Starts off on the wrong tone for a war movie. Cheesy acting. Boring movie. 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.

You know that you're in trouble when the protagonist in a World War II movie is an Ernie Pyle-style newspaper correspondent who is still trying to figure out why men kill each other. "Why do we kill each other?" the leading man asks a general on the eve of the historic landings. "How can a perfectly ordinary good-natured guy who wouldn't slap down a mosquito sit up in an airplane and bomb 1000 sleeping strangers down beneath him?" If the question weren't idiotic enough, the high-ranking general that he is discussing war with replies, "We do it to survive, Mr. Ennis. In war, it is kill or be killed." Talk about bromides! Sleepy-eyed Robert Mitchum is cast as this naive newspaperman named Dick Ennis who covers the war for the International Press. What a name. Dick Ennis?! Ennis likes to ask idiotic questions, and he refuses to carry a grenade or tote a gun. Nevertheless, he winds up giving orders to the G.I.s who assembly around him as if he were in command.No, "Young Lions" director Edward Dmytryk's "Anzio" doesn't qualify as a traditional big-picture military action epic in the tradition of either "The Longest Day" or "The Sands of Iwo Jima." This fatigue-inducing, 116-minute movie portrays the American military in a derogatory light, but the Hal Craig screenplay alters the names to protect the incompetents. The real battle of Anzio turned into a bloodthirsty nightmare, but this Dino De Laurentiis production amounts to one big bore. Instead of depicting the disaster at Anzio, the filmmakers focus their attention on some forgettable heroics behind enemy lines. History tells us that the Allies landed at Anzio but expected the same stiff opposition that they faced at Salerno. Instead, they landed and encountered no resistance. Ennis piles into a jeep with another G.I. and whirl off to Rome. Along the way, they pick up a wise-cracking U.S. Army Corporal Jack Rabinoff (Peter Falk of "Columbo"), and they wheel into Rome like a trio of tourists and spot only one German jeep. Meanwhile, British General Starkey (Patrick Magee of "A Clockwork Orange") wants to launch a small attack, but pusillanimous two-star U.S. General Jack Lesley (Arthur Kennedy of "The Lusty Men") refuses to believe that the Germans would let the Allies catch them with their pants down. Ennis and company return and describe the picnic that driving into Rome was. Meanwhile, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring (Wolfgang Preiss of "Raid on Rommel") cannot believe that the Americans have not launched a spearhead off the beach. Instead, General Lesley wants to establish a beachhead.Eventually, Lesley decides to send in an American Ranger battalion led by Colonel Hendricks (Wayne Preston of "The Man on the Spying Trapeze"), but German tanks are waiting for them, trap them in a cross-fire and wipe them out. Ennis, who accompanied Hendricks, survives with several other G.I.s, including Platoon Sergeant Abe Stimmler (Earl Holliman of "Sharkey's Machine"), and Ennis berates General Lesley over the radio for being a "timid" leader. Ennis taunts the bespectacled general with lines like, "He walked them into a park and left them in a graveyard." Naturally, nothing like this would ever have happened in a patriotic World War II era war movie. After they lose radio contact, Ennis, Stimmler, Rabinoff and the survivors spend the rest of the movie wandering around behind German lines. They discover that Kesselring is erecting fortifications at night with Italian citizens at gunpoint to stalemate an American advance. Later, Ennis gains some insight into the battle-hardened Rabinoff one night after they have holed up with three stubborn Italian women in their home. It seems that the irreverent corporal suffers from occasional bouts of belly aches brought on by hand grenade shrapnel left off from a tour of duty in the Pacific. Rabinoff explains that he came back, lied about his age and managed to enlist again because Rabinoff prefers the adrenaline thrill that he derives from these life and death antics. Basically, we have a U.S. soldier who is fighting—by his own admission—not to defend democracy but because he loves to battle. Naturally, Hollywood would never have portrayed an American soldier in such an uncomplimentary light in World War II era movies.Indeed, "Anzio" was lensed in Italy, but the scenery is the only thing authentic about this anemic combat thriller. Dmytryk helms one mildly suspenseful scene where Ennis and company have to pitch big rocks into a plowed up field so they will know where the enemy has planted landmines before a flame-throwing German tank gives them the hot foot. Near the end, Ennis finally picks up a Thompson submachine gun when his men and he are pinned down by German snipers. Ostensibly, other than Field Marshal Kesselring, the Germans are shown in long shot, speaking German, with the exception of one scene where they are seen up close disarming an American G.I. and later killing him because he tries to save a photograph that they have taken out of his wallet and thrown away. The opening titles song is out-of-place and the usually dependable composer Riz Ortolani provides a woebegone orchestral score. Robert Ryan appears briefly at the beginning and reappears at the end during a victory parade as U.S. General Carson. Arthur Franz, who starred in Dmytryk's 'The Sniper," has a cameo as Major General Luke Howard. "Anzio" exposes the folly of the battle and Ennis gets to berate the American general for being timid. Altogether, this Columbia Pictures release is not worth a Purple Heart. Anybody who watches "Anzio" deserves a Purple Heart.

It's a shame that the makers of a movie made about one of the bloodiest battles of WWII chose to make a semi-fictional work. The real story is far more gripping than this movie. Anzio was a four month struggle, which for the Allies, had no rear area. There was nowhere an Allied soldier could go that was out of range of German artillery and planes.The real battle for Anzio was a true Allied effort with the British and Americans locking in a duel to the death with the best German troops Hitler could put in Italy. It was supposed to break the deadlock of the Gustav line by flanking but was doomed from the start because it lacked sufficient landing strength. True, the road to the Rome WAS uncontested on D-Day, but Kesselring himself said later he would have easily cut off and destroyed any such small force if it extended itself even to the Alban Hills, let alone Rome.The story of the loss of Darby's Rangers is covered in other movies better; of the 767 Rangers sent on a mission, only six returned. It is but one of many stories of horrific sacrifice of young lives. Further south, in a diversionary mission designed to take pressure off the Anzio landing, the US 36th division lost 1600 men in a single night trying to cross the Rapido river. The British took terrible losses, especially in the German offensive of 18-19 Feb 1944, mainly due to their bad luck of being placed in the line in the area in which Hitler personally chose to concentrate the main German offensive, which came within about 1000 yards of breaking the last line of defense.Such losses are unimaginable today, yet they were accepted then as the price that must be paid to rid Europe of Hitler.There are no films that I know of that do justice to Anzio. One would be better served by reading any of the numerous books about Anzio or even reading the write-up at http://www.army.mil/cmh/brochures/anzio/72-19.htm -- it is infinitely more interesting than this movie.

Dull at times, but it get's the job done. Over acting done on Peter Falk's part.I had the opportunity to watch this film on Digital Cable this morning. I took the chance as it was a war film I had not gotten to see yet. It has some decent action, but was rather dull at times. I may be mistaken, but it also appeared that during the ambush scene, the German's were using Bren light machine guns (wth). Perhaps I am wrong, but it I don't believe the MG-42 or 34 or had top loaded clips.Still worth a watch if you got time to kill though. Just don't expect a masterpiece.