ThiefHott Too much of everything

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

bsmith5552 "Castle Keep" is a strange sort of movie. The first three quarters are spent for the most part within the walls of an old Belgian castle before the final action.A group of eight rag tag soldiers going nowhere in particular, come upon an estate located in a strategic area, whereupon there is a large castle. The castle is owned by the Count of Maldorais (Jean Pierre Aumont). The motley crew includes three officers two sergeants, a corporal and two privates. Where they came from is unknown.Leading the group is a one-eyed Major Falconer (Burt Lancaster) who wastes no time in bedding the castle's Mistress Therese (Astrid Heeren) who is by the way, the wife/niece of the Count. Also in the group are Art loving Capt. Beckman (Patrick O'Neal), Sgt. Rossi, a baker (Peter Falk) who moves in with the local town baker's wife, Cpl. Clearboy (Scott Wilson) who falls in love with a Volkswagen, young Lt. Amberjack (Tony Bill), Sgt. Devaca (Michael Conrad), Pvt. Elk, an Indian (James Patterson) and Pvt. Benjamin (Al Freeman Jr.) an aspiring author who narrates the story.Count Maldorais manages to convince the group to defend his castle and its treasures against an expected German attack. For most of the first three quarters of the movie, the men enjoy the luxuries of their environment even to the point of going to town to visit the ladies of "La Reine Rouge". In town, the men encounter a group of burnt out veterans led by Lt. Billy Bix (Bruce Dern) who see themselves as conscious objectors.Major Falconer, in one of the most bizarre sequences, rides into town on a white horse to recruit retreating soldiers to help him defend the castle. He sees that they are shell-shocked and recruits Bix and his followers to lead the group to the castle, at which point all but Falconer are blown to smithereens.So that leaves the original eight alone to defend against the advancing Germans. Falconer will defend at all costs including the destruction of the castle, Beckman wants to fall back and thus protect the castle. What ensues is a "Wild Bunch"/"Alamo" type of battle with the predictable results.The final battle is well done but we have to wait through all of the nonsense preceding it before there's any action. Director Sydney Pollock, whom I admire, has done much better work.

benbaum-280-362993 Eight wounded shell shocked soldiers take refuge in a castle in Belgium. There they begin a crazy 60s psychedelic take on WWII involving wanton women, booze, an impotent Count, a young barren Countess, a Volkswagen beetle, a Romantic US Army Major, a baker and a band of AWOL Born Again Christians....to odd to even begin to explain. I'm sure there is meant to be some parallel to the Crucifixion of Jesus and maybe even his birth and the destruction of Jerusalem in the 1st Century but I'm not entirely sure I got it. Certainly not for everyone but somehow I couldn't help but watch in order to see what strangeness would happen next. I couldn't help but think this reminded me of parts of Apocalysoe Now and Platoon. It also has something to say about how micro societies are affected by war (perhaps?) as seen from the view of a castle which has been held by the same family for 17 Generations and believes itself to be above the trivialities of others' wars.

bkoganbing Castle Keep has Burt Lancaster as an American major with a squad of about a dozen picked men, drawing the assignment to defend a medieval castle that just happens to stand directly on the road to Bastogne. It's December of 1944 and the Nazis have been almost pushed back to Germany. The war could be over and this might be a chance to get a little R&R. Our squad certainly takes advantage of it. Most enjoy the pleasures of the local bordello, Sergeant Peter Falk takes up with the baker's wife and gets back to his civilian occupation as well. And Burt has an affair with the countess of the castle. What makes it even nicer is that the count, Jean-Pierre Aumont approves completely. He's impotent and it's important the name survive if not the genes. Captain Patrick O'Neal however is entranced with the art collection. But he's distressed to find he's not fighting in the American army, but among Philistines with this blue collar patrol.Basically these guys sit around, drink, kanoodle, find other occupations like baking for Falk and fixing up a Volkswagen for Scott Wilson. And endlessly talk. Then the Germans arrive and the action begins in this last stand film as the Battle of the Bulge gets started.This was director Sydney Pollack's second film with Burt Lancaster and he was something of a protégé for Lancaster. Lancaster liked the book this was based on and had worked with Pollack before in the much better The Scalphunters. To me this film was deadly dull until the shooting starts. I can't for the life of me see why some folks love it so.

winner55 A cult film that Columbia Pictures has done the devil to bury, keeps resurfacing because of it's exceptional poetry, invention, and flawless execution - on the part of director, editor, and camera crew, but also thanks to some of the most powerful acting on film, especially from Lancaster and Falk.The writers and the director have striven hard to push the boundaries of cinematic story telling, and to do so without looking 'low budget', as many other more intellectually advanced films of the period did.In the last analysis, calling this film 'anti-war' is as inappropriate as saying that of Sam Fuller's "Big Red One". Like Fuller's film, this is simply war as it was fought - garnished, for dramatic (and comic) effect, with more than a touch of the undeniably surreal. But as Fuller made plain in his wholly realistic film, war creates just the sort of environment where the surreal happens.BTW, what made this a cult film in the first place is not any 'anti-war' message (the message is actually more 'anti-European' if you follow the dialog closely), but rather its remarkable comedic sense of the absurd, made most famous by the affair with the Volkswagen, but actually more impressive with Falk's baker (who moves in with the Belgian town's baker's wife, because, well, that's what bakers do, they live with baker's wives).All this adds up to a stunning, even shocking film, that is still highly entertaining. I suspect those that find it confusing haven't lived much life yet, or don't want to. This film is not dated in the least; it will survive all the CGI crap that Hollywood vomits up, as long as there are people who want to think and to feel while watching a film.