Cross of Iron

Plot

It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralised—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich is still vastly superior to the Russian army. However, within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors.

About Cross of Iron

Cross of Iron (German: Steiner – Das Eiserne Kreuz, lit. 'Steiner – The Iron Cross') is a 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, and David Warner. Set on the Eastern Front in World War II during the Soviets' Caucasus operations against the German Kuban bridgehead on the Taman Peninsula in late 1943, the film focuses on the class conflict between a newly arrived, aristocratic Prussian officer who covets winning the Iron Cross and a cynical, battle-hardened infantry NCO. The screenplay is based on the semi-autobiographical 1955 novel The Willing Flesh by German author Willi Heinrich. An international co-production between British and West German companies, the film's exteriors were shot on-location in Yugoslavia. The film was released in West Germany by Constantin Film on January 28, 1977, and in the United Kingdom by EMI Films on March 8. It received a mixed critical reception on initial release, though retrospective reviews have been much more positive, with some critics citing it as one of Peckinpah's best works. A sequel, Breakthrough, was released in 1979.

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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