Hell in Normandy

The king of average, mediocre Italian action movies, Alfonso Brescia, does his best work in this action-packed, anti-war commando story, released in 1967. "Hell in Normandy" may not be the best of a slew of Italian "commando" movies, but it's somewhere near the top of the pile, simply because Brescia manages to pack so much into a 90-minute running time.

American commandos, led by Captain Murphy (Guy Madison), parachute into occupied Normandy, where Lt. Strobel (Peter Lee Lawrence), a German spy, helps them penetrate a flamethrower installations which threatens the landings on Omaha Beach. Murphy is skeptical of his mission's practicality, but Strobel is fanatically dedicated to destroying the base, and the two butt heads several times before the film's bullet-ridden climax.

This was an Italian-French co-production, and was quite possibly shot in France – this is noticeable in the first few shots. For once, an Italian war films opens with the landscape actually looking like the country it represents. I can't count the times I've seen semi-arid climates and rock quarries passed off for "southern France", so Brescia's choice of shooting locations earns him major points in my book. The movie looks just as real throughout – uniforms, weapons, vehicles and sets all look very authentic. Many Italian directors, such as Leon Klimovsky and Umberto Lenzi, disregarded accuracy in favor of action, and that damaged their credibility. Here, one can respect the time and money Brescia puts into making his film look credible.

This was Guy Madison's first Italian war movie, and he hasn't grown comfortable yet in a part which he would eventually own in the genre – he's starred in several similarly-themed films, each helmed by a different director. Man, does this guy get around! That said, he seems a bit unsure of himself as Captain Murphy, quite possibly because the role has its limitations. Murphy is cynical and critical of the way his mission was planned by superiors and how he's been ordered to execute it, but that's about all he gets to say – and he says it so many times that his dialog gets old and worn out very fast.

In direct contrast, Peter Lee Lawrence seems to be enjoying himself as Lt. Strobel, and has plenty of good dialog as well as some physically active scenes to be involved in. From the moment we meet him, Strobel is obsessed with the success of his mission, even if it means killing anyone who gets in his way. But he also has a tender side, demonstrated in his love for the French partisan girl Denise (Erika Blanc), a relationship which never gets the full development it deserves.

Brescia then loads his supporting cast with familiar names and faces, most notably, Max Tarilli ("Hornet's Nest"), an always under-used and under-appreciated actor. Here, Tarilli is a vicious German Corporal who is hot on the trail of Murphy's commandos, and never ceases in his search. It's refreshing to see what talent Tarilli has, and he never appears less than fully convincing as the vicious-Nazi-type. Massimo Carocci, Pierre Richard, Giuseppe Castellano, Luciano Catenacci, Gianni Pulone, and Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia all have small parts, too, which give a necessary boost.

When stacked up against similar films, such as "Where Eagles Dare", "Attack and Retreat" or "Tobruk", this little action story doesn't hold up as well. But Brescia takes his craft seriously, and earnestly tries to make everything look and sound as good as possible given the circumstances. "Hell in Normandy" is a well-meaning war film with a good premise and enough good acting, suspense and violent action to keep it entertaining, even if it is all clichéd.

SGT. SLAUGHTER'S RATING: 3 Bullets

Peter Lee Lawrence plays a theatrical actor whose mission is to infiltrate and destroy a German flamethrower installation at Normandy Beach before the allied attack there. His mission is only partly successful, but he is able to join up with a squadron of paratroopers sent to finish the job and guides them to the installation. Hell in Normandy climaxes with fairly standard fast-paced war action.

Lawrence was 23 when he starred in this film, and his promising career would be tragically cut short six years later by his suicide. The rest of the cast mixes American and continental European actors and actresses, mostly of the spaghetti western genre. The acting is generally good, though Guy Madison seems a little uncomfortable with his sad-sack paratrooper captain at times. Erica Blanc is excellent as a brave and intelligent member of the local resistance.

Brescia's Hell in Normandy is a cleverly plotted and well-directed military action-adventure centered on events preceding the allied victory at Normandy during World War Two. The film is fictional and makes no pretense at engaging the realities of the battle. But it does remain mostly within the constraints of plausibility. The cinematography is very good - hardly unexpected from an Italian film. But the script is horrendous. The writer included several token American idiomatic clichés - probably at the insistence of the cast - but did way too much exposition through dialog. The version I saw was dubbed. Perhaps the dialog is better in Italian? Recommended for war film fans only.

It's a spaghetti World War II film rife with all of the elements of a spaghetti World War II film. I was just wondering if every World War II motion picture produced in Italy in the late 1960s was required to feature a female in the movie and on the poster to make people go see it. I also have to wonder if the cast ad-libbed the script all the way through it. Okay, never mind the last one. No one would ever use the kinds of lines that are used in these films, except the writers, obviously, at least until they graduated from high school.

Most of the outdoor shots were too dark to see what was going on. It's also pretty amazing that the people firing the machine guns were able to hit anything with the way the would wildly wave them back and forth while firing. Of course the Germans could rarely hit anyone as usual, so I guess there's that.

(1968) Hell In Normandy /Testa di sbarco per otto implacabili DUBBED SPAGHETTI WAR

Another fictional war movie centering on two guys as well as Guy Madison as Captain Jack Murphy posing as high ranking Nazis to sabotage plans of destroying a dangerous device made by the Nazis to execute and kill American paratroopers. What are the odds, Nazis using German sniffing dogs to find dead Nazis corpses buried in six inches of dirt while browsing on a sand drivel road. Anyways, European production with an Italian cast acting as Americans and Germans. And particularly the end, the action is hard to make out since lot of the shooting was done in the dark which if the screening was shown on widescreen might be able to make out what was happening so as a result you might end up ignoring some of the action altogether. Lousy dubbing, lousy acting mediocre action sequences gives this a not so great experience.

A bunker on Omaha beach presents a serious problem for the planning of D-day, and a few daredevil agents are sent out to investigate it to prepare for its demolition. Some paratroopers are sent in time for D-day to accomplish the operation, when D-day is postponed one day, while the paratroopers already have jumped and are lost behind German lines without support. Naturally, they go ahead with the operation anyway, led by Guy Madison in German officer's uniform, who is very elefgant in it. The film is full of action, there is nothing wrong with the excitement and suspense, but the direction seems a bit unprofessional at times. You have to remember that this is an Italian version of the D-day hullabaloo, you could call the film "D-day Italian style", and naturally the Germans are as wicked and naughty as ever, real monsters, with one notable exception. The film is perhaps enough for an evening's entertainment but blows over like so many other ordinary war action reels without leaving anything behind except perhaps a relief that it's over.