I don’t know how many of you remember movies from the early 1970s, or were even alive in the 1970s, but the period from 1969 to 1975 witnessed a wealth of gritty, nihilistic B-movie dramas.  The protagonists were often shady anti-heroes involved in some violent pursuit either above or below the law.

Easy Rider in 1969 probably spawned the genre (or Bonnie and Clyde in 1967), and was shortly followed by Dirty Harry (1971), Badlands (1973), Death Wish (1974), and my personal favorite, Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), among many others.  The genre died out about the time Smokey and the Bandit arrived in 1977, when a smirking Burt Reynolds and an over-the-top Jackie Gleason turned it into a southern-fried mockery.

This type of film was personified by Charles Bronson, the lead in Death Wish, who typified the craggy, mumbling, speak-little-but-carry-a-big-Magnum character that was often at the center of these movies.  Bronson, like Clint Eastwood, was never very likeable in his films, but he had an air of cold-blooded ruthlessness that made you cheer for him anyway, as the baddies he dispatched were always much more sinister (but much less charismatic) than he was.

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The Great Escape (1963) is one of those films that no matter how many times I see it, I find a new way to appreciate it even more. Director John Sturges (Never So Few, The Magnificent Seven) brings to the screen this World War II adventure about allied soldiers who stage one of the greatest massive escapes from a new type of German POW camp.

Steve McQueen (Capt. Virgil “The Cooler King” Hilts), James Garner ( Lt. Robert “The Scrounger” Hendley), Richard Attenborough (Squadron Leader Roger “The Big X” Bartlett), Charles Bronson (Lt. Danny “The Tunnel King” Velinski), James Coburn (Flying Officer Louis “The Manufacturer” Sedgwick) and Donald Pleasence (Lt. Colin “The Forger” Blythe) make up the cast of escape artists.

The German Luftwaffe (Air Force) has created a new type of POW camp in which “all their rotten eggs” can be placed in one heavily guarded basket. Allied POWs have been gathered from all stockades in Germany and are brought to Stalag Luft III outside of Sagan, Germany. The new camp commandant, Col. von Luger (Hannes Messemer) informs the new prisoners that there will be no escape attempts and if any try they will be executed. The senior allied officer, Group Captain Ramsey (James Donald) tells the commandant that it is the sworn duty of every prisoner to try and escape.

Von Luger feels comfortable that the new facility will make it impossible for any to escape. Within the first few minutes of arriving in the camp, the main characters begin probing for weaknesses among the camp’s guards, the wire, and the conning towers which overlook everyone and everything within the camp. Several make attempts to try and escape but are quickly discovered and prove to be a handful for their captors.

The most notable of these attempts is perpetrated by Capt Hilts (McQueen), an American flier who throws his baseball over the “wire of death” which is erected in front of the camp perimeter fence. Hilts informs one of his fellow American inmates that between the two towers at night, makes it almost impossible for them to see someone trying to cut through the fence. He is discovered by one guard and is shot at by another in one of the towers.

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This week’s pick goes behind the lines of World War II France with the 1967 release of Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen. The film stars the legendary Lee Marvin as Major John Reisman, an American OSS (pre C.I.A.) operative chosen by Allied command to recruit, train, and drop twelve convicted American military prisoners into France before the Normandy invasion to wipe out a chateau full of German brass. Aldrich adapts E.M. Nathanson’s novel to bring one of the 1960s most successful war movies to the screen.

The cast is a who’s who of some of Hollywood’s best talent. Ernest Borgnine (Maj. Gen. Worden), Charles Bronson (Joseph Wladislaw), Jim Brown (Robert T. Jefferson), John Cassavetes (Victor R. Franko), Richard Jaeckel (Sgt. Clyde Bowren), George Kennedy (Maj. Max Armbruster), Ralph Meeker (Capt. Stuart Kinder), Robert Ryan (Col. Everett Dasher Breed), Telly Savalas (Archer J. Maggott), Donald Sutherland (Vernon L. Pinkley), Clint Walker (Samson Posey), and Robert Webber (Brig. Gen. Denton).

Major Reisman is selected for this mission due to his illustrious reputation for behind the lines action, but he is also well known for exceeding his orders and showing borderline insubordination for his superiors. Both General Worden and Denton tell Reisman that the twelve men have a temporary stay of their sentences for the mission.

Reisman knows fully well that it’s a suicide mission and asks the Generals to reconsider and that the only way for these men to go along with such a deal, is to pardon them for their crimes and that they be returned to active duty at their former ranks. It’s a tough sell, but Gen. Worden agrees and Reisman has just a few short months to train these convicts and turn them into an elite commando unit.

Most of the twelve men are serving long prison sentences, but five (Franko, Jefferson, Maggott, Posey and Wladislaw) are to be hung for murder. Reisman sells the promise of amnesty to these five, because they are the ones with the most to lose. Reisman tells them all that they are dependent of one another and that if any try to escape, fail to add up, or quit, they will all be sent back to prison.

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Battle of the Bulge (1965) was an Anglo-American production directed by Ken Annakin (The Longest Day).  The film debuted at the Cinerama Dome Theater in Hollywood on December 16, 1965, which was the twenty first anniversary of when the battle began. Filmed in ultra Panavision 70mm, the film also boasts a cast which includes Dana Andrews (Col. Pritchard), Charles Bronson (Major Wolinski), Henry Fonda (Lt. col. Kiley), Robert Ryan (Gen. Grey), Telly Savalas (Sgt. Guffy), and Robert Shaw (Col. Hessler).

Even though the film was made with an expensive budget and tried to convey the essence of the battle and its effects on the beginning of the end of the war in Europe, the film failed to bring realism to the screen. Battle of the Bulge for me is a guilty pleasure film because it has a great cast, great battle sequences, and a great score, but the film does make me laugh at certain aspects for instance, trying to pass off the Spanish desert as the the snow covered wilderness of northern Europe, or passing off American Patton tanks painted grey like German Tiger Tanks. These were major gripes from veterans who were astounded that the filmmakers could overlook such important details.

That would be like trying to recreate George Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware River to capture the Hessian garrison while doing so on landing craft. In those days, it was hard to film on actual battlefield locations, or try to acquire many armaments, so the production designers had to do whatever was necessary. In my opinion, they should have tried a little harder for realistic landscapes and suitable German tanks.

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For a few years now there has been plenty of talk about the possible remake of the 1972 film The Mechanic, which starred Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent. Many different major action players were considered for the role that Bronson originally played, including Sly Stallone and Vin Diesel, but it wasn’t until recently that pen hit paper and Jason Statham was signed to play hitman Arthur Bishop.

From there, it was a pretty easy decision to cast up-and-coming star Ben Foster as Steve McKenna, a role first made famous by Jan-Michale Vincent. In the film, Bishop is a hit man who is on his way out of the business and takes McKenna under his wing as a protege to pass along his legacy. Things, of course, go awry from there in an action-packed cacophony of violence.

Now, with both Statham and Foster filling in, it almost carries the same the same impact, with Statham coming off of a nearly 10 year run as an action star, and Ben Foster still working his way up the “leading man” ladder. The remake is also directed by action director Simon West, who has brought such films as Con Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider to the screen.

Check out the first trailer for the film after the jump, and be sure to catch The Mechanic in theaters on December 15th.

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