get back to Anzio beach.Earl Holliman, Reni Santoni, and Peter Falk play some of the soldiers with Mitchum and they do well. This is definitely not a war for glory for them, they're just trying to survive out there. Falk particularly is riveting in playing an American who was wounded and invalided out of the American army from the Pacific Theater who then moved to Canada to join their army. Why you would ask, because he's grown to like it and has a real jones for combat.Anzio unfortunately doesn't concentrate on either story long enough to tell it in the best possible way. It had potential to be a great film, but falls short. In addition Jack Jones's singing of the theme song is jarringly out of place. What I would like is someday for someone to tell the story of the original landings in Italy at Salerno, Messina, and Brindisi. That would make a great motion picture if done right. When you watch Anzio you are sad for the colossal waste of human life it was, especially since the objective wasn't obtained. And a great story needs better telling.
I am not a fan of "war" movies, but I found this one to be surprisingly good. Great tension and Robert Mitchum NOT in a "leader" role made the movie for me. He was low key, un macho, showed the emotion in his face and wonderfully under acted. Earl Holliman and Peter Falk displayed typical "60's" acting chops, and of course you could tell who was going to die by the lack of dialogue and/or sympathetic scenes. The tension though is what holds one to the movie. The interplay between the "are they going to make it or not" gets you until the end. I am sure there are other war movies out there with memorable plots and directing, but this is a solid effort. Marvelous!
a very accurate film . Rome was an open city . if it were not for the stupidity of the American high command , a lot of lives would have been saved .don't pay attention to the previous idiots' comments about this movie . it is very good .robert Mitchum and peter Falk are above average as is the script . by the way...Americans committed plenty of atrocities in world war two ;i have three words for that -- Dresden ; Hiroshima ; and Nagasaki.one of the points this movie makes is that there are no real winners in a war . as Plato said , " only the dead have seen the end of war . give this movie a shot ;it is better than the mindless jingo-ism of a john Wayne or [ god , help us ! ] a Ronald Regan film . ciao !
Dull at times, but it get's the job done. Over acting done on Peter Falk's part.I had the opportunity to watch this film on Digital Cable this morning. I took the chance as it was a war film I had not gotten to see yet. It has some decent action, but was rather dull at times. I may be mistaken, but it also appeared that during the ambush scene, the German's were using Bren light machine guns (wth). Perhaps I am wrong, but it I don't believe the MG-42 or 34 or had top loaded clips.Still worth a watch if you got time to kill though. Just don't expect a masterpiece.