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The Secret Invasion (1964)
Rate:
3
Viewed:
3/25
3/25:
Roger Corman can be relied on to make a stupid movie.
To be fair, The Secret Invasion was there first, but
The Dirty Dozen is totally better for
obvious reasons. While I can see the quality because of a bigger budget, the story makes no sense whatsoever.
Ditto for the dialogue. What's with the snapping fingers? There's zero payoff after the "general" is rescued.
When Raf Vallone's character said, "300 meters," I didn't think anything of it, but after I saw what his guys were
planning to do, I was like, "What??? They're going to dig a tunnel this long?" Why...that'll take months, if not
years. Plus, where do they put away thousands of cubic meters of dirt? How about these Nazis? So many of them
running all over the place in close contact and shooting at the good guys but failing for the most part, they're
truly inept. As for the ending, there's no historical basis to support Italian soldiers unleashing gunfire on the
Nazis.
On the positive side, the cast is stuffed with known players: Stewart Granger, Raf Vallone, Edd Byrnes, and
Henry Silva whose character has a shocking moment of accidentally suffocating a baby to death. But no thanks
to Mickey Rooney who relies on wrong instincts to play a scene. Shot on location in Dubrovnik in southern
Dalmatia, Croatia (formerly Yugoslavia), Arthur E. Arling should get credit for his cinematography work
to mask a lot of problems.
All in all, The Secret Invasion is a mix of quality and brainless.