Hora cero: Operación Rommel

A pretty familiar and simplistic action piece from Leon Klimovsky, with a decent cast and little else of value.

Jack Palance stars as an American commando officer, who must lead commandos on a strange mission behind-the-lines in France. None of the men know the complete plan, so they basically wander around from place to place confusing the enemy until a big, booming climax.

The film features an acceptable cast, with Jack Palance in the lead as a gutsy commander. Unfortunately, just like Michael Rennie in COMMANDO_ATTACK Palance is a 1 dimensional character with no personality. Some scenes, in which he curses at suboordinates sound incredibly corny and every time he gives a command he yells "Give 'em all ya got!" Mankiewicz has no writing talent, and Palance never comes to life. Andrea Bosic from BATTLEFORCE tries hard as one of the commandos, as does Gerard Tichy (LAST DAY OF THE WAR) as an Anti-Hitler German General. We've also got Mirko Ellis (BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS) in a small and heroic role as an American commando. Wrap up the cast with Giuseppe Addobbati (THE BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN) as an American officer and Alberto de Mendoza as a German double agent, who constantly switches sides.

The combat scenes are very well-filmed, with lots and lots of explosions, bullet ricochets, familiar M48 tanks and lots of extras falling down and dying. The weapons used here are Italian Beretta submachine-guns (like in BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS) which does take away from what little realism there is.

Cinematography is actually pretty good, and the countryside looks a lot like France. The musical score by Armando Trovajoli is a pretty mournful sounding score, and doesn't fit the mood of the movie until the last 5 minutes or so.

I really don't like this film much despite all the good stuff it's got going for it. Mankiewicz and his writers didn't do a very good job with the script; there's a lot of boring dialog and not much else. It's pretty pro-war and fun until the last 10 minutes or so, which stresses the human cost and waste of life. There are a few interesting plot twists, though, which kept me awake.

I'm actually not sure what version of this film I saw. It's a dub from what I believe is a VHS from Saturn, due to the decent color transfer, background audio hiss and occasional dropouts. It's a transfer of identical quality to their release of DESERT COMMANDO.

All in all, this isn't a great film nor is it bad. It's got a good cast, fair action sequences, and decent production values but a pretty boring script and little originality.

During World War II, a tough officer Major John Heston (Jack Palance) is assigned by Gen. Moore (Giuseppe Addobbati as John Douglas) to organize a commando raid into Germany . Heston leads a group of expert officers on a risked as well as strange assignment , these are the followings : Captain Agamemnon Geeves (Andrea Bosic) , Lt.Steve Bloom (John Gramack) , Capt.Stuart Latimore (Carlos Estrada) , Lt. Thomas Mulligan (Antonio Pica) , Lt.Robert Mills (Mirko Ellis) . The relentless and complex assignment is set against strong training , risked adventures and hazardous feats . The mission: search out Rommel (Manuel Collado and his wife played by Maruchi Fresno) and to destroy enemy , after the D-Day invasion . The volunteer commandos , misfits from the American army do not care how its done and will run over anyone who gets in their way .

Jack Palance as Major Heston assumes the character of commando leader in this ordinary wartime movie regularly directed by Leon Klimovsky . This moving film packs frantic thrills , perilous adventures , relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action and violence . The noisy action is uniformly well-made , especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring final scenes in which the motley group is really besieged , including some spectacular shootouts and bombing . The first half of the film allows the colorful cast of character actors to have their fun as they get their tails whipped into shape and develop shaky relationship with their leader . The final part is all action , as the brave commando wreak havoc and then run for their lives . Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by Palance into his misfit group , the film is full of feats , suspense , and thrills . Rough Jack Palance is leader of the motley pack together thwart the Nazi schemes , he gives an overacting and puts faces and grimaces . Palance dominates this adventure war with his hysterical performance as a merciless officer with only one thirst : to carry out the dangerous and puzzling mission . Palance played several exotic/historical characters in ¨The Silver Chalice¨, ¨Attila¨ , ¨Rosmunda and Alboino¨, ¨The horsemen¨ , ¨Barrabas¨, ¨The Mongols¨ , among others . As well as the largely secondary cast formed by a lot of Spanish/Italian secondaries , all of them ordinary from Peplum and Western such as: Antonio Pica , Mirko Ellis , Carlos Estrada , Alberto De Mendoza , Gérard Tichy , Rosanna Yanni and with special mention for Jesus Puente as nasty German General . This one belongs to Klimovski's trilogy about WWII , including tarnishing Hollywood stars , such as ¨The legion of no return¨ with Tab Hunter , and ¨Command attack¨with Michael Rennie . Atmospheric and functional musical score by Armando Trovajoli , adding an attractive but repetitive leitmotif . Mediocre cinematography in Eastmancolor filmed by Vicente Minaya , a perfect remastering is extremely necessary . Being filmed on location in Casa de Campo, Madrid , Getafe airport , Getafe , Madrid, Navacerrada mountains , and Pelayos de la Presa , Madrid, Spain . This is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando genre¨ , in USA style which also belong the American classics as : ¨Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich) ¨ Where eagles dare(Brian G. Hutton) and Kelly's heroes(Hutton), Tobruk (Arthur Hiller) , Devil's Brigade (Andrew V McLagen) and many others .

The motion picture was middlingly directed by Leon Klimovsky . This Argentina born but nationalized Spanish filmmaker was a craftsman who directed all kind genres , as Terror for Paul Naschy (Marshall of hell , Rebellion of dead one , Orgy of vampires , Werewolf shadow,Dr Jekill vs. the werewolf) , Warlike (June 44 attack force Normandy, A bullet for Rommel, Bridge over Elba) and Western (Badland drifter , Some dollars for Django , Torrejon city , Death knows no time, Two thousand dollars for Coyote). Rating: 5 ; regular but entertaining.

Jack Palance was reason enough to see any film, and he was my reason for watching The Fall of the Giants. The film is not great and could have been much better too, but it is also not bad at all, certainly much better than Legion of the Damned(aka Battle of the Commandos), another war film starring Palance made at a similar time.

The Fall of the Giants looks good, while the photography is not mind-blowing it is hardly low-budget TV quality either, the sets are handsome and reasonably authentic in alternative to limited, the scenery with the countryside, woods and rivers is truly stunning and the editing is coherent and above average. Not all the costumes work though, with the helmets looking like over-sized pottery and Palance's uniform looked like it had shrunk a few sizes in the wash overnight. The music score is appropriately rousing and melancholic, and fits with the film quite well. The story is reasonably well-paced with some nice turns and remains interesting until the final 10 minutes, the battle scenes are appropriately tense(as is the build up to the final battle) and coherently edited and the direction gets the job done competently. The performances are good on the whole, with fine support from Andrea Bosic and John Grammack, Mirko Ellis in suitably heroic mode and Gerard Tichy brings authority to his General character.

As great an actor Palance was, this is not one of his best performances here. He gives his absolute all and he certainly commands the screen well, but it did feel like he was trying too hard(think his hard-nosed performance in Legion of the Damned except even less subtle) and it felt out-of-kilter at times with the rest of the film. The conclusion could have been powerful and moving, instead it went down the human sermon route and dealt with it very heavy-handedly, and that the characters are very one-dimensional, one-note and underdeveloped in the film(as well as drifting in and out) makes it less easy to really care for the ending or for them. Where The Fall of the Giants really falls down is the very pedestrian script that lacks any kind of pace or nuance and the dialogue is constantly corny and trite.

Overall, not bad with clearly some effort and professionalism gone into it, but rather bland. 5/10 Bethany Cox

I taped most of this film from a late night show a few years ago but I wish it would come on again. It is a serious film that turns out sort of un-serious. The way all the German soldiers get shot the same way and have to do the obligatory summersault before "dying". Jacks German helmet was too big and with the coat a few sizes too small makes him look like one of the three stooges.One incident when Jack is shot by a machine-gun he catches just one bullet dead center of his arm - what incredible luck!yea right. I love this movie!

Among the numerous low-brow WWII adventures to emerge from Europe around this time, the film under review also proved one of Jack Palance's not infrequent across-the-water excursions; typically, the film comes with several titles – the misleading Spanish original translates to ZERO HOUR: OPERATION ROMMEL (even if the Field Marshall does figure prominently in the narrative, his role in the failed July plot to assassinate the Fuehrer and his eventual suicide, thus bringing to mind the similar but inferior UCCIDETE ROMMEL from the same year), the Italian one (its co-producing country) to the generic THE CRY OF GIANTS and, for English-speaking consumption, it ended up with the imitative moniker given above! Anyway, the movie presents a typical 'impossible mission' scenario with the lock-jawed star as the cynical leader of a specialized outfit parachuted behind enemy lines; the group even includes a German officer(!) and, when they purposefully crash the plane, are also joined by the pilot. What is unusual – but also rather silly in the long run, given its pointlessness – is that each member of the squad has a specific function to perform which, however, is known only to himself…so that each of them is constantly, albeit unnecessarily, looking over one another's back!; for obvious reasons, the former Nazi is especially suspected in this regard, even more so when his instructions dictate for him to return to the fold (to further complicate matters, he meets his sweetheart – played by Rosanna Yanni – just then, and she takes him for a traitor to their cause of fighting the Hitler dictatorship)! Eventually, it turns out that Palance and his men were intended to divert enemy attention from a strategic point to another location – so that the German forces are deployed to this other section of the battle zone, thus facilitating the Allies' entry; the military-minded Colonel in command initially objects to the move given their opposition only involves five men – but another officer embroiled with the Nazi hierarchy imposes his will, once the ruse is discovered, to his ultimate chagrin. The combination of expected ingredients – plenty of action (where the expertise at baseball of one of them comes in handy when throwing hand-grenades during the final enemy onslaught!) and hard-boiled dialogue (most amusingly, when Palance complains about the terrible quality of the cigarette he is smoking while a bullet is being removed from his arm sans anaesthetic) – and novelty aspects (the obstacles, eventually surmounted, to camaraderie already mentioned and the suspense inherent in the jigsaw-puzzle structure) make it a mildly enjoyable offering as these things go.