Kelly’s Heroes **** (1970, Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland, Carroll O’Connor, Richard Davalos, Harry Dean Stanton) – Classic Movie Review 2401

Director Brian G Hutton’s 1970 World War Two wartime action adventure romp is exuberantly handled and engagingly played by an iconic cast of Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland and Carroll O’Connor.

Preposterously enjoyable, it is filled with explosives, anachronisms, a wide variety of clichés and a good chunk of the Yugoslav army serving as extras.

Eastwood as Lieutenant Kelly, Sutherland as a hippy tank commander Sergeant Oddball, Rickles as Staff Sergeant Crapgame and Savalas as Master Sergeant Big Joe are among the group of jolly roughneck American GIs out to steal a secret hoard of gold bars in Nazi-occupied France.

Kelly manages to reach a captured German Colonel, gets him drunk and learns that he is on a secret mission to ship $16million of gold to a base in France. Kelly decides to get the gold for himself, so he sneaks across enemy lines with a few of his fellow soldiers to get their hands on the bullion.

Carroll O’Connor plays General Colt, Gavin MacLeod is Moriarty, Harry Dean Stanton is Willard and Richard Davalos plays Gutowski. Also in the cast are Stuart Margolin, Hal Buckley, Jeff Morris, Perry Lopez, Tom Troupe, Gene Collins and Dick Balduzzi.

The good action mixes with plenty of laughs, especially from Sutherland, who is the show’s hit turn.

Richard Davalos died on 8 March 2016, aged 85. While he played James Dean’s brother Aron in East of Eden (1955), they roomed together in a Burbank apartment. His other credits include convict Blind Dick in Cool Hand Luke, I Died a Thousand Times, All the Young Men, The Cabinet of Caligari, Pit Stop, Brother, Cry for Me, Hot Stuff, Death Hunt, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Ninja Cheerleaders.

Happy days: Don Rickles with Johnny Carson.

RIP Don Rickles (1926 to 2017).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2401

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