Valerie

Absolutely love The Hill Ian Bannen is my favourite character but Sean Connery is brilliant as usual. Got this one on Region 1

Val

homeguard

You're right, he wasn't worthy of admiration - and he knew it. He was in jail for assaulting a senior officer who had commanded him to take his men into a battle which Roberts considered a waste of his mens' lives. On first consideration that might have seemed a noble thing to do, but in reality, soldiers know that is beyond the pale. They also know that a senior NCO guilty of that crime is finished. There is no way back from a Courts Marshall conviction for disobeying an officer and striking him. Until 1919 he would have been shot. That makes his position in the prison impossible. Jock McGrath (Jack Watson) summed it up when they were being lined-up for the first time. His dislike of Roberts would have been echoed throughout the prison, and anyone associating with him would have suffered similar isolation from the main body of the prison. Roberts had nothing to lose, and even the RSM wouldn't have bothered to try and change his attitude.
I think you are right to look deeply. There are many dark examples of military life which are accepted by the serving soldier in his world that are depicted in this film. It illustrates the difference between ordinary and military society very well. I doubt it could be replicated today as most of the people involved with the film would have had some experience, first or secondhand, of National Service at least, and also a good proportion of the audiences in the 1960s.
Sorry, I've run on a bit there - as usual!
Still a great movie as a social commentary though.

Regards, HG

kelp

Nice to see the term used correctly HG. I refer to your use of the words "Courts Marshall", and not as we often hear "Court Marshall".

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...YOU MAY GET IT!

homeguard

Thanks Kelp. Some of us have got 'our knees brown' in the past. For the civvies reading this - that is not a sexual position for soldiers, at least it wasn't in my day.

Regards,
HG

Hugo

Court-martial is the singular, either courts-martial or court-martials are correct as the plural

christoph404

Director John Boorman would be the first to tell you that Zardoz is very pretentious and has too many ideas going on for it to work properly. He says as much on the DVD commentary and Connery got paid a pittance for his role, so it couldn't have been the pay check that persuaded him to dress in the ridiculous costume! I think its an interesting effort from Boorman but I would never call it brilliant myself even though Im a big fan of Boorman and Connery as an actor.On a trivia note, Connery negotiated an allowance for a car and driver to take him to the set each day but drove himself and used his own car and pocketed the allowance to supplement his low pay! (though some will say he was simply being true to type i.e. A "tight wad" Scot!)

Third Man

Just watched this again, I think I did Roy Kinnear a major disservice not mentioning him - he played a very devious and amusing petty thief character superbly and managed to display a certain ugliness too. Also Alfred Lynch as the wretched soul Stevens did well with a small part.


Here's something I picked up on from another site:

In the shower scene Sean Connery jokingly chides a fellow prisoner:
"Don't touch that one, it turns on the gas".

At the time the film was set (1942) - Was there was still no official acceptance that concentration camp victims were being systematically gassed with Zyklon B whilst ostensibly being given a shower.

Simon

Automotivehistorian

I think you will find that the general public had no idea. The authorities did it now seems. However, gas vans, namely lorries with sealed rear bodies and exhausts connected thereinto had been used for some time to euthanase gypsies, mentally retarded patients, etc. and also concentration camp prisoners. This may have been common knowledge: I shall ask my parents! I initially thought that 'Roberts'' comment was in fact an anachronism, and a dialogue inserted that was a year or so too early but it may not have been, if the setting was late 1942. The comment may have been interpreted as relating to gas lamps that often looked like 'showers' which were actuated by a wheel on the wall. I would err though on the side of it being a 'blooper' just as you sometimes hear music being played in films that had not been written let alone been recorded at the time.

Steve Crook

The Wannsee Conference, where the "final solution" was proposed, was only in January 1942. Before that, there were some other attempts at mass killings in the concentration camps like the vans that Automotivehistorian mentions. But they weren't very successful and the Zyklon B program didn't start until later in 1942. Before then, concentration camps were mainly just intensive work camps - although people were often worked to death, tortured or sometimes shot out of hand. They still weren't nice places to be sent. But in the early years of the Nazi party, concentration camps were really just punishment and re-education camps. A lot of people served their time there and were then released!

Even camps like Dachau and Belsen were primarily labour camps, although people were often worked to death or died through disease and malnutrition. It was only the camps at Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), Chełmno, Bełżec, Majdanek, Sobibór and Treblinka that were really death camps where the vast majority of people sent there were very quickly killed.


See Pastor Hall (1940) for an example of the early use of and depiction of concentration camps and the early years of the Nazi party. But even then, the way the camps were used was so unusual that Eleanor Roosevelt had to do an introduction to the US release to explain that it really was a true story. But it was still banned in some areas of the States, often those with a high proportion of German families.

The Boulting Brothers wanted to make Pastor Hall in the late 1930s but were prevented from doing so in case it upset Chamberlain's attempts to make peace with Hitler! They put it into production as soon as war was declared.

Steve

Automotivehistorian

There were of course shootings, which is so obvious that I had forgotten!

Early gas vans were literally driven around with victims in the back, although later fixed vans were used which sometimes just produced gas (CO and CO2) which was then piped into rooms.

In my opinion, after consideration, the comment in the film was 'misplaced in time'. There has been considerable discussion in recent times about to what extent the allies knew of extermination camps, and why they were not bombed. I just cannot see that squaddies out in North Africa, relying on newsreels from travelling cinemas and I suppose the radio, would have any knowledge of the death camps. In many respects it was after the war was over and the newsreel cameras went into the camps after liberation was it made clear what had happened. However, the Germans quickly publicised the Katyn massacre of Polish officers by the Soviets when they overran the area.

Third Man

Ah thanks both of you - I was a bit confused especially since Heydrich the architect of The Final Solution was assainated in mid 1942.

So it's either a blooper by the script writer otherwise it's certainly a bit of dark humour.

I suppose next question would be where do I get a copy of Pastor Hall (1940) - better nip over to the wanted section.

Simon

moonfleet

Is "The Hill" a worshiped film in Great Britain ??

"Very difficult !" "Craazy!"

Mark O

It's strongly admired by those that are aware of this Film, it's shown on TV now and again but it's not overtly well known.......

Moonfleet, may I ask is Edith Scob a famous Movie Star in France?

I strongly admire 'La yeux sans visage', and I note Edith is still acting after several decades....

Mark

moonfleet

I don't know very much about her, sorry, but I heard she made a come-back...
Moon.

"Very difficult !" "Craazy!"

sprig63

The Hill [1965, Sean Connery]
Gripping from start to finish. Is there a better example of the genre? Ice Cold in Alex, maybe?. But for me, :The Hill was quite brilliant.