This is a great historical film. It shows how closely fought

the battle against evil was in WWII and how our greatest

generation responded to it.

The film stars Henry Fonda as an all-american Lt. Col. He

is hard working and dedicated. But his superiors are not.

They are chair-warming politically ambitious regular army

types who usually got undeserved promotions to general. Henry

Fonda gathers up the intelligence to show that the germans are

planning a sneak attack, but the generals don’t believe him.

On the other side is General Von Killowitz. The traditional

bloodthirsty prussian officer who loves war and death more than

anything. He is the same sort of German who the Romans guarded

their frontiers against 2,000 years ago. Savage, without

culture and only loving war and pillage. Killowitz is given

huge tank army and told to go capture the gasoline of the

American army. Killowitz isn’t expected to win the war, but

to get Germany enough gas to keep it going until they finish

their rockets, jet fighters and WMDs. Once the WMDs and the

other new weapons are finished, the germans will destroy all

freedom and conquer the world.

Because of the general’s incompetence, the US Army is caught

by suprise by the sneak attack. The germans take advantage

of the situation and revert to their usual barbarism. They

kill prisoners and everything else you would expect. But

after the attack, Fonda manages to find a fighting General and

using his intelligence reports on the german plan, they plan

a strategy to stop the germans.

Henry Fonda knows that Von Killowitz is in charge of the german

army and that the germans are running out of gas. So the

general carefully plans to win by destroying his own gas

supplies before the germans can capture them.

While the Germans have the upper hand for a little while,

they just end up culling out the poor soldiers from the

American Army. Then the real battle starts with the

real americans who have been hardened by war into pure

fighting machines.

Telly Savalas plays a tank commander whose brilliant leadership

and understanding of german tank tactics allows him to destroy

lots of enemy tanks. He was a real soldier. In those days,

men fought with what they had (even if it was a wrecked tank).

Things are really different today when soliders whine about

not having every vehicle armoured in Iraq. But thats what you

get with a so-called professional army.

The movie comes down a final showdown. Von Killowitz’s secret

american-speaking patrols have captured a large supply depot

and while Killowitz is racing there to refuel, Henry Fonda

shows up and discovers their plan. After killing all the

Germans, they improvise an attack on the germans. With real

American initiative, they use the very fuel the germans want

to capture as rolling weapons against the Tank Army of Von

Killowitz. He slows and then halts the advance of the german

tank army. The tanks are slowed just enough that they use

up their remaining fuel. Von Killowitz and his dreams of

war are stopped just short of victory by a handful of GIs.

Von Killowitz burns to death in his tank. Killed by the gas

that might have given Germany the world. His remaining army

has no choice but to abandon their tanks and march home to

germany. We then see Von Killowitz’s closest follower turn

his back on war and german militarism by throwing down his

weapon.

The film ends with a dramatic shot from the air of the

battlefield. We see how close Von Killowitz came and how

his dreams ended in a mass of burning and out of gas tanks

covering the dry arid lands of Belgium.

This is great for history fans and as an educational resource.

I would recommend in addition “Patton” which shows the other

half of the battle. Battle of the Bulge doesn’t tell the story

of how the fighting of the war was messed up by Montgomery. Or

how Patton was held back from finishing Germany off. All that

fuel the germans were going after was fuel that was kept back

from Patton and just piled up in supply dumps because Montgomery

was more interested in his own glory that working as part of a

team.

A++++ (five stars)

Outstanding product.

Sent it to my brother-in-law in the Netherlands who had just visited the Bastogne area. He was unable to buy the movie in Europe

I seen this movie when i was a kid, around the age of 10 , i went to the hobby shop and bought a model of the tiger tank.
the elite german command, and tiger tanks proved a formidable enemy , and we see the americans in their retreat and chaos in which the over come and eventuallly won the battle.
the vhs copy was great, as i read their was more stuff filmed…so let’s get that dvd rolling on the production line.