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 enlarge | Director: Sam Peckinpah
Actors: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, David Warner, Klaus Löwitsch
Studio: Henstooth Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $21.09
You Save: $8.86 (30%)
New (19) Used (12) from $16.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  162 reviews
Sales Rank: 22133
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Special Edition, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Original Language), Russian (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 132
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 4.8 x 0.6
MPN: D4102D
UPC: 759731410229
EAN: 0759731410229
ASIN: B000E5N63Y
Theatrical Release Date: 1976
Release Date: April 18, 2006
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
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| Customer Reviews:
 What Is Leadership? September 22, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
In a key scene in "Cross of Iron," Senior Sgt. Steiner charges alone into No-Man's Land during a Soviet frontal assault.
His platoon, pulling out of position to retreat, watches in horror. Then they stop their preparations to withdraw and give fire support to defend Steiner. Then, a few charge into No-Man's Land to save him. Others on their flanks renew firing. Then more charge forward. In so doing, they blunt, and stop, the Soviet attack. The company commander is later credited with "organzing a counterattack." But he was away, in his bunker, at the time, on the telephone, calling for help (airstrikes!). He is to receive the Iron Cross First Class for his "combat action."
But it was Steiner, not Captain Stransky, who saved the position. Did Steiner charge into apparent death, alone, knowing that his only chance to save the regimental position from a Soviet overun was to make a risky charge into the Soviet onslaught?
Or did he just go nuts-- did he just want to die a hero's death and walking into a Soviet infantry assault was the obvious way to do it?
What is leadership? Charging alone, and hoping your people will follow? In this case, apparently yes. But did he expect his men to follow him?
Watch this film and attempt to analyze Steiner's small unit combat leadership. Did he perform that action deliberately? Or not?
I've seen it six times, and each time have puzzled over that scene. Reading the Willi Heinrich book does not help with this scene, although it is an awesome read.
Highly recommended for those who ask the question, "what is leadership?"
Also you will hear one of the great all-time film lines: "Let me show you where the Iron Crosses grow ..."
 Looks like a bad reenactment August 26, 2006
7 out of 30 found this review helpful
The movie "Cross of Iron" is based on the novel by Willi Heinrich. Heinrich's novel is a very well written account of warfare on the eastern front from the perspective of a German non-com. Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron" is unfortunately, is a low budget western with homo-erotic undertones. The "German" characters look like participants at a bad reenactment. Hell's Angels look more like real German Soldiers than the characters in this film.
The dialogue in the film makes me wonder whether Peckinpah was drunk while he was directing this film as the acting and dialogue is overly melodramatic and ludicous.
The creditable acting of Coburn, Schell and Mason are not enough to salvage this dreadful film.
Cross Of Iron August 6, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Well Sam Peckinpah does it again. This is a pretty good war movie and under-rated. Through the eyes of a German Seargant battling the Russians. James Coburn is solid in this movie as are the other actors. Check it out.
Great, gritty, grungy and real June 7, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Saw this one on televison. Having read the novel, I found a few things not in line but none the less I find this a superb piece of work. A far cry from the politically correct junk produced by hollywood today. Wish Hollywood would produce films like this again.
James Coburn is supurb in performance playing a German NCO on the Russian front who despite war's brutality and the regime he serves manages to preserve his own humanity both with the men under his command and even with his enemy. He exists in a world more in line with Bill Mauldin's Joe and Willy than the smart set image of Hitler's propoganda machine.
James Mason plays an officer one can admire.
Maxamillian Schell plays one readily despicable. Cowardly, arrogant, incompotent anda real backstabber who uses his connections to get what he wants rather than merit. An 'Iron Cross Jackal' bent on obtaining rewards earned by others. (His aid is homosexual, both here in the movie and in the novel which is more graphic about him which really aught to correct things put out by the left on this subject).
Fighting scenes brutal and accurate. Uniforms and settings in great detail. The ending though appropriate is sad.
 Peckinpah at War May 15, 2006
12 out of 19 found this review helpful
First, this is not Sam Peckinpah's best effort. Recent biographies have traced the difficulties he had with this production, mostly money issues, but also script issues (and the script is perhaps the weakest part of this movie). By this point in his career, Peckinpah had already entered into the pitiful slide of addiction, and to some degree it shows in the pacing of this film: too long, a little slack, with his patented slow motion death scenes now becoming almost self-parody. All this said, this is a film still worth seeing and owning (I certainly plan to own this edition, wide-screen, commentary, and all). It's worth owning because, one, it is a Sam Peckinpah film, and Sam Peckinpah is unarguably one of the great filmmakers of the 6os and 70s. Hell, Convoy is even worth watching and owning, if just for one great shot of the trucks on the highway at night, a simply gorgeous image. And Cross of Iron, for all its problems with length and coherence, is still a powerful war film and still at many times a gorgeous film. Like all Peckinpah movies, this reeks of authenticity: the soldiers in their dishelved uniforms and bad teeth, the Germans (as they really did do) trading their Schmiesser machine pistols for the much better Russian submachine guns. The battle scenes are impressively and disturbingly chaotic. The climax, with Steiner's men crossing no-man's land into their own lines, is heartbreaking, an image that has stuck with me for nearly 30 years since I saw the film when it first came out. I don't know if in today's conservative climate one could make a movie about German soldiers in WWII; and Peckinpah takes perhaps an easy way out by making a clear distinction between the common Wermacht soldier and the evil SS troops (in the last decade or so there has been much scholarship about the atrocities committed by the regular, non SS, German Army in the Soviet Union, which decisively undercuts Peckinpah's distinction). This said, the bigger point that Peckinpah makes in this film still is valid: simply, war is hell, and at a certain point, winning and losing become meaningless. James Coburn, an always underrated actor, is excellent here as the weary and cynical squad leader Steiner, with able support by Maximillian Schell, James Mason, and David Warner. The rest of the cast is an effective and talented group of European actors. Despite what Orson Welles may have said, this is not the greatest anti-war movie ever made. It's not even near Peckinpah's best. But it's honest filmmaking by a master craftsman who still could drive a narrative with skill. This is an essential part of any Peckinpah fans film library, and worth seeing for any serious film goer.
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