I loved how Eastwood and the girl couldn't miss from the back window of that bus. The German soldiers, supposedly trained in weapons, couldn't respond in kind, but those two killed everyone that attempted to follow them.
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I was thinking the same thing, they could have easily taken the fort. The only problem was that the radio room was destroyed so they would not have been able to give the list of German spies to British command. :-)
The Garrison could not have had more than 5,000 troops and they must have already killed a thousand of them including all of the senior officers.
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I loved how Eastwood and the girl couldn't miss from the back window of that bus. The German soldiers, supposedly trained in weapons, couldn't respond in kind, but those two killed everyone that attempted to follow them.
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Just one of many ridiculous scenes from a ridiculous movie.
Remember at the very end of the movie when the German General in the air traffic control tower thought he was safe because the truck was like half a mile away?
Richard Burton barked out 'concentrate fire on the tower' and the hero's pointed their tiny MP-40's at the tower and practically blew it up before the General could make his phone call. :-)
They should have driven the truck to Berlin and ended the war.
I doubt that they would have run out of gas or bullets.
I can just imagine them making a sequel about the D-Day landings with just Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood landing on Omaha beach (armed with machine guns that have an in-built ability to manufacture bullets) and just machine gunning everthing in their sights until they reach Berlin.
shareThey missed an opportunity to have 4 German ME109's survive the carnage at the airport to give chase to the JU-88 transport.
The hero's notice the first one as it fires its machine guns to the right of the cloud bank as they turn back into the cloud. They then spot the other me109 on the left and turn right back into the cloud and the two ME109's collide in mid-air exploding.
2 down, 2 to go.
Richard Burton lures one me109 close enough to throw a satchel of dynomite that gets wedged between the wing and machine gun, firing his MP40, he ignites the dynomite causing the 3rd ME109 to explode.
The last ME109 was flying high cover and goes into a frantic dive to avenge his comrades, Richard Burton takes control of the plane and also goes into a dive. Timing it perfectly, he waits until the very last second and pulls out of the dive while the ME109 crashes into the ground with a horrific explosion.
People tend to constantly overstate how many Germans our heroes kill throughout the film.
The most they ever kill in any one instance is in the bus chase/airfield climax. During the chase, they kill 13. At the airfield, they kill 11, for a total of 24.
After this, excluding anything involving the dynamite, the second highest single instance of guys dying is the hallway shootout. Schaffer shoots 10 Germans, blows 1 up with a grenade, then shoots (at least) seven on the stairs as they're leaving after Thomas has been killed, for a total of 18 deaths.
Besides these instances, it's usually a case of them killing 4-5 guys per encounter, regardless of how many enemies they're actually up against. The movie's body count is less than 100; 91, 6 out of which are Brits (including the four traitors). Subtract the British characters for a total of 85 Germans killed. Is that a lot? Sure. But nowhere near "half the German army" as often claimed.
There being way, way more than 100 German soldiers stationed in and around the Schloss Adler meant they did in fact need to escape. There was no way they could've taken the castle, or, if they could, there was no way they could've held it, not with a goodly portion of the Alpenkorps in and around the town and an airfield nearby. Keep in mind their success rate was dependent primarily on the element of surprise and constantly being on the move, one step ahead of the Germans. Given time, the Germans could've and would've eventually gotten the upper hand, if only due to the sheer numbers.
In a straight confrontation they would've been slaughtered; they only succeeded in the bus chase because they were moving almost constantly and focused more on getting away than killing Germans, and the tree, rigged beforehand because Smith knew they'd take that route while likely being pursued, bought them time to stop and blow the bridge. At the airfield, they had the element of surprise since the dynamite on the road also took out the telephone lines, preventing that officer from phoning ahead to the airfield, so the Luftwaffe didn't know they were coming until the bus smashed through the fence.
In the hallway scene, although Schaffer was killing enemies, he was in a fortified position out of their line of fire, with both sides sort of dug in. The odds got tipped in the Germans' favor when they brought that monster machine gun forward under cover fire, effectively pinning poor Schaffer down, which would've allowed the Germans to advance, kill him and storm the radio room - if not for the explosion in the armory from the dynamite Schaffer planted there earlier startling the gunners long enough for Schaffer to get some shots in and kill them, evening the odds again.
And remember, despite killing 11 out of what appeared to be 20 or 30 guys in that hallway, he effectively lost that fight; he and the others needed to hide in a closet and allow the Germans to advance and make the lead officer think they'd escaped out the window so they'd leave; there were just too many in the end. And the guys on the stairs? Again, taken by surprise while doubling back after realizing they'd been tricked (admittedly, this should've meant they were on their guard, but whatever; it can be argued that although they did expect to find the intruders on that floor, but not to encounter Schaffer RIGHT THERE so brazenly in the open).
Hence, Smith and Schaffer survived because their goal as to get in and get out with as little muss and fuss as possible, and they did a ton of pre-planning and setting things up beforehand, taking certain routes, etc., and a lot of on-the-spot inventive thinking when backed into a corner. Cleverness and intelligence won the day and got them in and out with what they came for, not brute force and guns, no matter how many enemy soldiers they wasted.
"I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?"
http://vimeo.com/33317162
Eastwood kills 78 Nazis without getting shot once. The only injury he sustains is when the two spies sucker punch him, but that's it.
Burton kills 49 and he only takes a shot in the hand.
Overall, that's 127 kills. Not bad for just two guys. They always hit their mark and the bad guys only hit them once.
That's still less than "the entire Wehrmacht," as is often claimed. That's even way less than the entirety of the German forces stationed in and around the castle. The points I made still stand.
And anyway, as in most action films, the good guys require some degree of protection from the script. Hence them always hitting what they aim at, and the bad guys always missing. It's a script mechanic that isn't necessarily reflective of the enemies' prowess (or lack thereof). It's just something that needs to happen in order for the story to continue.
Having said that, sometimes I think Smith and Schaffer are too clever; too lucky. Although I stand by my (over)analysis of the situation (i.e. that their forward thinking and constantly moving is what kept them alive), one cannot deny that they do come across as utterly invincible, and never truly seem like they're in any danger. The script mechanic which ensures the good guys will survive is not just in full force in this movie... it was outright abused by the filmmakers to the point where Smith and Schaffer never seem threatened at all. I suspect this film being largely a vanity project for Richard Burton has a lot to do with this.
I think the movie would've been better served if something, anything, had been done to help us buy the Nazis as a threat to the good guys. And I mean besides just them being Nazis. That only means they're evil, not necessarily that they're a threat to the main characters.
"I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?"
It is less than the entire Wehrmacht, so you're correct there. I'm glad we both agree that they're "utterly invincible," which was my problem with this movie.
shareEastwood kills 78 Nazis without getting shot once. The only injury he sustains is when the two spies sucker punch him, but that's it.
Burton kills 49 and he only takes a shot in the hand.
Overall, that's 127 kills. Not bad for just two guys. They always hit their mark and the bad guys only hit them once.
They did pretty well.
shareinteresting...
shareAhem, those "German soldiers" were paid actors. Obviously they were following written guidelines to be "killed" constantly by our "heroes". Or get fired if they didn't do what the scripts said. The real World War II was quite "different"!
shareIt's a movie, who cares if it's unrealistic, if you want realism go watch a documentary. It's a great movie, who cares if they killed lots of Nazi's. You'll find that most movies are in fact unrealistic, hence why they are "movies".
shareJames Bond, John McClane, Martin Riggs, John Rambo and various other movie heroes mow down large numbers of bad guys without getting shot.
shareI like a bit of realistic , otherwise you get "The fast & the furious"
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I don't understand why people complain so much about how unrealistic this movie is. This is not meant to be a serious war story. It's an escapist action adventure yarn that just happens to be set during WWII. If you can just manage to suspend your disbelief for a couple hours and enjoy it for what it is, it's a highly entertaining film.
It is a nice escapist yarn, just not to be confused with the real WW2. Apart from the unrealistic luck and shooting ability of our heroes, I found the lack of concern about bullet ricochets inside a stone castle a little unrealistic. Everyone is firing automatic weapons like crazy...
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
Curiously enough, IIRC one problem they did have on set was they were using a new kind of blank that used a wooden bullet that was supposed to burn up when fired. The actors apparently complained of being sprayed with wood splinters!
Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
Could be. I heard James Caan as Sonny in The Godfather was actually injured by the squibs set off during his death scene to represent bullet strikes. Those wouldn't have been blanks, though.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
wooden bullet? i call bull manure
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