Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

MartinHafer During WWII, two soldiers (Charlton Heston and Harry Guardino) are sent on a secret mission in Nazi-occupied Rome. However, the organized resistance they are told to make contact with doesn't really exist--it's just a couple pathetic souls. So, the two soldiers just hide out in the city--making note of the German forces and sending messages back to headquarters with homing pigeons. There's MUCH more to the film than this, but I don't want to give too much of the plot to you--in case you haven't seen it.While the above sketchy outline doesn't sound the least bit funny, the film is very much a tongue in cheek comedy. LOTS of complications develop as well as romance. The bottom line is that the film is a decent light comedy--the sort of thing they began making in the 60s and 70s--once memories of this god-awful war began to fade. A cute but slight story worth your time.By the way, the Irish priest (Arthur Shields) might well remind you of Barry Fitzgerald by his look and performance. Well, that's because despite the different stage names, Shields WAS Barry Fitzgerald's brother! Also, while a small role, I loved Rudolf Anders' performance later in the film. Seeing this German commander losing his mind was HIGHLY entertaining and his phone conversation was the best part of the film.

David_Brown I am a fan of this movie, but it is hard to find (I saw it online tonight on Netflix). It is very similar in concept to the "Secret War Of Harry Frigg" with Paul Newman, with the "Fish Out Of Water" American, being in occupied Italy, towards the end of WWII, meeting up with the beautiful Itallian Woman. However it is a better film. What makes it work is the relationship between Heston and "The Itallian Cupcake" Elsa Martinelli. Neither one of the two are doing comedy, or even trying to. They are both very strong willed individuals, who although they belong together, and will be at the end, are not changed by what is happening around them (Unlike Newman's Frigg, or James Garner and Julie Andrews in "The Americanization Of Emily"). Which along with a rare chance to see Heston in a comedy, and awesome sights of Rome, make this worth watching.

verbusen This is one odd bird of a movie. It's really a time capsule of war movies that were meant to be date war movies in the 60's. In the 30's to 60's the traditional date war movie had our heroes in training meeting their love interest and then going to war, this is the way real life often goes and it works if it's done right, although it's hard to find a balance. When you have both elements you can get a decent summer time date war movie that keeps both sexes interests involved. In the 60's these type of films were still made and still are to this day I suppose, but the 60's tried to tweak the date war movie by adding comedy along with the love interest and war combat. This one has little war drama, little love interest (mostly light hearted) and sad to say, little comedy (that works well), it was made for its target audience of the day, mid aged WW2 vets and their wives, and it was probably very well received. I will say that I did chuckle a couple of times so it's not a total loss and everyone seems to act well and it was regarded well in it's time to receive some notice from the Academy, these points and with Charlton Heston makes it worth watching for war movie buffs. We've seen just about everything else. You can catch it on TCM (USA) when they do their 31 days of Oscar run as they did Feb 2009. 5 of 10.

artzau Imagine Heston in role with elaborate costuming and playing second fiddle to one of the greatest upstagers of all time! The amazing thing is old Charlton even looks like he's having a good time. So, who's the guy continually pushing Moses Ben Hur out every scene they share? None other than the great basso from the Met, Salvatore Baccaloni. Now, you should know that Sal had a bad rep at the Met for being a bit of a joker and hard to work with, but the crew loved him. In this film, where Heston and Harry Guardino in his pre-TV days play two GIs in WW2 spying on the Germans, they have to inform the allies as to the morale and preparedness of the Germans. So, how are these two intrepids getting the word back to the Allies? Homing pigeons. No sweat...but, a problemo. The pigeons get eaten by Baccaloni's family for a festa and Sal, not wanting to get into trouble steals some pigeons from...the Germans to replace the ones his family ate. So, when the Germans start reading the messages, they suspect that ... well, it goes on from there. This film is an enjoyable comedy and gave Heston a relief from all those costume roles. Sadly, it was Baccaloni's last film, although he died 7 years later. No video, no DVD. Watch for it on the late show.