Battle of the Bulge **** (1965, Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Ty Hardin, Charles Bronson) – Classic Movie Review 6,241

Ken Annakin’s truly epic 1965 World War Two wartime action film Battle of the Bulge is a sweeping, involving, often exciting battle movie. Robert Shaw stars in the real-life story about an ace commanding Panzer officer, Colonel Hessler.

Director Ken Annakin’s truly epic 1965 World War Two wartime action film Battle of the Bulge is a sweeping, involving, often exciting battle movie.

Scripted by Philip Yordan, Milton Sperling and John Melson, the real-life story is about an ace commanding Panzer officer, Colonel Hessler (Robert Shaw), fighting the last major German offensive of the war in the Ardennes in the middle of the snowy winter of 1944.

The surprise attack by the Germans in the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in eastern Belgium, northeast France and Luxembourg caught the Allied forces completely off guard.

Shaw and Henry Fonda as the honest US Lieutenant-Colonel Kiley provide the human dimension, while Robert Ryan and Dana Andrews flesh out the American top brass as General Grey and Colonel Pritchard.

The conscientiously crafted, intelligently done screenplay offers a good overall view of the battle plan, and there are several excitingly staged, tough battle scenes for action fans.

Benjamin Frankel’s stirring score, a Golden Globe nominee, and Jack Hildyard’s widescreen cinematography help the movie to draw us right into the heat of the battle. Made for Cinerama, it is shot in 70mm Ultra Panavision and Technicolor. It runs an epic 167 minutes.

Also in the starry cast are Pier Angeli as Louise, Barbara Werle as Elena, Telly Savalas as Sgt Guffy, George Montgomery as Sgt Duquesne, Ty Hardin as Schumacher, Charles Bronson as Wolenski, Hans Christian Blech, Werner Peters, James MacArthur, Karl-Otto Alberty, Steve Rowland, Robert Woods and Donald Pickering.

Battle of the Bulge was filmed in Spain on the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range, Madrid.

We are advised: ‘To encompass the whole of the heroic contributions of all the participants, places, names and characters, have been generalized and action has been synthesized in order to convey the spirit and essence of the battle.’

Barbara Werle died on 1 January 2013, aged 84.

Ty Hardin, TV’s Bronco, died on 3 August 2017, aged 87.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6,241

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

American soldiers of the 117th Infantry during the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945.