#cross of iron

[cimmerian-war-shrine]

[mariocki]

RIP David Warner (29.7.1941 - 24.7.2022)

"Academically I was hopeless, and athletically I was hopeless. In my Wikipedia entry, it says I had a messy childhood, and that’s the truth! But I sort of drifted into the odd school play, and that was one thing that I kind of felt that I had some enthusiasm for, so I was sort of interested. But I never thought I’d ever become a professional actor or anything. I joined an amateur company when I was a teenager in England, and they wouldn’t let me go onstage in the beginning. They just let me paint scenery and stuff like that. But then I did some amateur theater and decided to try and apply for the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Arts, and - much to everybody’s surprise - I got in!"

[misterivy]

[all-action-all-picture]

Cross of Iron (1977). Artwork by Robert Tanenbaum.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"...AND I WILL SHOW YOU WHERE THE IRON CROSSES GROW."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on film stills to "Cross of Iron" (German: "Steiner – Das Eiserne Kreuz," lit. "Steiner – The Iron Cross"), the 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner.

“Germany. Do you think they will ever forgive us for what we’ve done? Or forget us?”

-- Feldwebel ROLF STEINER to his squad

Cinematography: John Coquillon

Screenplay: Julius Epstein, James Hamilton, & Walter Kelley

Source: https://darrenlinder.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/sam-peckinpahs-cross-of-iron-1977.

[cinemajunkie70]

Rest In Peace David Warner!

[skelegun]

I watched “Cross of Iron” (1977) directed by Sam Peckinpah last night. I highly recommend it to people who like historical films, and anti-war movies. Below will be some spoilers so if you don’t want those go watch the movie.

It’s set on the Eastern Front in 1943. The film starts with children singing in German while various black and white archive footage WWII plays. The protagonist is a German soldier named Steiner who is disillusioned with the war and with Germany. The central conflict is between him and his newly transferred in superior officer Stransky. Stransky is of Prussian aristocratic blood, and gave up a cushy posting in occupied Paris for the chance to win the Iron Cross. They instantly despise each other as their first interaction is Stransky ordering Steiner to execute a Soviet child soldier they took prisoner, which Steiner refuses to do. Steiner tells Stransky to do it himself if he wants to so badly, Stransky can’t bring himself to though.

Shortly after arriving, Stransky discovers that his adjutant Lt. Triebig is a gay, and in a relationship with a subordinate, and uses this as blackmail against him, threatening him and his boyfriend both with execution, telling them he will hang them together slowly. Soviets attack their position and in the chaos, Stransky cowers in his bunker, the child prisoner they took is gunned down in the crossfire, and Steiner is wounded.

Steiner wakes up in a hospital, and there is a really neat sequence where we experience his concussion through surreal editing. Steiner returns to the front and is given the rank of Sergeant. Stransky asks him to sign a document saying he witnessed Stransky lead the counterattack so that he may receive his Iron Cross. The document requires two officers to sign, and the blackmailed Triebig is the other.

When Steiner refuses to sign it he and Triebig are called before Colonel Brandt, Brandt basically confirms he knows that Stransky is a lying sack of shit, and if Steiner won’t sign the sign document he will launch an investigation would could lead to both Stransky and Triebig being punished. This causes Steiner to hesitate, and have a breakdown explaining to Brandt that he hates the war, he hates Germany, and he hates every officer even the more sympathetic ones like Brandt.

Shortly after this Soviets launch a massive offensive against the Germans, and Stransky receives the order to retreat. He orders Triebig to give the retreat order to Steiner’s platoon, but once Triebig starts to speak into the phone, Stransky cuts the phone line. Steiner and his men never receive the order and are soon engulfed in a massive Soviet attack. This sequence was spectacular, as real authentic WWII T-34 tanks were used. At one point in the battle Steiner and his men are forced to take shelter in a broken factory, which leads to an awesome scene where a T-34 drives right through the wall of the factory!

Steiner and his men are now trapped behind enemy lines. They desperately try to make it back to the German lines, at one pointing stumbling upon an unsuspecting all female Soviet brigade. Two of Steiner’s men try to take advantage of the captured Russian women and are killed. Steiner let’s the surviving women go but takes their uniforms. They use the ill-fitting uniforms to infiltrate the Soviet lines. He contacts the German command and informs them he survived and will be returning with some Russian POWs (his men in Russian uniforms). Stransky had assumed Steiner was dead, and without him to testify Brandt wouldn’t be able to prosecute him and Triebig. When Stransky learns though that Steiner survived and will be returning with a bunch of men in Soviet uniforms he suggests to Triebig that “accidents” happen in war and that he will trust Triebig to handle it.

As Steiner and his men approach the German lines disguised as surrending Soviet forces, Triebig orders a machine gunner to fire on them. The loader pleads with him not to, as they look like unarmed Soviet prisoners with their hands up being marched by a few German soldiers, but to no avail. Most of Steiner’s men are cut to ribbons. The Soviets begin bombarding the German position. Steiner reaches the German trench and Triebig tries to squirm out of responsibility, Steiner in a fit of rage guns him down. The Soviets start their massive assault at this time, and Colonel Brandt basically accepts his fate and prepares to go down in a blaze of glory.

Steiner finds Stransky, and tells him that Triebig failed. Stransky pretends to not know what he is talking about. Steiner threatens to kill him, but Stransky says that he is no coward. Steiner decides to show him “where the iron crosses grow” and hands him a gun. Stransky thinks about killing Steiner with the gun but decides against it and follows him into battle. Steiner starts to cackle like a madman as Stransky starts shooting at a Soviet child soldier before running out of ammo and desperately asking Steiner how to reload his gun. The film cuts to various black and white still images of war crimes as children sing and Steiner cackles.

It was a fantastic anti-war film. The action sequences were amazingly well shot, and the use of authentic WWII weaponry and vehicles were fantastic. Also I found the subplot about Triebig and his homosexuality interesting for a movie from 70s, yes he is an antagonist in the film but he is an unwilling one, who you see his gradual corruption at Stransky’s hands, it’s arguable that he didn’t cross any moral threshold until the end when he ordered the firing at the prisoners. Steiner even seemed sympathetic towards him to a certain point as evidenced by his reluctance to testify against Stransky when Brandt mentioned that it would also implicate Triebig.

My only real gripe with the movie is the ending, I felt it could have used more work. It just kind of ends abruptly. I read however that they had a much more spectacular ending planned but they ran out of both time and budget so they had to cobble something together last moment.

I highly recommend it. Apparently there is a sequel where Steiner returns, and this time is in France, and is plotting to kill Hitler or something, it’s by a different director and it got terrible reviews. It sounds really dumb and I probably won’t watch it, I kinda interpreted the ending of this one that Steiner accepted his fate and him and Stransky probably died off screen moments later. Having him survive and now be on the Western front seems like kinda of a cop out.

[estoyrodeadodeineptos]

[spryfilm]

4K Blu-ray review: “Cross of Iron” (1977)

[magnusbae]

Star Wars: Republic #59 || Darth Vader (2017) #01

[cimmerian-war-shrine]

[frnndlcs]

Cross of Iron, Sam Peckinpah, 1977

[misterivy]

R.I.P. David Warner (1941 - 2022)

[brookheimer]

shiv was not being altruistic nor intellectually self-interested when she voted against kendall. that was pure raw visceral desperation to maintain some semblance of dignity that she felt kendall being ceo would shred her of. sometimes people do not act in other people’s best interests or their own best interests. sometimes people do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons just because it feels like the right, the only, thing to do. shiv could not let kendall be ceo. she just couldn’t. not because she wanted to sacrifice herself to “stop the cycle,” not because she made a calculation and decided tom was her best interest — because the thought of kendall being ceo and acting like That the rest of their lives when shiv earned that job, she fucking earned it, that was too much to fucking bear. watching him sit in dad’s chair, conduct that vote, grin with entitlement and cockiness and certainty — seeing that elicited a visceral painful all-consuming sensation not dissimilar to overwhelming nausea that, summed up in two words, would simply be: fuck. no. she couldn’t live with that. she just couldn’t. it’s not kind. it’s not smart. it’s just human. painfully, destructively human. because sometimes, that’s all there is to it. not just for shiv, but for everyone. god knows roman and kendall have had those same feelings, made those same self-destructing yet necessary-feeling decisions throughout the show. why does it have to be different for shiv? why can’t she be painfully destructively human, prone to impulsive ill-conceived viscerally felt actions, like everyone else? why are we incapable of allotting her the same nuance and humanity (the good and the bad), the same trauma-informed self-destructive life-ruining hamartias, as we do her brothers? why can’t we fit a whole woman in our heads?

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

FEBRUARY FINDS -- MY ONLINE CURATED COLLECTION CONTINUES -- PART 1 OF 2.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on assorted Tumblr Cover Photos for the month of February 2024, and featuring the faces and names of:

A double splash page of Wraithkind infecting planet Earth, from "ROM" Vol. 1 #49 (December, 1983)

American actor James Coburn as Steiner in the WWII-themed/anti-war film "Cross of Iron" (1977)

"Dying for Who" 7 inch by UK crust punk/D-beat band HELLKRUSHER

Venom VS. Iron Man, artwork by Kevin Hopgood, story by Len Kaminski

Whiskey photography by David Luciano

A promotional film still from the classic American apocalyptic noir "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955)

Promotional animation still from 1985 cult/dark fantasy Disney film "The Black Cauldron."

Promo photography for "First Issue" (1978), debut album by British post-punk group PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED

Sources: www.bonappetit.com/story/history-of-my-long-drinking-life, View Comic Online, Picuki, Popmatters, Slant Magazine, Letterboxd, Reelgood, various, etc...

[cinemajunkie70]

The happiest of birthdays in the afterlife to my other father, Sam Peckinpah! He and his movies mean everything to me!