jd-116

I stuck with this rotten movie for about an hour before giving up. Even fast-forwarding through the long ballet sequences, this seemed far too long. I kept expecting Mickey Rooney to show up suggesting we put on the show, right now in the rehearsal room. I'm no judge of ballet dancing, but the music seemed pretty second rate.

The characters on display are every one of them, quite detestable, as well as being cardboard cliches.... The bombastic and pretentious actor manager, the talented ingenuouse (two of them), the existing company stars resentful at being being passed-over. Oh and a special shout-out for the absurd figure of Robert Helpman(n), a ludicrous and epicene character that disfigures a number of movies of the period. What can you say.... he must have had a good agent.

I gave it 2 out of 10, it would have been 1, but Anton Walbrook is good in a rather silly part.

This film is so bad it could pass for a James Bond movie of the Roger Moore era. But without the beautiful girls. A puerile script, detestable characters and zero credibility. And that's before I get to the action sequences which were quite risible. I'm perfectly cool with the notion of killing a bunch of Nazi soldiers but when the said Nazi soldiers are shown to be a bunch of half-wits then just what is the point?

Shame, I liked the first ten minutes or so, when he's dodging the booby traps, stealing the stuff and outwitting the savages. But it was all downhill once Denholm Elliott showed up. Not his fault of course, he didn't write this tripe. Two hours of completely wasted time. It seemed longer.