The Night of the Generals (1967)

Friendly Fire

Uxbridge-Shimoda LLC

Film, Comedy, History, War, Tv & Film, Film Reviews

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2020

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is this a film that shows the ripple effect of one of many World War 2 atrocities, or is it a deeper look at the psyche of a detective and their case that spans decades. On today's episode Adam, Ben, and John still have much in common while they review this 1967 mystery! Available on: Amazon, Apple, and your local library. Support our show Next Film: The Final Countdown (1980) Available on: Amazon and your local library.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	One really interesting property of the war film genre is just how flexible it is as a place for storytelling.
0:08.5	On friendly fire we've seen a large number of straight ahead linear drive tank a to fort B or shoot these guns from this
0:18.0	trench at that trench over their films but some of our favorite films take ingredients from across genres and combine them into something really special.
0:28.0	We've seen Train Escape War film, we've seen Break Out of Prison War film, we've seen Heist War film, and Spy War film and so many others, but Night of
0:39.3	the Generals is a hell of a combination in this regard, a murder mystery in a war film.
0:47.0	It makes me wonder what other genre jams are waiting for us on our show.
0:52.0	Romantic comedy war film, horror war film, summer camp coming
0:56.7	of age film, the mind reels. And it isn't just a combination of genres that makes this
1:02.1	film so astounding it's the combination of genres that makes this film so astounding.
1:03.3	It's the combination of actors involved.
1:05.6	If you've only ever seen Peter O'Toole and Lawrence of Arabia,
1:08.8	get ready to watch him order an entire Warsaw City block leveled by tanks and flamethowers.
1:14.9	And he'll get me started on Omar Sharif here, playing a totally understated investigator
1:19.6	who spends decades chasing down the murderer of some prostitutes from a group of suspects
1:24.5	including their tool, Tom Courtney, and Donald Pleasance. In addition to the film
1:30.2	being a commingling of genres, it's also a weaving together of films about the same thing.
1:36.8	As Night of the Generals joins Valkyrie in constructing the tapestry of Hitler's attempted assassination that elevates both stories.
1:45.4	When a war film makes you focus on the characters instead of the sides of the conflict, it's
1:50.0	bound to force you to make some hard choices. For Benets, why do I have to choose only one of these
1:55.4	Nazis to root for? But that's the magic here. They're all bad guys and yet you want justice
2:02.2	to be served. You want the worst Nazi to be punished
2:05.4	by the good Nazi and then everyone to go to Nuremberg to stand trial and then be imprisoned
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Uxbridge-Shimoda LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Uxbridge-Shimoda LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.