Former German officer Ernst Furben comes to American wide-boy Harry Morgan with a story of stolen Nazi gold that has been hidden somewhere. The only man who actually knows where it is hidden is one Reinhard Holtz, who unfortunately is being held in prison for the rest of his life. Employing the services of Sly Wells, Aldo Ray and Hans Schmidt, Harry comes up with a plan to break Holtz out of the maximum security prison, get the location and recover the gold for themselves.
The plot summary makes it sound like a great caper movie with elements of Kelly's Heroes thrown in, its tongue in its cheek and a nice twisty plot. However from the faltering first steps with a clumsy flashback setup, the film fails to really ignite and, although parts are enjoyable and to-formula, it has too many bits thrown in that slow it down. The best bits are the parts where they must execute their plan and often it is so ludicrous that you have no option but to go along with it. These bits just about provide the caper feel that I was expecting but other times it takes itself too seriously and limits the sheer sense of fun that things like this need to survive.
This isn't helped by the visual style of the whole thing or rather, lack of style. Parts of it look like it has been shot in an English northern town in the 1970's and to the eye it comes over as rather dull and dead. The horrible use of music is a real downer as well. Problems associated with the period perhaps but the overall impression is that the film generally lacked effort. On paper the cast seems to suggest that this is not true but in practice the lacklustre collection of performances just enforces the impression. Savalas just about turns up and, although he is a solid enough presence to almost get away with it, you can't help but feel like he is just taking the money and running. Mason is just as poor and turns in a rather dull performance that is far down the list in terms of his career. Culp is so-so, Ray is OK and the fact that Meisner stuck in my mind was probably more to do with the lack of competition as opposed to him being any good himself.
Overall then a fairly dull caper movie that will do little for fans of the genre or even those looking for entertainment. The plot is OK in parts but it generally lacks the fun and energy such a film needs to get by. It looks quite cheap and generally the impression given is a film made without a lot of effort or imagination which is probably a fair summary of it all told.
