The Last Valley ** (1971, Michael Caine, Omar Sharif, Florinda Bolkan, Nigel Davenport, Per Oscarsson, Arthur O’Connell) – Classic Movie Review 8453

Writer-director James Clavell’s ambitious 1971 adventure movie The Last Valley finds that Michael Caine is somewhat overstretched as The Captain, a ruthless Protestant mercenary leader who brings his band of soldiers to a sleepy 1640s German alpine village, where Vogel (played by an on form Omar Sharif) is the local priest. The villagers try to live in peace with the occupying soldiers.

Clavell’s aspiring story of the Thirty Years War makes for a solid movie, perhaps too solid, for it did not take money. It cost $11,000,000 and grossed only $380,000, in the US and $1,280,000 cumulative worldwide gross. But there is an interest here in the serious themes and the hard-working performances.

The scenery, support performers and a bit of action help to overcome a Clavell’s rather talky, preachy, over-earnest screenplay, based on a novel by T B Pick. It also features Nigel Davenport as Gruber, Per Oscarsson as Father Sebastian, Arthur O’Connell as Hoffman.

Also in the cast are Madeleine Hinde, Yorgo Voyagis, Miguel Alejandro, Christian Roberts, Brian Blessed, Ian Hogg, Michael Gothard, George Innes, John Hallam, Frazer Hines, Dave Crowley, Irene Prador, Jack Shepherd, Vladek Sheybal, Kurt Christian, Patrick Westwood, Larry Taylor and Edward Underdown.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8453

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