The film was shot entirely in the Pyrenees except for the inside studio scenes, and it is mainly worth seeing for the spectacular landscapes caught on screen and doing them justice for their stunning wildness and beauty. Anthony Quinn is reliable as usual, here as a die-hard veteran Basque who evidently has been through the worst long since and knows what he is doing. James Mason in one of his last films looks worried and has reason to be. Anthony Quinn is paid to get the refugee VIP professor Mason across the mountains to Spain, but he is not informed that the professor has a family including a frail old wife and two children, youths by all means, but nonetheless totally inexperienced both to war and to mountain passages. Christopher Lee makes a brief intermission as the leader of a Gipsy group helping them on and getting paid for it by the wrong gang. There are a lot of scenes of violence, you learn to hate Malcom McDowell from the beginning, a hatred wich constantly will increase throughout the film, as he relishes in developing it. He boasted that this was his best film, well, I never saw him in a decent character on film, which would have been wished for a change.
John Lee Thompson was a specialist on spectacular adventure films, and this is no exception - he never disappointed his audience. There is nothing to object against in this film, except, perhaps that the whole story in its extreme dramatization lacks all credibility.
John Lee Thompson was a specialist on spectacular adventure films, and this is no exception - he never disappointed his audience. There is nothing to object against in this film, except, perhaps that the whole story in its extreme dramatization lacks all credibility.