The director of this 1969 movie must have been trippin' on LSD during the filming of this picture. He was given an all star cast of excellent actors, a fantastic castle and town set locations, a great premise for an epic movie and he comes up with *this* drivel?The film has absolutely *NO* plot, it alternates between a war movie, a comedy, an anti war movie, and does a uniformly bad job at all of them. There is 1960's "hippy" speeches, a roving group of religious zealots, a fully equipped fantasy whorehouse, a beautiful unblemished story book castle in the middle of a war zone late in 1944, and that's just the few things that pop immediately into my mind.This movie is too bad to be good, too lame to be camp, too stupid to make *any* point except "-Look at just how bad a director can fail-"Do yourself a favor and skip this one. Use the time for something more fulfilling- maybe clip your toe nails or darn your socks.

Castle Keep, directed by Sydney Pollack and adapted to screenplay by Daniel Taradash and David Rayfiel from the novel written by William Eastlake. Starring Burt Lancaster, Bruce Dern, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Peter Falk. Music is by Michel Legrand and cinematography by Henri Decae.Ambitious for sure, intriguing even, but ultimately a misfiring piece of pretentious tosh! An endgame allegory that finds Lancaster in WWII leading the defence of a medieval castle and its art collection against the German hordes. The action when it comes is savage and colourful, and Lancaster's one eyed Major is good fun, it's just everything else is masquerading as a near hallucinogenic anti-war movie mixed with euro pontifications. There's some war is hell messages in the mix desperately trying to get out, either as satire or serious (it's really hard to tell), but this is ultimately faux-art and painful to sit through until the explosions mercifully grace the last quarter of picture. 3/10

During World War II a small squad of 8 American soldiers led by Major Abraham Falconer (Burt Lancaster) relocate to a castle in Belguim. They rest there for awhile but then find themselves in the direct path of the advancing German army during the famous counter-offensive known as the "Battle of the Bulge". Rather than retreat and rejoin the main American army, Major Falconer decides to make a stand with his few men within the castle. Now, obviously the entire idea is ridiculous. But the director (Sydney Pollack) was trying to make a point about the insanity of war. The end result is a film that tries to be artistic and stylish for its time but, in my opinion, goes beyond the realm of believability. I say that because some of the scenarios are too far-fetched to be believed. For example, at one point a handful of prostitutes totally destroy a German tank with a few small Molotov cocktails. If that doesn't strain reality to the breaking point then another scenario a few minutes later features two American soldiers completely capturing another tank by firing a bazooka at it. Nevermind that a bazooka round would simply bounce off of the tank. Apparently the "message" was too important to be bothered by any sense of realism. Unfortunately, it gets even crazier when they decide to defend the castle. Only in Hollywood. Be that as it may, Burt Lancaster put on a decent performance and Astrid Heeren (as "Therese") was absolutely gorgeous. But other than that I found it difficult to get past the absurdity of it all.

I ordered this from Daedalus books. What can go wrong with a flick with Burt Lancaster, Peter Falk and Patrick O'Neal, and directed by Sydney Pollock? Plenty, as it turns out. Rather than a straightforward war story we have here a highly symbolic and quasi-surreal flick with a script that is both pretentious and portentous, filled with "heavy" lines that are supposed to freighted with meaning. The writer evidently is a Becket or Pirandello wannabe. However most of it just falls completely flat. It is beautifully shot and gorgeous to look at but is basically a tiresome bore. Ignore all the encomia from users. Matter of fact, ignore the movie.