SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

russellalancampbell "Operation Crossbow" was quite a hit in its day but is not seen as being in the same league as films such as "The Guns of Navarone" or "The Great Escape". Nevertheless, it is a very worthy film on many levels.Firstly, the cast is uniformly excellent with supporting roles taken by some of Britain's acting luminaries such as Trevor Howard, John Mills and Richard Todd. The leading man is George Peppard who plays the role with his characteristically understated charm and, when called upon, a very believable physicality. Some have been critical of the fact that Sophia Loren is billed as a co-star and has very limited screen time. However, her performance as an innocent caught up in a desperate and finally unfairly cruel situation is worth watching. So too is the performance of her killer played by Lilli Palmer who embodies the emotional control, deceptiveness, resourcefulness and cool ruthlessness required by resistance contacts whose every move was potentially their last. Bouquets to Barbara Rutting who plays the real life character of Hannah Reitsch with a steely resolve and belief that had me looking up the life story of the Nazi test pilot. She remained a dedicated National Socialist until her death and was highly critical of post-war Germany and Germans. She was appalled at the fact that German soldiers by the late 60's were allowed to wear beards and that Germany was in her words now a "nation of bankers and car builders". She won many awards for her feats of aviation after the war. Other historical figures such as Constance Babington Smith, a key figure in identifying V1 rocket sites, and Professor Lindemann, who dismissed the Nazi rocket program as being a hoax, are, to my knowledge, faithfully portrayed by Sylvia Syms and Trevor Howard respectively.The pace of the film is another highlight. The story is told through a number of points of view including the Nazi rocketry program and its own attempts at espionage and counter espionage. Almost every scene has an element of suspense - a mini story within the story. There are also some moments of humour seamlessly laced into the drama. Well done to the editor who was faced with the complex task of melding so many story elements into a very cohesive whole.Lastly, the action scenes and in particular the final destruction of the rocket production plant is comparable to any such "destroy the villain's lair" scene including those in the Bond series. The stunts and special effects stand up very well after almost 50 years.

vostf Despite the nice production values this war movie doesn't rise above a pedestrian telling of some heroic mission 'round the end of WWII.Ah, and it happens to be about V1 and V2 German secret weapons.Ah, and there are mighty good actors scattered in it.The rest is a soulless movie with a big lousy procrastinating device: the extended cameo by Sophia Loren. She gets top billing, she gets a couple of bland lines in uninteresting scenes opposite George Peppard, and then that's all.Then the movie goes on, at the pace of a diesel engine, seemingly content with its historical background.

zardoz-13 This tense World War II thriller about the threat that the Nazi V-1 and V-2 rockets posed to the Allies after D-Day in 1944 does not surpass "The Dam Busters." Director Michael Anderson helmed both films, and producer Carlo Ponti blew major bucks on this large-scale saga about sabotage behind enemy lines in an underground German laboratory. Nevertheless,this atmospheric, star-laden movie lacks the momentum and the charisma of "The Dam Busters." Aside from George Peppard and Sophia Loren, who appears in an cameo, a line-up of classic British actors, including John Mills, Richard Johnson, Tom Courtenay, Trevor Howard, Anthony Qayle, Richard Todd, Allan Cuthbertson and Patrick Wymark, dominate the cast. It is great to have so many of them on-screen at the same time. Predictably, however, these civilized chaps chat quite often for lengthy periods about information that we have to know about but are not shown. The serious espionage military action follows a surefire formula and the characters remain unruffled throughout the action whenever they have an opportunity to react. Anderson and scenarists Emeric Pressburger of "One of Our Aircraft is Missing," Derry Quinn, and Ray Rigby of "The Hill" struggle to enliven this tight-lipped melodrama with elements of surprise and terror in a narrative that takes its toll on all the Allied characters trapped behind enemy lines in what boils down to a suicidal mission. The action opens with German scientists trying to figure out why their flying bombs crash. As one Nazi scientist explains to Peppard, they are experiencing trouble with vibration. Eventually, photos of mysterious launching ramps intrigue the British into bombing the site as well as sending in skilled saboteurs who are specialists in rocket propelled technology. Peppard, Courtenay, and Jeremy Kemp volunteer to bail out over enemy country and carry out sabotage. No sooner have the British parachuted in than the V-1 rockets start raining down terror on London. Our heroes have to figure out some what to expose a factory some 80 feet underground. Peppard holds a number of factory workers at gun point while he opens the launch windows so the British bombers can see where the plant is. The explosions that devastate the factory are terrific, especially as the Nazis attempt to launch one missile during the bombing raid. Sophia Loren's last scene comes as quite a shock and adds fiber to this thriller. The sensation that anybody can die enhances the tension in the atmosphere. Sadly, "Operation Crossbow" misses the mark and amounts to little more than a respectable wartime white-knuckler. Altogether, "Operation Crossbow" amounts to a flawed, heavy-handed, but traditional World War II thriller with the Germans as the in-name-only villains and the Allies as the heroes. Composer Rod Goodwin of "Where Eagles Dare" and "633 Squadron" provided the exceptional orchestral music.

vitaleralphlouis OPERATION CROSSBOW was a box office disaster, possibly because of the dreadful title as well as a trailer that makes the film look awful; BUT...The film itself is a way-above-average WW II story --- brilliantly directed, well acted, lavishly produced, with a cast of over a dozen stars. The on-location filming in Europe, in wide screen color, is another big plus.The story involves the German development of missile bombs as well as the V-2 rockets that devastated London in the early part of the war (before American involvement). This is the story of the intelligence agents assigned to infiltrate the manufacturing plant for these new high-tech weapons, carefully protected by 80 feet of rock in the German Alps. Very fine movie. Not one dull minute. Nuff said!