Big-budgeted multi-story retelling of the liberation of Paris in 1944.
Some spoilers ahead
Movie starts off with firmly stating who the bad guys are (as if we didn't know) showing the German occupation forces at their most brutal : sending of wagon loads of prisoners to the concentration camps and the cold-blooded killing of dozens of young resistance fighters.
Movie structure consists of two main segments, first the Parisian uprising then followed by the actual liberation by Free French and US troops. Due to the many characters and storyplots it all comes over rather incoherent and sometimes muddled as often quite important characters appear and disappear without no particular reason.
Every major French star of the sixties is in this. Delon( as the later famous politician Chaban-Delmas), Belmondo (who still can't keep a straight face) but also Michel Piccoli, Claude Rich, JP Cassel, Yves Montand (as a tank driver) and so on. Some US actors get also thrown in but, besides Orson Welles, they have really no more then an extended cameo appearance. The one pivotal character, who also holds together the 2 main segments of the movie is General Von Choltitz, the German governor of Paris,excellently portrayed by Gerd Froebe. Von choltitz is right in their-from the start and keeps being on the screen continuously until the very last minutes, his surrender of course.
By the way, the screenplay (based on the bestseller of Collins/Lapierre)was written by none other then Francis Ford Coppola and Gore Vidal.
But this is of course mainly a French show, besides the actors it has a French producer and a French director and last but not least Paris itself, so there is quite a lot of French flagwaving going on, giving the impression that 95 % of the Parisians were in the "Resistance'. In reality it was more of the opposite, at least until the liberation. Keep also in mind that a few months prior to these events large numbers of Parisians were cheering Marechal Pétain, the leader of the Vichy collaboration government.
But despite all its many plot lines and overall length it is competently directed and features quite some well-staged and realistic battle scenes, from numerous firefights in the Parisian streets, blowing up German vehicles, tanks crashing into each other and culminating in the storming of the German 'Kommandantur'.
All in all, this is like "The Longest day" 'à la française', featuring many stars and stories, filmed in black-and-white, in 70 mm (it really needs to be seen on the big screen) and essentially a propaganda piece on one of the few exploits of the French during WWII.
(I saw the letterboxed version on French TV with everybody speaking French. The best version is of course with everybody speaking their own language.
Some spoilers ahead
Movie starts off with firmly stating who the bad guys are (as if we didn't know) showing the German occupation forces at their most brutal : sending of wagon loads of prisoners to the concentration camps and the cold-blooded killing of dozens of young resistance fighters.
Movie structure consists of two main segments, first the Parisian uprising then followed by the actual liberation by Free French and US troops. Due to the many characters and storyplots it all comes over rather incoherent and sometimes muddled as often quite important characters appear and disappear without no particular reason.
Every major French star of the sixties is in this. Delon( as the later famous politician Chaban-Delmas), Belmondo (who still can't keep a straight face) but also Michel Piccoli, Claude Rich, JP Cassel, Yves Montand (as a tank driver) and so on. Some US actors get also thrown in but, besides Orson Welles, they have really no more then an extended cameo appearance. The one pivotal character, who also holds together the 2 main segments of the movie is General Von Choltitz, the German governor of Paris,excellently portrayed by Gerd Froebe. Von choltitz is right in their-from the start and keeps being on the screen continuously until the very last minutes, his surrender of course.
By the way, the screenplay (based on the bestseller of Collins/Lapierre)was written by none other then Francis Ford Coppola and Gore Vidal.
But this is of course mainly a French show, besides the actors it has a French producer and a French director and last but not least Paris itself, so there is quite a lot of French flagwaving going on, giving the impression that 95 % of the Parisians were in the "Resistance'. In reality it was more of the opposite, at least until the liberation. Keep also in mind that a few months prior to these events large numbers of Parisians were cheering Marechal Pétain, the leader of the Vichy collaboration government.
But despite all its many plot lines and overall length it is competently directed and features quite some well-staged and realistic battle scenes, from numerous firefights in the Parisian streets, blowing up German vehicles, tanks crashing into each other and culminating in the storming of the German 'Kommandantur'.
All in all, this is like "The Longest day" 'à la française', featuring many stars and stories, filmed in black-and-white, in 70 mm (it really needs to be seen on the big screen) and essentially a propaganda piece on one of the few exploits of the French during WWII.
(I saw the letterboxed version on French TV with everybody speaking French. The best version is of course with everybody speaking their own language.