The Night of the Generals
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Actor: Gerard Buhr, Nigel Stock, Omar Sharif, Peter O'Toole, Tom CourtenayDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: Chinese (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Full Screen, Import, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 130 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-01-29
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: The Castaways Pictures
DVD Reviews of The Night of the Generals
DVD Review: Nightmare of the Generals
Summary: 2 Stars
THE NIGHT OF THE GENERALS is an interesting World War Two detective story saddled with an implausible plot. Despite diverse location filming in Warsaw, Hamburg, and Paris, this film saunters along on the premise that anyone cares about two murders, and later a third, in a world at war.
The plot: A prostitute is brutally murdered in German occupied Warsaw. The story would end there except that the woman was a German agent, and a witness spotted the red striped trousers of a German general officer descending the stairs afterward. A German army major (Omar Sharif) is appointed to investigate. He quickly narrows the suspects to three army generals Tanz (Peter O'Toole), Kahlenberge (Donald Pleasence) and von Seidlitz-Gabler (Charles Gray). Each of the general officers has something to hide and are visibly uncomfortable with Grau. The war marches on and the investigation is overcome by events. Fate reunites all the key players together in 1944 Paris. There another girl is murdered and Colonel Grau renews his investigation with Tanz as the chief suspect. Grau's investigation is further complicated by the chaos reigning in the immediate aftermath of the unsuccessful July 20th attempt to kill Hitler. The movie then jumps forward 20 years to 1965 when a German prostitute is murdered. Interpol Inspector Morand picks up the investigation where Grau left off in 1944.
There are some great actors in this film. The story just does not hold up. Had all these events unfolded in 1944 Paris the story might have been more believable. However, it is difficult to believe that the German military would afford any effort to investigate the two murders. Peter O'Toole is known for his eccentric characters. His portrayal of Tanz is no different. Tanz is a bad stereotype of an obsessive compulsive aristocrat. It is even more difficult to believe that a wartime senior Heer (army) general would suddenly become a Waffen SS General. Transfers like this were more common in the early days of the SS, but not in wartime.
NIGHT OF THE GENERALS also twists history. The murder and initial investigation takes place in 1942. At that point we find Tanz commanding a force dedicated to razing a part of Warsaw, yet the Warsaw Ghetto uprising took place in 1943 and the general uprising was in 1944. The timeline is better represented when the action takes place in 1944 Paris.
This was the first time since LAWRENCE OF ARABIA that O'Toole and Sharif appeared in film together. Sharif was believable as a Russian in DR. ZHIVAGO, but I just did not buy his portrayal as a German in NIGHT OF THE GENERALS. It is possible that his reunion with O'Toole made him appear as the Arabian Sherif Ali character from LAWRENCE. By the way, Tom Courtenay, who played the framed Corporal Hartmann in NIGHT OF THE GENERALS, also had a strong supporting role in DR. ZHIVAGO. You might also recognize him from 1965's OPERATION CROSSBOW.
Both Donald Pleasence and Charles Gray were better James Bond villains as Ernst Stavros Blofeld, in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER respectively, than they were German generals. In yet another link to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, Charles Gray, whose voice sounds very much like Jack Hawkins, was called upon to dub some of Hawkins lines in the 1989 re-release of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.
Also look for a brief appearance by veteran actor Christopher Plummer in the role of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
NIGHT OF THE GENERALS film was not helped by Maurice Jarre's soundtrack. Almost everything Jarre has done since LAWRENCE OF ARABIA sounds like LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Remember the similar soundtrack from THE TRAIN? It was not until the late 1970s that Jarre finally set aside the familiar LAWRENCE musical cues.
NIGHT OF THE GENERALS was released in 1967, a year that boasted only three major World War Two movie releases. No doubt NIGHT OF THE GENERALS was overshadowed by THE DIRTY DOZEN. Even Rock Hudson's TOBRUK garnered more positive comments.
I had fond memories of this film as a kid. A couple times a year WABC, the local ABC station in the New York area, would air a week's worth of war movies as its weekday afternoon movie. NIGHT OF THE GENERALS was one of those films that was always shown in two parts. Back then I was more interested in the brief battle scenes, specifically the German tanks firing on buildings in Warsaw, than the detective story. Many years later I eagerly added the film to my collection because of those memories. In all honesty, this film is painful to watch. If you are viewing the film and have to leave the room for a few minutes, do not even bother to pause the DVD. You will not have missed anything.
Description of The Night of the Generals
It is a thriller occurring in World War II about a Nazi General who becomes a serial killer. When a Polish prostitute is brutally murdered in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, her killer is only identified as a German General. For years the crime remains unsolved until the killer strikes again, bringing this mesmerizing mystery to its unforgettable finish.Long (148 minutes) military mystery set among the high command of Nazi Germany in occupied Poland and elsewhere in the Third Reich. A prostitute in wartime Warsaw has been brutally murdered and a German military investigator narrows his field of suspects to three German generals. But the war--and the sense of preening Prussian arrogance--interferes with his investigation, even as he begins to home in on the killer. Moodily sinister atmosphere and a strong cast (Peter O'Toole, Tom Courtenay, Omar Sharif, Christopher Plummer) can't overcome a plodding pace and a tendency to digress. --Marshall Fine
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