Year of Eastwood #36

Kelly's Heroes (1970)

Starring: Eastwood, Telly Savalas,
Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland
Directed by Brian Hutton

And now for something completely different. The last few Eastwood flicks have been a big load of downers … Costner gets shot, Bird likes the smack, Clint has the TB. So, it’s time for a little escapism - classic Hollywood style. Feels like Year of Eastwood could use some ‘splosions and hi-jinks … time for some Kelly’s Heroes.

I imagine Clint decided he needed a bit of fun as well. He was making several movies a year and, as has been discussed, most of those westerns involved Clint getting some variation of horse-collared before he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and kicked some ass. Clint just kinda glides thru Kelly’s Heroes as the instigator of a scheme to steal a bunch of inanimate gold bars from the re-treating German army near the close of WWII.

But he can’t do it alone. So who better to join him than a bunch of TV stars that probably worked really cheap. Kojak yells a lot and Archie Bunker plays a bumbling General. I’m not sure if Don Rickles was a TV star … actually not sure why he’s famous at all … but he’s along for the ride as the wise-cracking company clerk. After all, Clint was a TV star his own self, so I’m sure he was helpful in getting these guys their big break into the movies.

Kelly’s plot is pretty flimsy, but that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to have some fun. There’s lots of things blowing up and Nazi slapstick (hey, the Nazi’s are always reliable for a good laugh). And what the heck, might as well throw in Sutherland as the original Hippie. Or, at least, I assume he’s the original hippie, because I don’t know how many long-haired, pot-heads there were driving Sherman tanks around in the 1940’s - but in this movie, anything's possible.

Actually, watching Kelly’s Heroes now, the film kinda suffers from what I’ll call the Saving Private Ryan effect. When Speilberg made that film, he created such an effective sense of what WWII was probably like that watching any war films now, it’s difficult not to think of the intensity of those opening scenes storming Omaha beach.

Clint tries to keep his heist quiet. But when tons of gold is involved, it’s hard to keep it a secret. So by the final scenes, the film becomes a Mad, Mad World dash to the treasure. In the end, the “good” guys get in, take the gold, and - I’m sure - found some way to smuggle all that gold out in their duffle bags.