Irwin Shaw's novel was one of those big door-stoppers that was guaranteed to be a bestseller. It had sex and war and a bucket-load of characters and it was destined for the big screen. Edward Dmytryk, who helmed the film version, may not have been an auteur but, at his best, he was a great entertainer who knew how to deliver the goods and this epic story of love and war has definitely stood the test of time, its episodic structure working perfectly as Marlon Brando's 'good Nazi' runs up against his superiors while American buddies Dean Martin and Montgomery Clift are drafted and shipped overseas where all their paths will invariably cross.
The performances throughout are excellent, though Clift, still recovering from his auto accident, looks very uncomfortable while Maximilian Schell's sadistic German officer almost steals the film from under Brando's nose. Their women are May Britt, looking stunning, Barbara Rush, Hope Lange, fresh from her success in "Peyton Place" and Liliane Montevecchi, prior to her stints on the Broadway stage while Edward Anhalt makes a fair fist of bringing the book in at under three hours and keeping it lucid. It may not be a great film but it's intelligent and much better than it had any right to be.
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