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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: 22301
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
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:
 Finally! A decent release. May 15, 2006
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
A good release of a great and underrated Peckinpah film. The picture quality is a huge improvement over the previous pan & scan from Hen's Tooth and seems to be a little better than the recent Korean all region release. The audio commentary by Stephen Prince is informative but a bit dry like the one he did for Criterion's Straw Dogs. One can't help but think that this should have been a Criterion release but overall it's a descent release. A second disc with material about the making of the film would have been better.
One of the best WW2 war movies March 21, 2006
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
The movie was based loosely on the book by Willie Heinrich originally called "The Willing Flesh". Director Sam Peckinpah was probably ahead of his time and put together a very accurate and violent movie showing even the great German Wehrmacht (army) reeling under pressure from the bigger Russian Army.
The Russian T-34 tanks are real, the favored use by Germans of the Russian guns and the waves upon waves of Russian soldiers sent into battle are accurate depictions. Steiner, played by James Coburn, is a battle hardened survivor who is challenged by an aristocratic Prussian officer, Captain Stransky, trying to get an Iron Cross - at any cost! Needless to say the movie follows on those tracks and shows the senseless carnage and slaughter on the Russian Front and WWII. The movie is not about German Nazis nor the SS and the Wehrmacht shoud not be compared nor confused with the former. The focus is mainly on the remnants of the Wehrmacht and 6th Army around the time of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus's surrender to the Russians (Hitler would not allow the 6th Army to withdraw nor surrender). An interesting scene is when a Nazi soldier is placed into Steiner's platoon and the show of hatred between Werhmacht soldiers and Nazis shows - as in all of Willie Heindrich's books. Guy Sajer's "The Forgotten Soldier" would also be a good book to get accurate perpectives of the Russian Front in WW2.
great war movie March 20, 2006
5 out of 21 found this review helpful
This is a great war movie. James Coburn is totally cool and hardass in this movie. They don't make war mo vies like this anymore.
 Just an OK war movie March 20, 2006
3 out of 23 found this review helpful
Cross of Iron was, and is, still just an ok war movie that tried to be different by putting the point of view on sympathetic German, and some Nazi, characters. Peckinpah's done better stuff with The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs.
Peckinpah's first and only war film is savagely beautiful March 7, 2006
71 out of 76 found this review helpful
1976 saw Sam Peckinpah release the only war film he ever made in the form of Cross of Iron. Peckinpah hadn't made any relevant films as the 1970's rolled around as his bouts with alcoholism and reputation as an impossible director to work with cut into the amount and type of projects he was allowed to make. But with Cross of Iron, we get to see once again what made Sam Peckinpah such a maverick director and the first true auteur of cinematic violence. Another thing that was surprising was the fact that despite all the westerns and other violent-laden films in his library of work, Peckinpah never made a war film. One would've thought that Peckinpah's penchant for creating innovative, almost balletic mayhem on the screen would've been a perfect marriage with a war film script. Cross of Iron might be his first and only war film, but Peckinpah brings to it his very own style that would help influence future directors such as John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, and Luc Besson.
A rarity amongst WW2-based films, Cross of Iron is told through the eyes of the Nazis as they try to survive their retreat from the Eastern Front of 1943. Rarely do Germans play the protagonists in WW2 films and Cross of Iron helps show that the German soldiers, beat-up and shellshocked, were not so dissimilar from the typical American and British soldier. All they want is to live another day as they try desperately to retreat from Russia. This theme is seen most evidently in the character of Sergeant Steiner (well-played by James Coburn who seemed born to play the tough, hardened veteran) who stoically, almost resignedly, lives day to day through the crucible of perpetual battle that was the Eastern Front. Steiner is well-loved and respected by the men he leads for they know that he would try to find a way to save them all. The fact that Steiner also has an antiauthoritarian streak in him makes him popular with the grunts. Finally, having won his own Iron Cross (German military's award for bravery above and beyond) from earlier engagements earns him the respect of his men. On the polar opposite is their new commanding officer, the high-blood Prussian Colonel Stransky (played with an aloofness that only Maximillian Schell seems perfect for) whose aristocratic upbringing ill-prepares him for the horrors of combat. But despite his lack of charisma with the men and for not being anything like Steiner, Stransky's still wants an Iron Cross of his own even if he has to resort to outright deception to get one. Caught between these two dynamic characters are the soldiers who bleed and die during these pair's struggles against each other.
It's these battle scenes where Peckinpah makes his stylistic mark. Using the same techniques he relied on for his seminal and best work, The Wild Bunch, Peckinpah shows the horror and brutality of war (especially that of the Eastern Front). Through slow-motion scenes of bullets ripping into flesh and bodies being blown into the air as explosions rip the earth. The effects work in Cross of Iron is abit more advanced than in The Wild Bunch and Peckinpah might've used it abit too much of it for the film. It sometimes felt as if ever quiet moment was broken up by a sequence of battle and violence just so Peckinpah could showcase his talent for creating beautiful violence. Maybe he did it on purpose to show the unending cycle of horror inflicts on even the toughest of men, but after awhile even I became somewhat numb to the violence on the screen.
Despite that little quibble, I still think that Cross of Iron shows Peckinpah at his best late in his tumultous career. Despite a string of forgettable films through most of the 1970's, Sam Peckinpah gets one more chance to work his cinematic magic in 1976. After Cross of Iron, Peckinpah's descent into obscurity continues right up until his death years later. While Cross of Iron might not be on the same level as The Wild Bunch and The Killer Elite, it does have in its execution everything that made Peckinpah great.
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