Movie review: ‘Cross of Iron’

FloridaGator80

I have always enjoyed films about World War II. From those with great technical accuracy (“Saving Private Ryan” – click here to read my non-review) to those with great casts (“The Battle of the Bulge” – click here to read my review – or “The Great Escape” – click here to read my review) or great drama (“The Caine Mutiny” – click here to read my review – or  “Stalag 17”), I’ve always liked them better than westerns. As a baby boomer, my generation is more defined by WWII than the western frontier … at least in my book or movie screen. I have also always enjoyed the films of director Sam Peckinpah, whose only film set in WWII is “Cross of Iron” and while not the equal of those mentioned above or even of his best western, it is solid and effective. Unless you try to watch “Convoy,” you simply can’t go wrong with an effort by Peckinpah.

‘Cross of Iron’
(1977; 119 minutes; rated R; directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell and James Mason)

PECKINPAH TAKES AIM AT WWII

(NOTE: I reorganized and expanded this review with additional opinion, more trivia and the updating of links on June 5, 2018. I again expanded the review on April 20, 2020. I again expanded this review on Feb. 23, 2025.)

Director Sam Peckinpah is known for his westerns, culminating with the best being the classic “The Wild Bunch” in 1968. He would make other westerns, but this is easily his benchmark film. Missing from Peckinpah’s resume is a body of work with World War II, a canvas better suited to him than other directors, and he only did one: “Cross of Iron.” It’s tough, gritty and violent. However, it’s not anywhere near his best, but it’s still good and watchable.

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“Cross of Iron” is named for the German combat bravery medal the Iron Cross. The film is the story of a squad of German soldiers being squeezed to death by relentless Russian pressure on the Taman peninsula in 1943. Geography buffs, quick! Where’s the Taman peninsula? Answer: in southern Russia with the Black Sea on the south and the Sea of Azov on the north; it is southeast of the Ukraine and directly south, although very far away, from Moscow.

In “Cross of Iron,” James Coburn stars as “Sgt. Rolf Steiner,” a grizzled soldier who leads an equally grizzled group of soldiers. He is held in awe by his commanding colonel, played by James Mason, and his section leader “Lt. Meyer” played by Igo Galo.

Less enthralled with Coburn is the martinet “Capt. von Stransky” played by Maximilian Schell, who volunteered for duty on the Russian front (possibly the only German officer to do so by 1943). He is set on winning the Iron Cross in battle and the initial imagery is outstanding: He arrives sitting imperiously on a pile of his luggage but soon is knocked off his figurative horse.

Scenes of Peckenpah’s trademark slow-motion violence are interspersed with longer periods of dialogue between the characters. I’d say this is where the film loses its track: The dialogue doesn’t match the action and the action is far too superior to whatever interpersonal issues play out on screen.

Mason as “Col. Brandt” and his adjutant “Capt. Kiesel,” played by journeyman actor David Warner, opine about the war on their dark terms while Schell is still the committed Nazi. While he should just be a pawn in games between officers, Coburn’s character is actually both the fuel and spark to the fire that ultimately incinerates them all.

Here’s a look at the work of some of the cast:

  • An Oscar winner (not for this one), Coburn eases smoothly through his “Steiner” character, but he really doesn’t put it into another gear to elevate the character. He’s somewhat distracted in this film, but he’s so good that his talent makes sure this is a positive mark for his resume. Coburn was in “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape.” He also had a small part in the cult favorite “Looker” (click here to read my review), but he deserved more screen time (click here to read my review). I also liked him in a tiny role on the spectacle, big-cast epic “Midway” (click here to read my review) from 1976. He won his statue for “Affliction.” Coburn died at 74 in 2002 of a heart attack.
  • An Oscar and Golden Globe winner (not for this one), Schell is simply pitch-perfect as the martinet who is first terrified in battle, but by the end is just as defeated, soulless and blasé about the violence as anyone. Schell is rightfully extolled as one of the most successful foreign-born actors in Hollywood. He won his major awards for his role in “Judgment at Nuremberg” (winning out over Spencer Tracy from the same film). He also had a very dark role (no pun intended) in Disney’s “The Black Hole.” He was also nominated for an Oscar for “The Man in the Glass Booth” and I thought he did great work as the former Nazi in “The Odessa File” (click here to read my review). Schell died at 83 in 2014 of pneumonia.
  • A three-time Oscar nominee (not for this one), Mason does his usual excellent and smooth turn here. You can’t simply fault him in any way, but, by the end of the film, you somehow believe he could have done a little more. Mason was in “Lolita” and “North by Northwest” and was nominated for “The Verdict,” “Georgy Girl” and “A Star is Born” (with Judy Garland; not the remake crapfest with the overrated Barbara Streisand, much less the more recent overrated “reboot” crapfest by and with Bradley Cooper). I liked him in the total stinker “ffolkes” with Roger Moore (click here to read my review) and he was very effective in “The Boys from Brazil” (click here to read my review) and as a vampire’s familiar in the terrifically scary TV effort “Salem’s Lot” from the Stephen King novel (click here to read my review). Mason died at 75 in 1984 of a heart attack.
  • A Primetime Emmy winner and nominee, Warner does a very competent job here. His character didn’t have a chance – or the depth – to be elevated by Warner’s considerable talent and so you just won’t see it. Warner was in the megahit “Titanic” and I like him in the little-remembered flick “Time After Time” (click here to read my review), where he plays “Jack the Ripper” chased into modern-day San Francisco by H.G. Wells via time machine (BTW … this premise really works). He’s had a prolific career of 251 credits spanning seven decades beginning in 1961. He won for “Masada” and was nominated for “Holocaust” and I also enjoyed his work in “The Omen” (click here for my review) before he loses his head late in the film and he was in Disney’s original “TRON” as the bad guy. Warner died of cancer only five days before his 81st birthday in 2022.
  • Senta Berger plays “Eva” and she’s Coburn’s love interest as a nurse at the hospital where he’s sent to recover from battle wounds. Her role is almost an afterthought to the rest of the film and that’s too bad. She has talent and deserved better than this character. You won’t recognize most of Berger’s resume from her work on foreign television, but look back to the 1960s and you’ll find her all over American TV programming. One acting job you might remember is that she was in the film “The Ambushers” – which was a 007-ripoff with Dean Martin that used the “Matt Helm” spy novel franchise as the source material.

Of course, there are members of Coburn’s company as well as one soldier who becomes Schell’s lackey through blackmail, but none elevate his character and therefore I’m not going to spend any time reviewing their work. Let me just write that the supporting cast offers a solid, but not spectacular, foundation for the stars.

Peckinpah uses a hospital as a scene to display the utter despair that had reached the German soldiers on the Russian front. Wounded soldiers here have ghastly wounds and Coburn wanders through them as well as the recesses of his psyche.

The most memorable moment comes as a staff officer greets wounded soldiers. He reaches out to shake one’s hand. The soldier offers a stump of a right arm. The general then offers to shake the left and gets another stump. The soldier then gives the Nazi salute with his foot.

The film winds through several battles and Coburn and his men cut off and having to fight their way back to their own lines and the final showdown between Coburn and Schell. The action sequences are truly superior, especially the penultimate fight for the tractor factory, and are very true to the period (especially since the ubiquitous U.S. Sherman or Patton tanks are not used as the pretend tanks of the combatants as seen in so many films).

If you like war movies with good action and some depth of characters, then “Cross of Iron” is one you shouldn’t miss. However, it isn’t as good as “Enemy at the Gates” (click here for my review) and is head-and-shoulders above dreck such as “The Big Red One” (click here for my review). Actually, Peckinpah’s best film is not a western – it is the Steve McQueen-Ali MacGraw action-adventure “The Getaway” (click here for my review).

“Cross of Iron” didn’t rank very high at the U.S. box office in 1977. I couldn’t find any box office totals for it, but Wiki reports that it was made on a budget of $6 million. The No. 1 film of the year by far and away was “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” and that instant sci-fi classic took in $307.2 million, which was more than twice what the No. 2 film took in. The No. 2 film was “Smokey and the Bandit,” Burt’s iconic, classic car flick (click here for my review) with $126.7 million. Here are the films from 1977 that I’ve reviewed:

Additional cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Coburn’s full birth name was James Harrison Coburn III; Mason’s middle name was Neville; Warner’s middle name was Hattersley; and Peckinpah’s full name was David Edward Samuel Ernest Peckinpah Jr. and his nicknames included “Peck” and “Mad Sam.”
  • Coburn was, along with megastar McQueen, among the pallbearers at martial arts star Bruce Lee’s funeral. Coburn studied under and trained and traveled with Lee.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “According to actor Vadim Glowna, Director Sam Peckinpah drank four whole bottles of whiskey or vodka during every day of shooting while sleeping approximately only three or four hours per night.”
  • The film was reportedly financed by German producer of pornography.
  • The film was made in the former Soviet state of Yugoslavia (which was also the location of many other war films, including Clint Eastwood’s “Kelly’s Heroes” in 1970 – click here for my review).
  • Coburn was quoted as saying that Kris Kristofferson was supposed to have a small role in the film, but that he couldn’t make it due to a scheduling conflict.
  • Robert Shaw, who was just off the huge success of being “Capt. Quint” in “Jaws,” reportedly couldn’t come to financial terms to play “Sgt. Steiner.”
  • Of course, the T-34/85 tanks are authentic since Yugoslavia received them over a number of years from the Russians. “Cross of Iron” has probably the most realistic tank footage of any war film. Side note (not from IMDb.com): More than 84,000 T-34 tanks were built by the Soviet Union, including more than 49,000 of the “85” variant (so-called for the millimeter of its cannon). After WWII the T-34 and its variants were used across the Soviet bloc and there’s probably still some in use somewhere on the planet.

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