Brass Target **½ (1978, Sophia Loren, John Cassavetes, Max von Sydow, George Kennedy, Patrick McGoohan, Robert Vaughn) – Classic Movie Review 10,356

Director John Hough’s fanciful 1978 MGM political action thriller Brass Target, based on the novel The Algonquin Project by Frederick Nolan, re-writes history and is low on credibility rating, but there is such a pile-up of stars and incidents that it scarcely matters.

George Kennedy stars as General George S Patton, target for murder by a Swiss hitman, apparently after stumbling across plans for a robbery of Germany’s $250 million confiscated gold reserves on the US Army train to Frankfurt in 1945. The military police set out to find the plotters.

Sophia Loren and John Cassavetes are wasted in romantic shenanigans, but Max von Sydow grabs his chance in a shimmering display of villainy as the mysterious assassin, while Patrick McGoohan and Robert Vaughn over-play their hands engagingly as OSS colonels.

There is sometimes too much talk in Alvin Boretz’s over-extended, sprawling screenplay, but when the action bursts out – particularly the opening tunnel robbery – it is entertainingly if conventionally done.

Also in the cast are Bruce Davison, Edward Herrmann, Ed Bishop, Lee Montague, Alan Tilvern, Hal Galili, Bernard Horsfall, John Junkin, Sigfrit Steiner, Reinhold Olszewski, Bob Cunningham, Heinz Bennent, Brad Harris, Claudia Butenuth, Osman Ragheb, Marshall Reynor, Birgit Bergen, Drew Lucas and Peter Armstrong.

It is shot on location in Germany and Switzerland, and at Bavaria Studios, Munich, Bavaria, Germany.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,356

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