Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

633 SQUADRON (1964)

Made during the heyday of WWII ‘impossible mission’ pics (like THE GUNS OF NAVARONE/’61; HEROES OF TELEMARK/’65; WHERE EAGLES DARE/’69), this rare feature from prolific tv megger Walter Grauman tells a heroic, fact-inspired tale of an R.A.F. raid on a top-secret Nazi factory hidden in the Norwegian fiords. (Hey, could this be the same ‘heavy-water’ factory that was the mission target in TELEMARK?) Cliff Robertson, just out of a Navy uniform in yet another WWII mission pic (he was JFK in PT 109/’63), seems weary of battle, or perhaps weary of his disinterested love interest, Maria Perschy. But they’re both more plausible than George Chakiris as her brother, a Norwegian(!) resistance fighter. The film is handsomely shot by Ted Scaife and has a fine pedigree in scripters Howard Koch & James Clavell though it's a paint-by-the-numbers gig. But the effects are variable (even the strafing looks fake) and Ron Goodwin’s over-active score, which sports a catchy, pulsating main theme (a tarantella!), has been given a very odd, up-front acoustic. Still, even second-drawer WWII adventure yarns boast dramatic tropes that just won’t quit.

No comments: