AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

ma-cortes So-so wartime movie deals with captain Carter (Stephen Boyd ) , a tough but racist commandant , he is assigned by General Matt Clark ( Paul Stewart) a dangerous mission whose aim is avoid to blow up a dam vital to the Allied in 1944 . Carter is parachuted and contacts ¨B¨ company formed by Africo-Americans who dedicate labors on kitchen , cleaning and latrines in trenches. The outfit is formed by a motley group , as the leader lieutenant (Robert Hooks) , a coward ( keep an eye out Richard Pryor) , a hight and corpulent (Grier), , an intelligent professor and cooker ( Moses Gunn ) who knows the German language , a N.Y. Harlem young (Billy Dee Williams) expert on knifes , an idealist and imaginative young ( Glyn Turman ) who writes in his bloc the following : ¨ The company fought magnificently , killing 23 of the enemy before taking the machine gun nest . Lieutenant Wallace cited 3 men , myself included for bravery under fire . I am continually awed by the heroism of this company , under the severest of battle conditions . I will receive medal of honor when we reach Berlin . The fighting has been hard , the strain almost exhausting . I will receive the medal of honor from General Eisenhower but the heroism of ¨ B ¨ company will be preserved by the men who have seen the fight and die ¨. Captain Carter along with Lieutenant Wallace as leaders of the all-black commando assigned to the suicide mission behind enemy lines must prepare the useful unit . After that , the saboteurs contact their allied partisan (Susan Oliver) at a farm . They wreak havoc and kill Nazis to earn the respect of military higher-ups in an exciting final .This low-budgeted and short-runtime warlike Telefilm concerns about an incredible lesson of courage set in WWII ; retelling the racial background problem in the US army . The TV movie produced by Aaron Spelling packs thrills, suspense , lots of action sequences and climatic ending , but doesn't quite hang together . The film belongs to Commandos sub-genre whose maximum examples result to be the classics as ¨Dirty dozen¨ , ¨Guns of Navarone¨ , ¨When eagles dare ¨, ¨ and ¨Kelly's heroes¨ and group of movies that were made during the 60s and 70s regarding warlike adventures about special forces in risked missions . The motion picture is badly realized by George McGowan . He's an usual television director ( Returns to Fantasy island , Murder on flight 502 , Savage run ) and occasionally for cinema ( Frogs , The magnificent seven ride ) . Rating : Below average .

jt_3d I consider anything other than a rough plot outline a spoiler so... ***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I liked this movie. I watched it twice, just to make sure. I'd never heard of it before acquiring it with a lot of WWII films in a 20 pack. Again, the theme of a white 'cracker' being put in charge of a group of soldiers he considers inferior, similar to Go for Broke but more outright racism. Said cracker grows to respect his men, only for this one he only takes seven men instead of the whole company. An odd choice, most likely made by the director, to either focus more on the 'talent', Grier, Williams and Pryor. Or just so he wouldn't have to pay a bunch more actors to be cannon fodder. Whatever the reason, trying to take and hold a dam with seven guys is stupid. As is the lieutenant allowing a deaf guy to go with. I can understand a deaf guy wanting to serve and somehow finding a way to sneak into the army, especially into a so-called service unit. But for the C.O., either one, to allow him on a real combat mission is again, stupid.Anyway, the unit is a mess. This is directly the fault of the commander, a black lieutenant. He's the one who let the men turn into a band of hobos. Lousy assignments or not, these men were supposed to be soldiers. Thus it makes the cracker captain's job that much harder. Still you can see him start to at least consider that he might be wrong as soon as he finds out that the second man he encounters (the first is a rather shiftless Richard Pryor) and threatens for not saluting, is actually an officer and the unit commander. Of course, the lieutenant is still out ranked and should have maybe saluted but since the captain was such a jerk, he didn't really deserve one.But I digress, this is a war movie and war movies should have action. This one does and it's pretty well done. But there's the getting to the mission part, where we encounter a German Frau who is a contact of sorts. She is also the girl from the Star Trek pilot, Vena. Still looking nice. She is wise about war and says stuff that makes the black lieutenant want to give her a peck on the cheek. Naturally cracker captain catches him and scolds him about touching white women. Said white woman proceeds to smack him in the mouth for acting like the racist Nazis she is opposed to. This is really the start of cracker boy's turn around. He apologizes to the black lieutenant and says 'I didn't ask (for this mission) but I expected soldiers'. And as well he should have. Why they assigned this mission to a service unit, who knows. Maybe they were the only unit close enough, maybe they were just expendable. It's never explained. At any rate, they did the job. They took it to the enemy and won the day. Most were lost. Being famous didn't save you in this movie, just like some of the biggies. All in all a solid war film.There is one LOL moment at the end, when Pryor is being helped to the medic jeep. Watch his right hand.

verbusen I got this as part of a 50 Movie Pack Combat Classics on amazon.com and for the price of the whole set this movie and Commando's which is on it also, are worth it alone, it's a good deal. Is this a low budget cheesy made for TV war movie with an over the top racism message? Absolutely! And why not make another over the top war movie with a racism message? Seems good to me, by the way white males must be the most educated when it comes to race relations since there are so many war movies made with the racism card played out and I don't think many other groups watch war movies. Anyway this is the first blaxploitation made for TV movie I ever saw, and man has it got a cast of black stars in it! I stayed with it all the way, despite how stupid it was sending a few men to take over a large dam, and men from a sanitation unit at that! If I was black I would probably rate it even higher although I think I'm being pretty generous giving it a 6 of 10 rating. I would have liked this a lot better if it was made for the movie theater because then we would have had a real street sense movie with all the colorful language and lord knows what else thrown in, being made for TV did make it a little PC in that I think that southern white officer would have been fragged and here he is not, lol. On a white guy geek note, there are prominent actor's from both the Star Wars and Star Trek universe's in here! I bet you can guess Billy D Williams as the first one (from Star Wars), but the lady in the farm house is none other then Vina from the Star Trek pilot, Susan Oliver (getting close to 40 and not so hot with her lack of green body paint on). I thought that was as Johnny Carson might say, "Some weird wacky stuff!". Black Brigade is definitely cult material and worth a viewing!

stalzz64 OK, first off I should say that I found this DVD for only $1.00 at Wal-Mart. That alone is scary-- I knew it might stink, but with the cast list, I thought it might actually be OK, and it is. It's a crappy DVD transfer though, but for 1 dollar I can't complain too much! It's what I thought it was, a TV movie originally aired on ABC from 1969 written by TV mogul Aaron Spelling and Produced by the great Danny Thomas Productions, who produced in such classic TV shows as The Dick Van Dyke Show, That Girl, The Andy Griffith Show, etc,. This film stars Stephen Boyd, a great character actor/leading man known for his roles in such movies as 'Ben Hur' and 'Fantatstic Voyage'. It features young newcomers such as Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams & football star Rosie Grier in great supporting roles as members of an all-black WW II US Army company ('B' Company) in France who are doing the 'grunt' work of the Army. Digging latrines, digging graves, dealing with garbage, etc. Basically getting No Respect. Blacks were considered second class citizens during WW II. The story shows how Racist Redneck Major Carter (Boyd) is asked to go on a dangerous mission to blow up a Dam held by the Nazis and the only company of men to help accomplish the task are 'B' Company, (the all black company). They appear lazy and shiftless to Lieutenant Carter, who doesn't believe they can help him blow up the dam. Little does he know, they are more than up for the job. Carter asks their lieutenant in charge for 'volunteers', and he picks 6 men, including Pryor, Williams & Grier. It's fairly standard TV movie fare, and it's kind of neat to see Pryor and Williams in early roles, as well as great black character actors Moses Gunn & Glynn Thurman (Cooley High)--as well as Susan Oliver, a great blonde character actress who appeared in lots of TV drama in the 60's on shows like 'Star Trek', 'Mannix', 'The Wild Wild West',etc.I think it's a nice forgotten addition to black cinema, and shows that black men in WWII could be just as heroic as their white brothers. It's an interesting look at race relations in the late 60's context too, what with the Black Panther movement and all. It's kind of funny how all the black actors have big afros and a few have mustaches/goatees--not typical of WWII U.S.Army standards, but more like1969 fashion. Pryor sports a natty red beret throughout the whole story, too. I guess I recommend it as a piece of nostalgia. Again, The DVD transfer is Horrid, but viewable.