I've watched VRE many times over the last 40 plus years. It was shown constantly on broadcast TV when I was a teen in the 1970's New York City (Sinatra, New York favorite), and because it's a decent action war film, I usually always watched it. I just rewatched VRE today (after at least 20 years) on a cable movie channel and showed it to my wife for her first time. I once would have rated this film a 9 or maybe a 10 even, but now it ranks as a 6 for me. My wife did watch it all so it is a decent escapist film. However, we started to make fun of it because the whole premise is they are escaping the Germans to go to Switzerland to "be free". When you got to Switzerland in real life during WW2 they put you in an interment camp until the end of the war, something the film never discusses. So Ryan is getting everyone killed off to save his reputation in general since he really messes up in the beginning of the film, getting shot down and captured in the first place and sparing the Camp CO. If you remember while watching the film, nearly every one of the POW's dies.....twice. It's hysterical but at the end they have the same amount of prisoners as at the beginning. And ammunition? This has a 1940's B Western mentality, unlimited ammo in the guns. And almost all of the WHOLE German army are armed with sub machine guns. Yawn. A flamethrower would have been cool at the end no matter what side used one. And Italiano Frank Sinatra doesn't understand a single word of Italian? And he's a Colonel flying a fighter plane with no wingman and decides to crash on the land instead of out at sea? Yawning on my 20th rewatch but the wife did stay around to see the ending (and laughed when she saw it). I give it a 6 because although the story is stupid, the production values are really high with the location shooting (it's a better film then the really lame Sinatra war film None But The Brave (also from 1965) which I give a 4 of 10 and also co stars Brad Dexter, (the least memorable Magnificent Seven member)). The fighter planes at the end were also cool as they were actual German planes not Mustangs (nor actual 109's but at least they were trainers from the period (108's)), so it's better then watching Battle Of The Bulge using American cold war tanks as Tigers. Finally, run through the tunnel! Why is it shorter to run around a mountain instead of through a tunnel anyway?
Review of Von Ryan's Express
