The ever efficient German war machine had little trouble sweeping over Greece, yet some stubborn resistance remained active. Various civilian prisoners were thrown with the officers in Stalag VII-Z, a camp on the site of a Neptune temple under two masters: SS Major Volkmann enjoys the unpleasant ways of brutal Nazi extremism, but the gentleman camp commandant, former dodgy Viennese art merchant Major Otto Hecht, definitely prefers the finer things in life, regardless of political 'correctness'. Therefore the camp, meant to sent Berlin archaeological treasures, actually keeps the true treasures for his private black market trade, via Hecht's sister in Switzerland. His 'guests', all fortunate to be spared by him the usual harsh treatment of escapees etc., include the brilliant archeology professor Blake, the Italian cook Bruno Rotelli, American show-people Charlie and Dottie Del Mar, and even black US POW Nat Judson. Hecht's hospitality seems poorly rewarded when they mount an elaborate plan to take over the camp, in league with the local Greek resistance leader Zeno, who is determined to prevent the arbitrary execution of villagers as reprisal. As they all seem to agree upon a common goal, the priceless art treasures in the monastery on nearby Mount Athena, Hecht is persuaded to join for a cut, but Zeno has a military agenda, as the allied invasion is approaching, and the monastery's mountain is also the cover for a secret German rocket installation… During World War II, the prisoners of a German camp on a Greek island are trying to escape. They don't want only their freedom, but they also seek for an ineffable treasure hidden in a monastery at the top of the island's mountain. I only recently got to see this movie and on the basis of the all-start cast and the still pictures that I had seen I was expecting a well-made and slightly offbeat war film. I was very disappointed. This movie can't make up its mind whether it wants to be a comedy or an action / adventure yarn, and in the end it largely fails to deliver on either front. Roger Moore is hopelessly miscast as the antiques-loving German (or rather Austrian) PoW camp commandant, and a number of the other characters such as Sonny Bono's Italian chef, Michael Sheard's oafish German sergeant and Telly Savalas' Greek resistance leader are extremely caricature-ish. Even Richard Rowntree's PoW character comes across merely as Shaft in a GI uniform (coming out with expressions like `he's one cool cat'). The character Charlie (played by Elliot Gould) is a civilian USO entertainer whose plane was shot down over the Mediterranean, with him and his female colleague being captured and placed in the PoW camp. However, when these two are introduced early on, we see them looking like a pair of well-heeled American holidaymakers. Both are immaculately groomed and dressed, and they certainly don't look like two people who have just been fished out of the Mediterranean after their plane has been shot out of the sky - the woman is even lugging all her suitcases behind her!!! I assume that we're supposed to believe that they too would have survived the shootdown without even a scuff mark and then floated up from the plane wreckage to be conveniently retrieved. I have to admit that initially I found the Charlie character fairly amusing and even laughed at some of his one-liners. But ultimately he became more annoying than funny. The action scenes later on were also fairly predictable and boring. I got the impression that the makers of this movie were trying to combine elements from those classic war films `The Guns Of Navarone', `The Great Escape' and `Kelly's Heroes' (we even had David Niven who appeared in the former and Telly Savalas from the latter). But this movie is not a classic in any way, shape or form. It oozes mediocrity in all areas. On the plus side, the Greek islands location is wonderful and the camera work is on the whole pretty good. And the beautiful Claudia Cardinale graces any movie that she's in. On balance though I'd have to give this film just 3½ out of 10. Not the worst war film I've ever seen, but definitely `below average' and given the amount of big names in it the end result is a massive disappointment. Despite the interesting cast (Elliot Gould! David Niven! Roger Moore as a German! Sonny Bono!) and the truly amazing scenery on the island of Rhodes, I have to disagree with other posters on this site who have given this film even a modestly positive rating. This has to be one of the worst war films ever.<br/><br/>If you've ever seen Kelly's Heroes (1970), you may remember Donald Sutherland's character Oddball, who spoke in a late-60s, early-70s hippy-dippy patois, calling things "groovy" and "out-a-sight" and so on. This kind of anachronistic speech spoils large sections of Escape to Athena. I wonder how old the script was at the time it was made… When Gould's character says to Moore's that he will have the "grooviest camp around," I had to check the release date (NINE years after Kelly's Heroes).<br/><br/>***SPOILERS AHEAD*** Near the end of the film, when the true objective of the Greek resistance becomes clear (a V-2 type rocket installation), the Germans roll out one of their weapons, trailed by a company of men in (anachronistic) mirrored-visor helmets. I presume that buying the helmets was cheaper than hiring more extras, since they allowed any actor, even one that had appeared earlier, who had been shot or blown up, to reappear in a jumpsuit and helmet and…march…slowly… in lockstep….behind…a rocket…without performing any function whatsoever! It's laughable! I though I had suddenly fallen through a filmic wormhole into a bad James Bond imitation.<br/><br/>A complete waste of time.
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295 weeks ago