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ridiculous rating

not as good as all the hype

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

"Three Giants of the Roman Empire" director Bitto Albertini co-wrote the World War II actioneer "The War Devils" with Valentín Fernández Tubau and Renato Infascelli, but the film is not only routine but also it lacks any fireworks. The best thing about this movie are the actual Sherman tanks that appear in a couple of desert combat scenes (and reportedly this footage was lifted from the 1969 epic "The Battle of El Alamein"), not the gazillions of tanks that pilot from the German spotter plane witnesses on the desert beneath him. Clearly, those columns of tanks all moving at the same speed without boiling up clouds of dust are above-average models. Actor John Ireland has a cameo as a grim American General who listens to a subordinate officer outline the mission that occupies the first two-thirds of the film."The War Devils" combines a mission to blow up enormous Nazi artillery like in "Tobruk" with a "Dirty Dozen" raid on a villa. Albertini draws out the first two-thirds of the film as our respective heroes, U.S. Army Captain George Vincent (Guy Madison of "Bullwhip") and German Captain Heinrich Meinike (Venantino Venantini of "Terror Express"), collide with each other during a pitched battle in the desert after Vincent and his American Rangers have blown a huge gun emplacement to smithereens. While the battle rages, the Germans seek refuge in a cave. Similarly, not long afterward, Vincent decides to hole his men up in the same cave, and the two men confront each other. Initially, it appears that Vincent has the edge. Suddenly, Meinike's men surprise Vincent's troops, and the Germans hold them at gunpoint because Meinkie decides to release them on the condition that he never wants to see them again.The second third of "The War Devils" finds both officers in France. Major Vincent is dispatched on a mission to rescue a very important British aviator, Colonel James Steele (Anthony Steel of "Massacre in Rome"), right from under the nose of none other than Major Meinike! This part of "The War Devils" almost turns this routine war-time thriller into a good movie. The body count escalates as Vincent, working with the French Resistance, infiltrates German Headquarters, and blasts his way through scores of machine-gun toting Germans. Albertini stages this firefight with more finesse, and both sides are pirouetting as either side stitches the other with fusillades of lead. Inevitably, Meinike gets the drop on Vincent and has him at a disadvantage. The triumphant German needs only to squeeze the trigger and Vincent is kaput. You'll have to watch it to figure out what happens, but one of them bites the dust."The War Devils" is a standard-issue, Italian-made, World War II mission movie with little to distinguish it. The characters on both sides are largely one-dimensional.

It begins with Allied commandos being dropped behind enemy lines to attack a fortified German gun position in a desert mesa on the eve of a big push. Through circumstances the allied and axis soldiers end up having to band together to survive. Later in Europe two of the men end up on opposite sides of a battle once more. Some technical problems aside (obvious day for night shooting that's so bad its day and some black-face on the actors playing Arabs) this is a very good, very action filled film. The film moves along thanks to the action and to some good characters that you actually care about. I liked this a great deal. I do want to give a word of warning, there is a point about half way in when the film ends its time in the desert and it really seems like the film is over. The feeling is increased by a sudden jump cut to the snowy mountains of Europe . Watching the film last night I thought something was wrong with the DVD and that the film had had another been edited into the second half of the film. Its not a mistake. There is a very different second half to the film. Stay with it. Its worth it.

I cannot speak highly enough of this movie. Made available over the years under such varied titles as WAR DEVILS, THE LEOPARDS OF WAR and CODE NAME RED DEVIL, Bitto Albertini's contribution to the 1967 - 1971 Italian Spaghetti Euro War cycle is one of the most enjoyable entries to the mini-boom of low budget WW2 potboilers churned out by the Italians in the wake of the box office success of THE DIRTY DOZEN and TOBRUK. I am completely fascinated by the mini-genre, mostly because of how the films tend to have had a cartoonish air of make believe about them that is reminiscent of playing Army Guy as a kid in the sandpit near the lake house up in Maine during summer vacations. They are B grade genre movie quickies made on the cheap, and this one is probably better than most.The stories usually took one of two forms, either "French Villa" commando raids ala THE DIRTY DOZEN, with a squad of misfits on a do or die mission to infiltrate & destroy some country manor where the Nazis are cooking up a secret weapon, or the "Desert Battle" variant where a legion of soldiers would face off in Tunisia to try and stop Rommel from paving over North Africa. Then there would be the standard plot points for the story to check off: The Training Sequence, the Withering Assault meant to trim the cast down just to those with speaking roles; the Sadistic Gruppenfuhrer scene were the vicious SS kommandant of the Nazi legions demonstrates that while the Italians may have started out as Fascists who collaborated with the Germans in WW2 they weren't as bad as the Nazis; a War Is Hell interlude with some unspeakable atrocity meant to demonstrate that while the movie may be fun, fun is fun but War Is Hell; a Disarming The Mine sequence where the soldiers have a tense moment or three trying to disarm a landmine, a cheap but effective way to build tension; the Singing Nazis interlude where the decadent Nazi officers are seen drinking schnapps and singing some drunken ode to der Vaterland; the Heroic Sacrifice treatment when one of the team members sacrifices himself heroically for the good of the mission; and a Final Showdown usually between the intrepid commando leader and the less vicious, honorable Wehrmacht officer who has found mutual respect for the intrepid commando leader. There are slight variations including the obligatory Romantic Partisan or Lost Nurses angle thrown in by the Italians, who always made a point to work some attractive 20 year old women into their war movies. God bless 'em.What makes WAR DEVILS so remarkable is that Bitto Albertini managed to not only combine both the French Villa raid and Desert Battle variations into a single script, but actually infuses the story with a genuine sense of humanity for once. The plot here concerns a good-natured Wehrmach commander (Venantino Venantini, who's baritone voice opens the film & sets up composer Marcello Giombini's memorable musical score) and a devil may care American commando squad leader (Guy Madison, professional, smooth and cool as always) who find themselves stranded in the desert together after a tank battle -- comprised of footage from Georgio Ferroni's THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN to keep the production costs down -- who's two units must work together to get back to their respective lines before dying of dehydration. After a "parting scene" that is right out of a Western the film changes gear and the two find themselves pitted against each other again in France when Madison's commandos (a different squad, since they all bought the farm out in the desert) are assigned to a mission raiding a French Villa who's forces are under Venantini's command. The twist on the story being that instead of destroying a Nazi secret weapon the commandos are instead assigned to rescue an allied officer with knowledge of a secret weapon program, who is himself sworn to secrecy or death.The reason why it all works is largely due to Venantino Venantini's performance as a principled, level-headed man who is weary of the war and it's endless carnage, and has learned to value the life of even those who should be his enemy. He has found himself in command not because he seeks glory, but because he is loyal to his country and can see the duality of war as a necessary evil. Guy Madison is also good but plays his role with a more cynical sense of chagrin, and when he tells Venantini that he'll see him in Berlin there's a sense of inevitability to it that even Venantini accepts. He knows Germany is doomed but it's his duty to serve, and will do so even if it means that someday one of them will have to shoot the other in the back. War is, after all, Hell.But because of the way the plot is structured this is a fast moving and rather energetic little potboiler, with great music, offbeat though low-key cinematography, some great lines about the futility of war and a high enough body count & images of things being blown up real good to keep any action/adventure fan entertained, regardless of whether or not the uniforms are right and the equipment accurate to the period. You get caught up in the film's human story, which is the quality that WAR DEVILS shares with the other exceptional efforts from the Euro War fad: DESERT COMMANDOS, THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN, FIVE FOR HELL, EAGLES OVER London and DESERT BATTLE. They may not have been on the same scope as the great Hollywood war epics but for low budget B grade cinema you can do a lot worse.8/10

Although this warstory has some fine actors: Guy Madison, Anthony Steel, John Ireland (the latter unfortunately in a VERY small part) it still isn't quite what it promises to be in the beginning; starting off excitingly in the battle between Americans and Germans in the North-African 1943-desert, we are given a sensitive portrayal of the comradeship between two enemies (a German "Hauptmann" -played very fine by Venantino Venantini- and US-Captain Madison) who meet again one year later in occupied France, so this movie is actually divided in two different stories, one in the desert and the other in Europe. However, in the second part the usual battlescenes appear and "War Devils" becomes another routine actionflick. At the end (of course) the German, who even in Italian (!) pictures obviously and finally has to be the "bad guy" gets killed by resistance men and US-soldiers. This I found very weak: once you get sympathy with Venantini, he is killed! However, all in all compared to the American efforts on warfilms this is a superiour must-see!