(1970) Hornets' Nest
WAR
Although the movie is not base on fact, this movie experience is still an involving one to the same degree as other fictional war movies such as "Where Eagles Dare", "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "The Guns of Navarone" and "The Dirty Dozen" to name a few.
The opening has families of the young boys looking out hiding behind the bushes while the SS were lining them across the road, before Captain Friedrich Von Hect (Sergio Fantoni) asks them where "The Partisans" are! And when nobody would not give him an answer, they are then gunned down while the young boys look on helplessly, motivating them to seek for a little retribution. We are then introduced to Turner (Rock Hudson) and his recruits, and just as they are parachuting off from a plane and coming down, they are then met with SS men shooting at the resistance fighters as they are coming out of the bushes and killing all of the parachuter's except for one, who happens to be Turner played by Rock Hudson. And because one of the resistance fighters double crossed them, he was immediately shot and killed. And while Turner was hanging on a tree, the boys then manage to reach to him first, cut him down and hid him inside of a cave. The boys leader, Aldo (Mark Colleano) then goes back down to the village, only so he can fetch a doctor as none of them know whether he was hit or not. And it is not long before Aldo suspects he too may be double crossed as well, as he manages to escape before he was being seen. After barely escaping, he then managed to use one of the boys to convince a female doctor (Sylva Koscina) who was actually a surgeon to come with them. They hold her hostage calling Turner, Soldier and calling her Fraulein. We then find out he is heavily bruised, and she does eventually treat him. We later find out that the resistance boys kept "Soldier" alive because they want him to train them how to use a machine gun, while his objective was to blow up a particular dam. We then find out that besides showing them how to shoot, they also wanted Soldier to guide them to get back at some of the SS who gunned down their families. We also find out that this a group of about 15 boys who are taking on two tasks.
While I was watching this, I had my own assumptions how it was going to be ended, but was quite relieved that my presumptions were not the way that it happened.
