July 4, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we take on the 1968 WWII film The Devil's Brigade, a movie full of misfit characters, Italian mountains, and a whole lot of bagpipes. Based on a real American-Canadian commando unit known as the Devil's Brigade or the Black Devils, the film mixes adventure with questionable casting choices (why does everyone look 47 or up?) and a fun hour long training session. We talk about William Holden, snake collections, the birth of the Green Berets, and good old Americans scrapping with Canadians. Also: fake red berets, what's up with that?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer. We're your host.
I'm Sam. And I'm married to.
And we like World War 2 media, and we want to talk about it.
Welcome back to Rosie the Reviewer.
This week we're talking about the movie The Devil's Brigade,
which came out in 1968. It was directed by Andrew V
(00:23):
McLaughlin and written by William Roberts.
It's based on the 1966 nonfiction book of the same name
Co written by American novelist and historian Robert H Adelman
and Colonel George Walton, who was a member of the Brigade and
I believe Robert Adelman also served in World War 2 on combat
bombers if I'm not mistaken. The film depicts the formation
(00:44):
and 1st mission of the 1st Special Service Force, a joint
American Canadian commando unit known as the Devil's Brigade.
It focuses on their first operation in the Italian
campaign aimed at capturing the seemingly impregnable German
stronghold Monte La Defensa. You can find this movie on
Amazon Prime. What did you think of this
movie? I really enjoyed this one.
(01:04):
I found a lot for these old movies that I didn't have at the
beginning of this podcast when we started, and now I just love
all of them. There's something about these
movies that is really interesting to me, but is it
just me or is everybody in this movie really old?
Literally though, I'm like, is it just that people in the 60s
(01:26):
looked haggard? I just like, these are meant to
be youngish men, you know? Roughly 30, maybe, but they all
look much older than that. Weathered, we'll say.
I think William Holden, who was the star of this movie, was a
little older, but all of them look pretty old.
But yeah, I enjoyed it. About half the movie is spent on
(01:47):
their training and the other half is combat ish or at least
mission. It's over 2 hours long so at
first it was like when are they gonna get through the good
stuff? But turns out the training is
actually also quite fun. So yeah, it was a fun run for
me. What about you?
Yeah, I found it pretty entertaining as well.
(02:07):
Sort of. I think it was trying to
capitalize on the popularity of The Dirty Dozen, which came out
the year before, I believe. I mean, I have yet to see The
Dirty Dozen. I know it's terrible, but it's
been recommended to us, so we'llcover it at some point.
But yeah, I thought it was sort of a fun adventure movie, one of
those where the soundtrack is very.
They love a snare drum. They love a horn.
(02:28):
Oh, here's like a group of nerdywells and they're going to make
good on this mission. And yeah, I mean, I didn't think
the acting was anything to writehome about.
There's parts of the script thatwere really like that dialogue
is so cringe. But I mean, overall, I had a
good time watching it, you know,no complaints.
It's also very heroic. You can tell that they really
(02:49):
wanted this to be glory Glory Hallelujah.
Yeah, absolutely. Let's get into the plot.
You always have to say that that's your line.
That's my life. We start with an opening card.
(03:11):
To no one's surprise, it says this film is dedicated to the
man, living and dead of the 1st Special Service Force, better
known to the enemies as the Devil's Per Card.
So not a very long opening card,but still.
Yeah, you know what? I'm happy with it.
We've discussed before how sometimes the opening card gives
you half the movie and it's completely unnecessary and this
(03:33):
opening card didn't do that. I also think that this movie was
made 20 years after the end of World War 2, so they probably
didn't think they had to spoon feed the Italian campaign to
people or anything like that. No, true.
I realized that I didn't know a lot about what was going on
here. I never even heard of the
Devil's Brigade before, but thenI also realized later as I was
(03:55):
doing some research that they were also known as the Black
Devils, and I feel like I've heard of the Black Devils
before. It's one of those things that
you've just heard of. Well, this brigade went on to
become the Green Berets. They were sort of the spiritual
predecessor to the Green Berets because I believe that the
brigade was disbanded. The first Special Service Force
was disbanded at the end of World War 2, but they kind of
(04:17):
came back a couple years later and made a new one.
So it's sort of considered the spiritual predecessor of the
Green Berets, and the Green Berets have become a sort of a
shorthand in action movies for aguy that's really dangerous and
knows what he's doing. So Rambo was a Green Beret,
Jason Bourne was a Green Beret. So it's really become a thing in
popular culture. I did don't know any of this.
(04:39):
I like to watch a lot of action movies.
I'm a big fan. So I'm like, Oh yeah, familiar
with the the guy who's a Green Beret and just can't be stopped.
I mean, I've seen Jason Bourne, I seen all that Bourne movies,
but I've just never like made the connection.
But I guess I won't next time I watch any of those.
Yeah, In the summer of 1942, American Lieutenant Colonel
(05:02):
Robert T Frederick, played by William Holden, which, by the
way, this is our third William Holden movie.
So he's competing with Brad Pittat this point for becoming our
most covered actor. He's a War Department staff
officer with no prior combat or command experience, and he's
summoned to Britain. And there he meets Admiral Lord
Louis Mountbatten by Patrick Knowles.
(05:23):
And we talked about Mountbatten in our ex company episodes when
we talked about DF. He was the head of combined
operations and he was sort of a protege of Churchill, one might
say. Anyway, he selects Robert
Frederick to raise a commando force composed of both Americans
and Canadians for operations in German occupied Norway.
(05:43):
They're going to have this superspecialized vehicle.
They're going to be able to do these lightning strike attacks
where they'll sabotage and and they'll melt away into the night
kind of thing. And they'll be on the skis,
which I thought was really funny.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. They're like, yeah, this is
going to be really specialized force that's great at winter
(06:03):
warfare. And then they ended up not being
that in the end, but yeah. So someone that they don't show
in the movie, but who is quite important in the history of the
1st Special Service Force was Jeffrey Pike.
He was a civilian, not a military man, but he was a
British scientist and inventor who was on Mountbatten's
combined operations team, and hewas the spark behind the force.
(06:25):
It was his idea. He was this extremely eccentric
dude didn't get along with anybody.
He went from workplace to workplace with people being
like, fuck this guy, he's so annoying.
But he was also very creative. So he developed this idea for
what he called Project Plow, which was an elite unit that
would use a specialized snow going vehicle called the Weasel,
which by the way, had not yet been invented.
(06:46):
This was also something that he invented to strike and sabotage
targets in the heart of occupiedNorway.
The British ended up handing offthe project to the Americans,
and some of the Americans were abit leery about taking the
project on, but Eisenhower was abig proponent of it.
Frederick himself actually wrotea memo saying that he didn't
think that the project was feasible, and then he got picked
(07:08):
to lead the project. So he had to quickly put those
doubts away and figure out a wayto make it work.
Ultimately, he shunted Pike out of the project because he was
like, listen, no one's getting along with this guy.
It's not going to happen if he'saround.
And they ended up streamlining the project a little bit later
to get rid of the weasel and change the nature of the force a
little bit. But we'll talk about that more
as the movie goes on. Yeah, it's such a funny story
(07:32):
how the one person who didn't believe in the mission was there
to leave it. Yeah, I would say his job before
he was picked to lead this forcewas anytime someone would come
out of the woodwork. Because what'll happen sometimes
is that a high-ranking so and sofrom somewhere will be like, I
have this great idea for this. And then the military has to
(07:54):
have someone who comes up with valid reasons why it can't be
done without wasting too much men and resources.
And so his job really was to take these sort of pie in the
sky projects and come up with reasons why the military
couldn't do it. And so when this crossed his
desk, he was like, oh, well, it's easy.
We can't do it because we don't have this machine.
We can't do it because of XYZ. So he wrote this memo and then
(08:15):
he thought no more about it. And then when this project came
up and he was selected to lead it, he was like, oh, well, I did
write this memo saying it was a bad idea, but that was kind of
his job to do that. And there were quite a lot of
people in the American administration who I think
mainly undertook this project because it came from Churchill
and Mountbatten. And they were like, well, I
(08:36):
guess we better pay lip service to this idea because the British
love it so much, you know? It's another one of those pet
project for Churchill, I guess, that he just really liked.
Yeah, Don't say no to Churchill.I think so.
Exactly. The real Robert Frederick ended
up being the perfect choice because once they decided that
this was going to be a go, therereally was no template for it.
(08:58):
And he would reach out to people, other people in the
military and be like, hey, so I need to hire some people for
this and I need to get some resources for that.
We need a base that we're going to use.
We need XYZ. And people were like, like, they
didn't really want to stick their neck out because they
thought this was kind of some harebrained scheme and they
didn't really have, you know, processes in place or anything.
(09:18):
So he had to kind of figure out a lot of stuff by himself.
So he was constantly on the movebehind the scenes.
And then when they did end up going overseas to Europe, he was
the kind of leader where he was always in amongst the men that
were constantly talking about how he would lead patrols or he
would even go on one man patrol.Sometimes he would lend a hand
carrying stretchers. He was constantly there when you
(09:41):
needed him. Because of that, he really won
their undying loyalty and he also won the Distinguished
Service Cross twice and eight Purple Hearts.
So if you're keeping track, he was wounded at least eight times
and he ended up being promoted out of the unit on June 23rd,
1944, which was kind of after their Italian campaign
shenanigans. And a lot of the men really felt
(10:02):
like the spirit of the unit changed after he left.
He was the beating heart of it in some ways and then he went
out to hold several other commands in the Army and retired
in 1952. So definitely a guy with a quite
a career. I'm glad he survived.
I mean, there's a scene later onin the movie where we see him
going on a little solar expedition with the pilot in
(10:24):
Italy. We're sticking all sorts of
risks that the press doesn't really like him taking.
So they got that right. Yeah, the brigade was big on
they believe that leaders shouldlead, so their officers were
right down there in the mock with the enlisted men.
The movie really reiterates thatquite well, I think.
(10:44):
Frederick takes on the mission and in the US when he gets back,
he is sent to a place called Fort William Henry Harrison in
Montana and it's been abandoned by it's a bit neglected and
disheveled. And once he gets there, he meets
the major Cup Breaker, played byVince Edwards, and Captain
(11:05):
Cardwell, played by John Stern. Yeah, So Bricker is based on a
real person who is quite an eccentric character in real
life, Colonel John Shinberger, and his training methods are
credited with honing the force into the top notch fighting unit
it became. So he was the one who organized
the camp and organized all of their training and everything.
So he was quite crucial in the beginning.
(11:27):
Unfortunately he found himself on the wrong side of personality
clashes with some of his superiors, and he had a bit of
an acrimonious exit from the unit before it went overseas.
So I think that's perhaps why they have changed his name in
the movie, but I'm not 100% sure.
But there's a quote from the book that I read, This is The
Devil's Brigade by Robert H Adelman and Colonel George
(11:47):
Walton, where they say Schinberger, a man of great
drive, left almost every army associate with the impression
that if his energy had been directed by less erratic
judgement, he would have reacheda ranking position in the
military hierarchy. Wild.
Yeah, and also, this is a man who collects snakes.
Yes, that's true in real life. So I gather he was a bit of a
(12:09):
ladies man. And then he got married and he
decided that he was going to sitin his bunk all day reading the
Bible. That became his whole thing.
And he had this crate, I guess, full of rattlesnakes.
And the men were like, oh, you must really like snakes.
He's like, no, I hate snakes, but I think if I'm around them
enough, my fear will start to wear down.
So yeah, he just had this collection of snakes and one day
(12:32):
all of the snakes got out and hewent away for a little bit and
then he came back in and they were like, what happened with
the snakes? He's like, don't worry, I killed
them all. So just just a strange dude.
Wow, I would be slightly afraid of this man I think.
Yeah, I think part of the reasonwhy he didn't end up staying
with the unit was because he waskind of a loose cannon in that
(12:56):
way. And as they became more formally
structured, there were people who are like, we can't have that
kind of character amongst us. If he was going to be in any
brigade, it would be this one. If you're going to build such a
wild, I can't say to a brigade why then he would fit.
But at the same time, when things got really serious, you
(13:18):
need serious people to lead here, I guess.
Actually The funny thing is thatthey called themselves a brigade
because you can't really be surehow many people are in a
brigade. So the Germans would hear that
there was a brigade coming and be like, I have no fucking idea
how many dudes that is. So it's a little trick to make
yourself look bigger than they how many soldiers were in their
(13:40):
Brooklyn to me? You know more or?
Less. I think at Motela Defenza there
was about 1800, but I think typically there would be about
2000. So that's quite a lot.
Like in the movie we said maybe 100.
We see about 100 people at the time.
There would be a lot. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. They just weren't structured
like a traditional military unit.
(14:00):
So Frederick receives his American troops, all of whom are
jailbirds, nerdy wells and misfits.
They're fighting. They're scrapping.
They get off the train. They don't want to be there.
They're resentful. They're, you know, they talk
back. They're mouthy.
Our main ones are Omar Greco played by Richard Jacquel, Billy
(14:21):
Bronk Guthrie played by Bill Fletcher Rockwell, Rocky Rockman
played by Claude Akins, Al Manella played by Tom Troop and
Hubert Hickson played by Luke Askew.
So many, so many dudes, they don't don't like the sun, so
we're lucky. Yeah, we're glad that all these
white guys don't look the same for once.
(14:41):
Yeah, this idea of the force as being recruited from jails and
all the worst guys you can imagine is not 100% true.
I think it's part of the legend a little bit.
So, the book says, the recruiting notices that were
sent to be tacked on Army post bulletin boards stated that
preference would be given to menwho had previously been
(15:02):
lumberjacks, forest strangers, hunters, northwoodsmen, game
wardens, prospectors, and explorers.
As a practical matter, many postcommanders seized this
opportunity to empty their stockades and rid themselves of
hard case troublemakers in all categories.
Prisoners frequently were given the option of continuing their
sentences or quote UN quote of volunteering for Frederick's
(15:24):
force. Many of the forest men, of
course, were not felons. They were also ex college men,
teachers, farmers, and the former bodyguards of movie stars
and political bosses. But it would be difficult for an
observer to separate the two categories on the basis of their
subsequent combat records. I do get the idea that they
wanted woodsmen strong, strengthen guys who knew how to
(15:47):
be in the woods and then the outdoors and all that.
But the movie, of course, just makes them all like bandits.
The rascals, yeah, It's more funthat way if you lean into that,
I guess. Yeah.
And I mean, part of the reason why they wanted the Canadians
involved in the 1st place was because they were like, we need
people who have experience in the snow, who have operated in
(16:08):
cold weather conditions before. We stayed with the Americans for
quite a bit. We got to know them a little
bit, but the movie doesn't thinkwhere.
Not a lot happens. There's a lot of a little bit
clunky dialogue between them, but it's fun.
You get to know them a little bit, but eventually the
Canadians from in with very coolblack pipe playing if you really
(16:30):
do that, and you can immediatelytell that these guys are the
opposite of the Americans. They're very organized in their
elite and hand picks and among them these aren't all of them
that some of our main charactersfrom the Canadian sides are
nature. Ellen Crown also my favorite in
(16:51):
this movie I think played by Craig Robertson.
He's possibly based on Lieutenant Colonel John McQueen
who was the Canadian Executive officer and 2nd in command of
the brigade in Tony Burke is like parachute jumping and was
replaced prior to the we used toget couple Peacock which is a
(17:11):
big strapping man played by JackWatson.
With a big old moustache. And we used to get a Frenchman
called Harry Laurent, played by Jean Paul Fionn, and he becomes
the medic of the. Yeah, I was quite entertained
when the Canadians came in. In real life, the Canadians
(17:31):
would have come from groups across the country, but it seems
like they're kind of being represented here as, you know,
some kind of Highlander unit. So they've all got their kilts
on and they're playing Scotland the Brave as they come marching
in, which was, you know, a hilarious song to choose.
And then throughout the rest of the movie, it becomes like a
little motif. So anytime you hear the score
(17:52):
playing while they're doing action Y stuff, you'll hear a
little lick from Scotland the Brave a little.
And it just is woven in over andover again.
It's very funny. And I also think it's very funny
that the actor playing Major Alan Crown is doing this soft
Scottish accent. And I looked online so I could
find out if John McQueen was legitimately fresh off the boat
(18:16):
Scottish, and I couldn't find anything.
So it could be that the real guywas Scottish and that's why he's
doing this. But it just made me laugh
throughout the whole movie watching this guy being like,
what is a Canadian accent sound like, I don't know, kind of
Scottish? Yeah.
And the thing you just said about the music, about the
themes, the other half of that theme is American.
(18:36):
And I forget where the theme is from, but they kind of
intertrine and they start intertrining more as the unit
becomes more solid. So it's quite a nice way of
showing the Canadians versus Americans and then kind of them
working together later on. So it's quite a funny musical
joke that's in there. Yeah, we also get introduced to
(19:00):
Theodore Ransom, played by Andrew Prine.
He's a washed out flyer from theUSAAF who walked over to the
Fort because he wanted to join the 1st Special Service Force
just so badly. Also because he got into a fight
with his superior officer I think and decked him after
sleeping with his girlfriend. Yeah, pretty representative of
(19:24):
the kind of guy we're supposed to expect to be in this unit.
I think the movie could have done without this character.
I don't think he brings a whole lot to the movie.
I agree, and I don't think the actor did the most incredible
job that could have been done either.
No, I agree. It's a bit on the nose, yeah,
(19:46):
But the next note that I've put down here is a very short note.
It says, let's say the Americansand Canadians clash, and this is
a short note, but it takes a while on the it's just kind of
especially the Americans pickingon the Canadians because the
Canadians are very well behaved and the Americans obviously are
(20:07):
not because we're all criminals.It's basically the Americans
taunting mostly Peacock at the Canadian side.
Yeah, they definitely played this up quite a lot for the
movie. In real life, it seems when the
Canadians and Americans first met each other, there's a little
anecdote about how they started swapping uniforms because the
(20:29):
Canadians liked the American uniform because it was sort of
like their officers uniforms. And the Americans like the
Canadian uniform because they had these pretty brass buttons
on them. They were a bit more dashing or
whatever. And yeah, they had, I guess, a
few minor difficulties because the Canadian Army was trained
quite a lot like the British Army, like you see in the movie,
(20:49):
like quite strict and regimented.
And the American Army was a bit more.
You could have more informality between officers and enlisted
men and that kind of stuff is, you know, a little bit more
relaxed in that way. But yeah, once they sort of got
to know each other and and started training, a lot of them
said you didn't necessarily knowwho was American or who is
Canadian. They wasn't necessarily like a
(21:10):
big deal. I was watching them clash on my
computer, so I was watching. It was like, how old are you?
Are you 12? Because they're all like just
being stupid boys to each other.You could tell that this wasn't
wouldn't have been the case in real life.
It was just really childish kindof behavior.
(21:32):
Yeah, I guess they wanted to because the training sequence
part of the movie is so long, asyou noted before.
I guess they had to have some kind of conflict to spice it up.
Yeah, when they finally got to do some actual training, their
gear has not yet arrived, so they can't take their actual
backs to that they would have incombat.
(21:52):
So instead they have to haul 30 lbs of rocks up the hill instead
of their gear. So this whole scene, I figure it
must have happened in real life as well, because I watched part
of another movie about this brigade.
The movie was really bad, so I turned it off.
But this also happened in that movie, so it must have been a
(22:14):
real thing. Yeah, I mean, I didn't read
anything specifically like that in the book, but it wouldn't
surprise me. They definitely had some some
growing pains initially with getting their supplies and that
kind of stuff. Yeah, so tell me about the next
guy. This is a really cool guy.
Yeah, so we get introduced to Sergeant Patrick O'Neal, played
by Jeremy Slate. He comes in to whip everybody
(22:35):
into shape with some hand to hand combat, and his intro in
the movie is kind of fun. Our intro to him in the movie is
that he comes in and tries to goad one of the Americans into a
fight, and when the American takes the bait, Patrick O'Neal
fucks him up hand to hand style.And he's based on a real guy.
I don't know that this altercation that happened in the
movie actually happened, but thereal guy was quite an
(22:57):
interesting character. There's a quote from the book.
Before 1941, Pat had been a detective, a member of a riot
squad, and an officer of the farfamed Shanghai International
Police. His reputation for a brand of
fighting in which he mixed jiu jitsu, karate and several other
methods of barehandedly crippling an antagonist had
brought him to the attention of Colonel William while Bill
(23:18):
Donovan, who made him a member of the Super spy organization.
He was then forming the OSS. And O'Neill was sort of blown
out to the force from the OSS. And then when Bill Donovan tried
to get him back, he found out that Frederick had gotten
O'Neill a Commission so that he could keep him.
Because O'Neill was an Irishman,right?
He was not in the American or Canadian military.
(23:40):
And so Donovan thought it'd be easy to get him back.
And then it turned out Frederickwas like, no, actually, I made
him. I'm an officer, so I get to keep
him now. Although I don't believe the
real guy actually went into combat with them.
I really quite like how the movie introduces different types
of characters to us, because it's a tough thing to do because
they come in at different times.So how do you keep us
(24:01):
interested? And I don't quite know how to do
it, but it works. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And this is also the part where we see the guys training in
their special skills. So they're learning how to ski
and of course all the Canadians are better at it than the
Americans. So that's the whole thing.
So after a lot of fighting and antagonizing each other, the
(24:23):
Americans and the Canadians finally find themselves on the
same side of a brawl in a bar ora club somewhere.
And this is one of two places wesee some women in this movie.
And there's three of them all atonce.
And they're played respectively by Gretchen, while Maggie Threat
and Rita Rogers. And basically they get into a
(24:46):
fight over these ladies, but then they're all fighting on the
same side. So when they go back to base
from the military police, they kind of had them back after
Frederick. Frederick lost them off easy
because he's happy that they're not fighting anymore.
Yeah, I think this is loosely based on real life.
The men of the force would go out into the town, which was a
(25:08):
small enough town and so it was quite noticeable that they had
all these young men that they hadn't had there before.
And a lot of the local, those were miners and sort of rough
and tumble type. So I believe there was a few
altercations here and there between the men of the Force and
some of the locals. Yeah, this thing, I liked it.
I also thought I would have liked for the women to have
(25:29):
another scene that wasn't just them.
The Our gold fine man. Yeah, yeah.
I guess. I guess one of them gets a sing
because I think the American FlyBoy plays piano and they have a
little sound together. That's true.
Actually, you're right. Yeah.
So just as they finish training,they all look all nice and fancy
(25:52):
in their uniforms, and they are definitely much more of a clean
cut, orderly unit than they wereinitially.
They're ready to go on their first mission to Norway, but
then Frederick gets word that the Norway mission has been
scrubbed and the unit's going todisband because there's not
really a reason for it. And he's pretty miffed about
this. So he decides he's going to go
to Washington and try to figure out what's going on.
(26:14):
At this point in the show, I waskind of confused about when we
were in time. Like they kind of tell you at
the very beginning and then after that, you've got no clue
where we are. It's another one of those movies
that doesn't really care if you know the timeline, and I guess
it doesn't really matter on the right fellow Frederick to
Washington. And when he's there, he managed
(26:37):
just to persuade Lieutenant General Mark Clark with an end.
And he was the commander of the US 5th Army, played by Michael
Rennie. And he makes him give his men a
chance to prove themselves on a new mission in Italy.
And he agrees. Mark Clark.
Yeah, so in real life the project was dropped because the
(27:00):
Norwegian government backed out.They had some serious concerns
about what would happen in a post war Norway if all of their
infrastructure was sabotaged, which I mean, understandable, I
suppose. And the British, who were
supposed to supply the bomber planes that were going to be
needed, couldn't justify the diversion of resources.
(27:22):
And so it kind of seemed like the project was going to dwindle
because they just weren't getting the support they needed
from these important corners. And then General George C
Marshall kind of popped in to save the day.
At the time, the Canadians were thinking they were going to pull
out of the project because it didn't seem like it was going to
go ahead. So he personally asked them not
to do that. And this kind of lit the spark
(27:44):
in Frederick again to say, OK, well if there's still some
support for this, maybe I'll tryand make it work.
So this is where he kind of started to transform it into a
multi purpose fighting unit. Instead of just being these guys
that were going to be really specialized in the snow.
He's like, let's try and make this into a unit that can be
dropped anywhere and be successful anywhere.
And so this meant they got rid of the weasel, this super
(28:07):
special snow going vehicle, and they sort of tried to expand
what they would be capable of doing.
And their first mission was actually to Kiska, which is in
the Aleutian Islands of by Alaska.
And they were going to fight theJapanese, but they made their
beautiful amphibious landing. It was textbook.
They did a great job. And then they discovered that
(28:27):
the Japanese had already gone. So they didn't actually do any
combat there. And that was August 15th, 1943.
For those of us trying desperately to follow the
timeline. Oh my.
God, I imagine just doing an amphibious, landing something
that must be pretty damn scary to do, and then landing and
something at there's no one there.
(28:47):
Right. Yeah.
And it's funny because they weretrained to do amphibious
landings and I believe they onlydid two of them.
I think they also did one in theSouth of France.
So this is part of a long standing thing where when
historians talk about this unit where they had all these
specialized skills and they really weren't perhaps used to
the optimal degree, to what theywere good at, they ended up
(29:10):
being sort of thrown into the meat grinder a lot of the time.
But we'll talk about that more as we go on here.
In Washington we do get another female character who plays, I
don't know who's secretary, but a secretary, and I tried to find
her on IDP but I couldn't succeed.
But there is another lady in there that's got some actual
(29:31):
good dialogue too, so I just wanted to do a little shout out
for her. Yeah, she was there.
She had lines. We saw her.
We skip ahead. We're on the Italian front now.
Frederick takes a risky Recon flight that gets him into some
hot water with Major General Maxwell Hunter, played by
Carroll O'Connor, his superior officer, and he ends up sending
(29:52):
Frederick and the men on a patrol mission to get prisoners
in a town called Santa Elia. Yeah, this mission, man, I was
happy that something was going to happen.
I was happy to get a mission this point, but also the Recon
flight project is pretty damn risky because they're being shot
at by Germans. I think I do understand his
(30:14):
superior officer for not being to police, but then again
nothing happened and he got valuable information about the
time that they're meant to be doing something.
I think something similar to this did happen in real life,
but it was when they were still in Alaska if I'm not mistaken.
He wrote along on a bombing mission.
But they were bombing the Japanese all right.
So they kind of took some liberties and went to show that,
(30:38):
I guess. Yeah, that's fun.
The scene that covers the patrols pretty long because we
see them going through the country and through rivers and
all that sort of stuff. Also, this mission, I think, was
meant for them to fail. You get a feeling that Maxwell
or Mr. Hunter, what whatever hisname is, General Hunter doesn't
(30:59):
want them to succeed, but they do.
They go on this patrol. They seek through rivers.
Obviously they are used to roughcountry, so they're pretty good
at this and they're pretty quiet, so the Germans don't
really see them coming. But on this patrol, a ransom,
the American flyboy, he hesitates to kill a German who's
(31:21):
sitting in a tank, but Bronk hasgot his back.
And this is where we start seeing some blood that looks
like Red Tent. And it just made me laugh.
What made me laugh is I'm prettysure he gets cut in the arm or
something. I don't remember what it is.
And just like immediately, there's so much blood on his
sleeve and I'm like, I don't think it that's how it works.
(31:42):
And. Ransom, because he failed to
kill the German because he has attention, he has to stay behind
and watch the tanks and kind of keep the perimeter there.
They're picking off men from a German patrol by being very
sneaky and they're grabbing themone by one and they end up
taking the entire town. They'll grab one or two Germans
at a time and be like silence oryou're dead, and then they'll
(32:04):
grab the next two, etcetera, etcetera.
And then Ransom gets the chance to kill a man, and he does it
instantly, redeeming himself. Yes, this line too, they're
saying in German, so it's like 1German line that they know.
And I thought it's funny how these people just comply
credentials like, OK, I guess I'll shut up and not make a
(32:25):
sound. Yo, what really made me laugh
was this German patrol, I guess,coming up a street and they keep
grabbing the back two guys from the patrol and it just reaches a
point where the only one left isthe officer.
And the officer turns around andwhen none of his guys are there,
he does a little like he's sort of jumps like he's like, oh,
(32:47):
where are my guys? You can tell it's not meant to
be a serious scene. It's meant to be a little skit
almost. But I guess maybe they did some
of us in real life, who knows. They were commenders.
They were probably capable of being really quiet.
Yeah, no, it could happen. We can't rule it out.
No. So this mission, as we see the
(33:07):
mission end, is basically with them just holding the entire
town of Germans hostage. But this is the mission that
earns them the nickname the Toy football gather, which is German
for the Devil's Brigade. And it also earns them some time
in person for defying orders because they were not meant to
take the entire time. They were just meant to get some
(33:29):
prisoners and then go back home.But meanwhile, they also got a
second mission, but it's again, a mission that's not really
aiming to be one that they succeeded because it's to take
on one day or as they say in themovie, very American accent.
But no one else has managed to do this because the Germans are
(33:53):
pretty real fortified up there. So it's just really impenetrable
situation up on the mountain. And you look at it and you're
like, no one's going to make it out of life.
Yeah, so in real life, none of that first mission stuff
happened. The Force never had to prove
itself. I believe General Marshall was
looking for somewhere that he could use them in the European
(34:14):
campaign or, you know, maybe in the Pacific or wherever.
And then Mark Clark's 5th Army, it was basically scrambling
because they had a desperate shortage of men.
So they ended up being assigned to the 5th Army, and they
subsequently were assigned to take La Defensa as part of this
broader plan to breach the mountainous German winter line
in Italy. And so while they were taking
(34:35):
Monte La Defensa, there was alsoa British force that was trying
to capture a couple of peaks that were sort of a little
further away. So they were part of this
coordinated effort. And there's a quote from the
book. A chain of heavily fortified
hills linked together by some ofthe toughest German army units
in the European theatre constituted Field Marshall
Kesselring's Winter Line. It was the Germans main stand in
(34:58):
front of Rome, and it had stalled the advance of the 5th
Army through Italy. The key to cracking this line
was represented by two formidable mountain masses named
Monte la Defensa and Monte la Urematania.
No matter how ferocious a fighting force General Mark
Clark hurled against these twin weeks, the attack had not only
been repulsed, it had also resulted in heavy Allied
casualties. So if you're picturing the area
(35:20):
in your mind, it's kind of in the Apanine Mountains, which
fall between Naples and Rome. So in order to get to Rome from
Naples, they're going to have topass through this heavily
fortified mountain area. Yeah, if you say no matter how
ferocious a fighting ferocious or Mark like her old against
this dream gigs, it's just me like a mansion and just people
(35:40):
flying at the mountain just go. Just catapulting them.
Yeah, but yeah, I feel like the movie is trying to make The
Devil's Brigade look like this. Really unpopular brigade, like
no one likes them and I'm just giving them all the chores they
don't want to do. But that really wasn't the case
(36:03):
in real life. Yeah, they're kind of making
them into an underdog story. Yes.
So hurray, we get another mention of time.
We're in December 1943. Oh, crucially, I put that in.
Put that in. Thank you.
That's helpful. Thanks, Anne.
So it's winter time, so it's freaking cold.
(36:26):
You get no sense of this in the movie, but it's good to know.
Frederick makes a plan to have Allied artillery on one side of
the mountain to distract the Germans on the mountain, when in
actuality, they'll be coming up on the other side, and they'll
have to climb to the top of the mountain in three hours.
And they're hoping to gain the high ground and in that way to
(36:50):
surprise the Germans because they'll be focused on the
artillery is down there. And this climb was pretty wild.
There's a reason why the Germanswere not expecting to be
attacked on that side, and it's because they didn't think that
any substantial force would be able to scale that mountain.
Apparently once the combat started and they had to get
wounded men down the hill, it would take eight men 10 hours to
(37:13):
get a wounded guy down if they had to use, you know, cables and
stuff like that. And a good chunk of the brigade
ended up being sort of relegatedto supply duty, which was no
mean feat because they had to get all these supplies up the
hill. The only way was to get men to
carry them on their backs. So these big 5 gallon water jugs
and medical supplies and food and all this stuff.
(37:34):
And the strongest dudes they hadcould only go up the mountain
three times a day. Most guys were only making two
trips a day because it was so strenuous.
Where is Desmond Dos and his books when you need him?
Yeah. Where is Desmond Dos when you
need him? Exactly.
As the Germans fire in the direction of the artillery fire,
so their distraction works. The devils get closer and they
(37:56):
attack. And there's this combat scene
that's very loud. Had to turn the volume down on
ITV because it's very like, if you can picture just 1960s
explosions, it's constant monotonous noise.
It's hard to pull out distinct sounds.
It's just an overall barrage of sound, but yeah so we get a
(38:16):
whole bunch of little moments. Grigo doesn't make it RIP.
Hickson dies as well after telling the medic to give his
love to the medic's wife being ashit till the end.
The way this happens in the movie, a lot of people die for
the curriculum succession and you're like, wait a second,
let's be fast and mourn for thisperson that you don't really get
(38:37):
any time to mourn anybody because it happened so fast.
So Peacock, which is our Canadian Red head with the
mustache, gets shot and Rocky iskind of his adversary on the
American side, tries to save hislife because nobody's now, and
he gets a German prisoner to carry him down the mountain.
(38:59):
But then the German tries to escape and tries to kill Rocky,
who just about manages to get away and kill him instead.
But Peacock unfortunately dies, so it's over.
Not. That was the only part that I
found actually a bit sad, where Rocky was just so upset, you
know, this rough and tumble American who was kind of an
(39:19):
asshole for so long as like, finally.
Oh, he does have a heart after all.
And he's quite sad when his Canadian buddy dies.
He's a really big tough guy, so when he starts crying you're you
definitely feel like a little bit.
I think most of the characters we probably didn't get to know
them well enough to be that impacted by their deaths, but I
always find in movies deaths aremore impactful when I get to see
(39:43):
the reaction of the character left behind and like it kind of
empathize with those feelings. And then the Germans wave the
white flag to surrender. But as Major Crown and his guys
come in to take the Germans captive, the cowardly German
commander shoots Major Crown andthat's the end of our brave
Canadian commander. RIP.
(40:05):
This made me so sad. This was my favorite director.
I really like the commander. Come on.
There's an anecdote in the book about something similar
happening to Captain Rothlin, and when the men saw it, it
essentially prompted them to nottake any more prisoners unless
they were specifically told to because they needed them for
interrogation or something like that.
(40:26):
Yeah, I guess once you break that peace out thing where you
wave the white flag and then kill someone, that's not going
to go over very well with soldiers that are already riled
up. Like good luck staying alive.
Yeah, for sure. And it's understandable that
when they first started attacking, you know, you see
(40:47):
someone waving the white flag and it's your first time in
combat, you're not actually going to want to shoot that
person. And then I guess they learned
their lesson pretty quick on that front.
Frederick reports back, but he'son this phone, but he can't
stand to listen to the congratulations and praise that
he's getting. Is all he can think about is a
(41:07):
man who lost and that's the end of the movie.
It ends kind of straight after direction.
Yeah, it ends a bit suddenly. In real life, the brigade had
something like 30% casualties atMultila Defenso, which is a
(41:29):
pretty high number. So yeah, it's kind of indicative
of their whole wartime experience, you know, these
super specialized guys, and theywere just being what what is it?
He says in SAS, rogue heroes flung at the enemy like gravel.
Kind of a waste. When you were reading the book
and talking to me offline about this, it's like they were such
good fighters, but the missions they were being sent on weren't
(41:52):
necessarily the ones that could use their skills the most.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a sad reality. And that war.
One of the things that the authors of the book that I read
felt quite strongly about was that they were like, well, yes,
you had to take these mountains in order to get to Rome.
(42:14):
But why did the allies need to get to Rome other than as a
symbolic victory? Because it seemed pretty clear
at the time that really the onlyway that they we're going to be
able to destroy the heart of theGerman war machine was through
some kind of cross channel invasion in northwestern Europe.
Really the only thing that the Italian campaign was kind of
(42:35):
accomplishing at this point was attrition, you know, wearing
down the German army and taking away divisions who could
potentially be on the Eastern Front and, you know, that kind
of stuff. So the author kind of felt maybe
these missions were not even strictly necessary to be carried
out. Again, I suppose part of that is
hindsight too, but then again, maybe they did know at the time
(42:59):
that they weren't going to be focusing their efforts in Italy
anyway. The brigade itself, they went on
to take the next peak, Ramat Tania, and they continued
conquering their way through themountains, taking peak after
peak. And then when the Allies landed
at Anzio, which you may have heard of before, they did an
amphibious landing sort of Southof Rome.
(43:20):
They held 1/4 of the beachhead, which was 13 kilometers.
There were just 1300 guys at this point out of 40,000 total
men who were holding this beachhead.
And not only did they hold their13 kilometers, they sort of set
up shop there. So there was a little town that
was empty of civilians and they kind of took it over and they
had a bar and they would steal cows and sheep and chickens and
(43:45):
stuff from local civilians. And they were kind of farming.
They would do this by day, and at night they would go out and
annoy the shit out of the Germans and do these nighttime
raids. So there's this quote from the
National Post, which is a newspaper here in Canada that
says heavily outnumbered, they launched offensive but silent
night raids using primarily their daggers against the enemy
and leaving their red spearhead shoulder Insignia as a calling
(44:08):
card, carrying the ominous message in German.
The worst is is yet to come. Well, they could deal with the
show like SAS. Right and then as they went on,
they in real life still this here because the movies ended so
we don't see any of this, but they were one of the first
allied units into Rome. They then made an amphibious
landing in the South of France. This was called Operation
(44:30):
Dragoon. They captured 5 forts on two
islands. They move through the French
Riviera. They killed or captured a whole
German battalion, which is like 1000 men.
And they were liberating all these little towns along the
French, Italian border. And then they ended up being
disbanded in December of 1944 because at that point, the war
was starting to wind down. And really it was about harrying
(44:53):
the last of the Germans, which, you know, you can do with a
regular army. You don't need special operation
skills for that. And yeah, apparently a lot of
the men were, you know, this is a bit of an emotional moment for
them. You know, they had found sort of
a home in this force and this unified personality and
identity, and they lost that when the force disbanded.
And yeah, there's another quote from the National Post that says
(45:15):
rarely exceeding 2000 in number,the 1st Special Service Force is
credited with the capture of 12,000 prisoners and 15,000
enemy killed, the equivalent of 2 German line divisions.
But these achievements came at atremendous price, a 600%
attrition rate with more than 500 killed and 2400 wounded
many, several times. What is an attrition rate?
(45:38):
Attrition is like when you wear away at something that's the
rate at which they were taking casualties and having to replace
them. Right, that's a lot then.
Wow. I think this was a really fun
introduction to the Devil's Brigade for me.
I really enjoy this. Well, we should rate this movie
Let's Read Fake Red Berets out of 10 because the red berets
(45:59):
they wear in the movie are not hats that they ever actually
wore. And The funny thing is that on
the cover of my book they are also wearing red berets because
I guess this edition was meant to tie in with the movie, but
they never actually wore. These.
That's stupid. Why?
I feel like Ben Simmons would beupset about this.
He would. Ben Simmons would not have
(46:19):
allowed this to happen. Military advisor Ben Simmons of
SAS Rogue Heroes, who is a friend of the pod.
All right, that's rated. I will rate this movie 8 Fake
Red Berets out of Town because I'm really just enjoyed it even
though not even a whole lot happens in a movie like we only
got maybe 1 1/2 mission. But it's just a really fun
(46:42):
classic movie and I just like classic movies that I can't help
it. It's my jam.
How about you? Yeah, I don't think it's broke
any new ground. I think if you've seen The Dirty
Dozen and similar movies like that, you'll be like, Oh yeah,
this is something you throw on and watch and it's kind of fun,
but it's not necessarily. It's not out here winning awards
and stuff like that, but it's a fun adventure movie managed to
(47:05):
actually make these characters separately identifiable to us,
which we always appreciate an award film.
I don't think the acting or the script or anything to write home
about, but it was kind of fun towatch the Canadians and
Americans clash a little and forthem to play up these
differences between the two groups and then get to see them
work together. You know, it's always fun.
So I think I'll give it 7 fake red berets out of 10.
(47:28):
A fun movie, perhaps nothing to super write home about, but I
had a good time watching it. William Holden was good in this.
Yeah. And I, I gather this was a time
in his career where he hadn't had any really meaty starring
roles in a while. So this was like a little bit of
a comeback for him, almost. Well, are you reading anything?
(47:57):
Good question. No I'm not, but I say that.
But I have 8 books on the docketright now that I can start
reading. How about you?
That's OK. Sometimes a stack of books is
just fun to look at. Yeah.
I'm reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Nice. Yeah, I am actually really
enjoying it. I mean, it's almost kind of the
(48:18):
template for a lot of that styleof adventure novels.
So I'm, I'm having a good time, you know, pirates and Long John
Silver and all that stuff. Something not World War 2 for
once, yes. Nice.
Well, you can follow us whereveryou get your podcasts.
You can rate US five stars. You can send this episode to a
friend. You can go to our website,
(48:40):
rosiethereviewer.com, or you canfollow us on Instagram at Rosie
the Reviewer Podcast. Thank you for listening.
See you next week. Bye.
Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer. We're your host.
I'm Sam. And I'm married to.
And we like World War 2 media, and we want to talk about it.
Welcome back to Rosie the Reviewer.
This week we're talking about the movie The Devil's Brigade,
which came out in 1968. It was directed by Andrew V
(00:23):
McLaughlin and written by William Roberts.
It's based on the 1966 nonfiction book of the same name
Co written by American novelist and historian Robert H Adelman
and Colonel George Walton, who was a member of the Brigade and
I believe Robert Adelman also served in World War 2 on combat
bombers if I'm not mistaken. The film depicts the formation
(00:44):
and 1st mission of the 1st Special Service Force, a joint
American Canadian commando unit known as the Devil's Brigade.
It focuses on their first operation in the Italian
campaign aimed at capturing the seemingly impregnable German
stronghold Monte La Defensa. You can find this movie on
Amazon Prime. What did you think of this
movie? I really enjoyed this one.
(01:04):
I found a lot for these old movies that I didn't have at the
beginning of this podcast when we started, and now I just love
all of them. There's something about these
movies that is really interesting to me, but is it
just me or is everybody in this movie really old?
Literally though, I'm like, is it just that people in the 60s
(01:26):
looked haggard? I just like, these are meant to
be youngish men, you know? Roughly 30, maybe, but they all
look much older than that. Weathered, we'll say.
I think William Holden, who was the star of this movie, was a
little older, but all of them look pretty old.
But yeah, I enjoyed it. About half the movie is spent on
(01:47):
their training and the other half is combat ish or at least
mission. It's over 2 hours long so at
first it was like when are they gonna get through the good
stuff? But turns out the training is
actually also quite fun. So yeah, it was a fun run for
me. What about you?
Yeah, I found it pretty entertaining as well.
(02:07):
Sort of. I think it was trying to
capitalize on the popularity of The Dirty Dozen, which came out
the year before, I believe. I mean, I have yet to see The
Dirty Dozen. I know it's terrible, but it's
been recommended to us, so we'llcover it at some point.
But yeah, I thought it was sort of a fun adventure movie, one of
those where the soundtrack is very.
They love a snare drum. They love a horn.
(02:28):
Oh, here's like a group of nerdywells and they're going to make
good on this mission. And yeah, I mean, I didn't think
the acting was anything to writehome about.
There's parts of the script thatwere really like that dialogue
is so cringe. But I mean, overall, I had a
good time watching it, you know,no complaints.
It's also very heroic. You can tell that they really
(02:49):
wanted this to be glory Glory Hallelujah.
Yeah, absolutely. Let's get into the plot.
You always have to say that that's your line.
That's my life. We start with an opening card.
(03:11):
To no one's surprise, it says this film is dedicated to the
man, living and dead of the 1st Special Service Force, better
known to the enemies as the Devil's Per Card.
So not a very long opening card,but still.
Yeah, you know what? I'm happy with it.
We've discussed before how sometimes the opening card gives
you half the movie and it's completely unnecessary and this
(03:33):
opening card didn't do that. I also think that this movie was
made 20 years after the end of World War 2, so they probably
didn't think they had to spoon feed the Italian campaign to
people or anything like that. No, true.
I realized that I didn't know a lot about what was going on
here. I never even heard of the
Devil's Brigade before, but thenI also realized later as I was
(03:55):
doing some research that they were also known as the Black
Devils, and I feel like I've heard of the Black Devils
before. It's one of those things that
you've just heard of. Well, this brigade went on to
become the Green Berets. They were sort of the spiritual
predecessor to the Green Berets because I believe that the
brigade was disbanded. The first Special Service Force
was disbanded at the end of World War 2, but they kind of
(04:17):
came back a couple years later and made a new one.
So it's sort of considered the spiritual predecessor of the
Green Berets, and the Green Berets have become a sort of a
shorthand in action movies for aguy that's really dangerous and
knows what he's doing. So Rambo was a Green Beret,
Jason Bourne was a Green Beret. So it's really become a thing in
popular culture. I did don't know any of this.
(04:39):
I like to watch a lot of action movies.
I'm a big fan. So I'm like, Oh yeah, familiar
with the the guy who's a Green Beret and just can't be stopped.
I mean, I've seen Jason Bourne, I seen all that Bourne movies,
but I've just never like made the connection.
But I guess I won't next time I watch any of those.
Yeah, In the summer of 1942, American Lieutenant Colonel
(05:02):
Robert T Frederick, played by William Holden, which, by the
way, this is our third William Holden movie.
So he's competing with Brad Pittat this point for becoming our
most covered actor. He's a War Department staff
officer with no prior combat or command experience, and he's
summoned to Britain. And there he meets Admiral Lord
Louis Mountbatten by Patrick Knowles.
(05:23):
And we talked about Mountbatten in our ex company episodes when
we talked about DF. He was the head of combined
operations and he was sort of a protege of Churchill, one might
say. Anyway, he selects Robert
Frederick to raise a commando force composed of both Americans
and Canadians for operations in German occupied Norway.
(05:43):
They're going to have this superspecialized vehicle.
They're going to be able to do these lightning strike attacks
where they'll sabotage and and they'll melt away into the night
kind of thing. And they'll be on the skis,
which I thought was really funny.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. They're like, yeah, this is
going to be really specialized force that's great at winter
(06:03):
warfare. And then they ended up not being
that in the end, but yeah. So someone that they don't show
in the movie, but who is quite important in the history of the
1st Special Service Force was Jeffrey Pike.
He was a civilian, not a military man, but he was a
British scientist and inventor who was on Mountbatten's
combined operations team, and hewas the spark behind the force.
(06:25):
It was his idea. He was this extremely eccentric
dude didn't get along with anybody.
He went from workplace to workplace with people being
like, fuck this guy, he's so annoying.
But he was also very creative. So he developed this idea for
what he called Project Plow, which was an elite unit that
would use a specialized snow going vehicle called the Weasel,
which by the way, had not yet been invented.
(06:46):
This was also something that he invented to strike and sabotage
targets in the heart of occupiedNorway.
The British ended up handing offthe project to the Americans,
and some of the Americans were abit leery about taking the
project on, but Eisenhower was abig proponent of it.
Frederick himself actually wrotea memo saying that he didn't
think that the project was feasible, and then he got picked
(07:08):
to lead the project. So he had to quickly put those
doubts away and figure out a wayto make it work.
Ultimately, he shunted Pike out of the project because he was
like, listen, no one's getting along with this guy.
It's not going to happen if he'saround.
And they ended up streamlining the project a little bit later
to get rid of the weasel and change the nature of the force a
little bit. But we'll talk about that more
as the movie goes on. Yeah, it's such a funny story
(07:32):
how the one person who didn't believe in the mission was there
to leave it. Yeah, I would say his job before
he was picked to lead this forcewas anytime someone would come
out of the woodwork. Because what'll happen sometimes
is that a high-ranking so and sofrom somewhere will be like, I
have this great idea for this. And then the military has to
(07:54):
have someone who comes up with valid reasons why it can't be
done without wasting too much men and resources.
And so his job really was to take these sort of pie in the
sky projects and come up with reasons why the military
couldn't do it. And so when this crossed his
desk, he was like, oh, well, it's easy.
We can't do it because we don't have this machine.
We can't do it because of XYZ. So he wrote this memo and then
(08:15):
he thought no more about it. And then when this project came
up and he was selected to lead it, he was like, oh, well, I did
write this memo saying it was a bad idea, but that was kind of
his job to do that. And there were quite a lot of
people in the American administration who I think
mainly undertook this project because it came from Churchill
and Mountbatten. And they were like, well, I
(08:36):
guess we better pay lip service to this idea because the British
love it so much, you know? It's another one of those pet
project for Churchill, I guess, that he just really liked.
Yeah, Don't say no to Churchill.I think so.
Exactly. The real Robert Frederick ended
up being the perfect choice because once they decided that
this was going to be a go, therereally was no template for it.
(08:58):
And he would reach out to people, other people in the
military and be like, hey, so I need to hire some people for
this and I need to get some resources for that.
We need a base that we're going to use.
We need XYZ. And people were like, like, they
didn't really want to stick their neck out because they
thought this was kind of some harebrained scheme and they
didn't really have, you know, processes in place or anything.
(09:18):
So he had to kind of figure out a lot of stuff by himself.
So he was constantly on the movebehind the scenes.
And then when they did end up going overseas to Europe, he was
the kind of leader where he was always in amongst the men that
were constantly talking about how he would lead patrols or he
would even go on one man patrol.Sometimes he would lend a hand
carrying stretchers. He was constantly there when you
(09:41):
needed him. Because of that, he really won
their undying loyalty and he also won the Distinguished
Service Cross twice and eight Purple Hearts.
So if you're keeping track, he was wounded at least eight times
and he ended up being promoted out of the unit on June 23rd,
1944, which was kind of after their Italian campaign
shenanigans. And a lot of the men really felt
(10:02):
like the spirit of the unit changed after he left.
He was the beating heart of it in some ways and then he went
out to hold several other commands in the Army and retired
in 1952. So definitely a guy with a quite
a career. I'm glad he survived.
I mean, there's a scene later onin the movie where we see him
going on a little solar expedition with the pilot in
(10:24):
Italy. We're sticking all sorts of
risks that the press doesn't really like him taking.
So they got that right. Yeah, the brigade was big on
they believe that leaders shouldlead, so their officers were
right down there in the mock with the enlisted men.
The movie really reiterates thatquite well, I think.
(10:44):
Frederick takes on the mission and in the US when he gets back,
he is sent to a place called Fort William Henry Harrison in
Montana and it's been abandoned by it's a bit neglected and
disheveled. And once he gets there, he meets
the major Cup Breaker, played byVince Edwards, and Captain
(11:05):
Cardwell, played by John Stern. Yeah, So Bricker is based on a
real person who is quite an eccentric character in real
life, Colonel John Shinberger, and his training methods are
credited with honing the force into the top notch fighting unit
it became. So he was the one who organized
the camp and organized all of their training and everything.
So he was quite crucial in the beginning.
(11:27):
Unfortunately he found himself on the wrong side of personality
clashes with some of his superiors, and he had a bit of
an acrimonious exit from the unit before it went overseas.
So I think that's perhaps why they have changed his name in
the movie, but I'm not 100% sure.
But there's a quote from the book that I read, This is The
Devil's Brigade by Robert H Adelman and Colonel George
(11:47):
Walton, where they say Schinberger, a man of great
drive, left almost every army associate with the impression
that if his energy had been directed by less erratic
judgement, he would have reacheda ranking position in the
military hierarchy. Wild.
Yeah, and also, this is a man who collects snakes.
Yes, that's true in real life. So I gather he was a bit of a
(12:09):
ladies man. And then he got married and he
decided that he was going to sitin his bunk all day reading the
Bible. That became his whole thing.
And he had this crate, I guess, full of rattlesnakes.
And the men were like, oh, you must really like snakes.
He's like, no, I hate snakes, but I think if I'm around them
enough, my fear will start to wear down.
So yeah, he just had this collection of snakes and one day
(12:32):
all of the snakes got out and hewent away for a little bit and
then he came back in and they were like, what happened with
the snakes? He's like, don't worry, I killed
them all. So just just a strange dude.
Wow, I would be slightly afraid of this man I think.
Yeah, I think part of the reasonwhy he didn't end up staying
with the unit was because he waskind of a loose cannon in that
(12:56):
way. And as they became more formally
structured, there were people who are like, we can't have that
kind of character amongst us. If he was going to be in any
brigade, it would be this one. If you're going to build such a
wild, I can't say to a brigade why then he would fit.
But at the same time, when things got really serious, you
(13:18):
need serious people to lead here, I guess.
Actually The funny thing is thatthey called themselves a brigade
because you can't really be surehow many people are in a
brigade. So the Germans would hear that
there was a brigade coming and be like, I have no fucking idea
how many dudes that is. So it's a little trick to make
yourself look bigger than they how many soldiers were in their
(13:40):
Brooklyn to me? You know more or?
Less. I think at Motela Defenza there
was about 1800, but I think typically there would be about
2000. So that's quite a lot.
Like in the movie we said maybe 100.
We see about 100 people at the time.
There would be a lot. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. They just weren't structured
like a traditional military unit.
(14:00):
So Frederick receives his American troops, all of whom are
jailbirds, nerdy wells and misfits.
They're fighting. They're scrapping.
They get off the train. They don't want to be there.
They're resentful. They're, you know, they talk
back. They're mouthy.
Our main ones are Omar Greco played by Richard Jacquel, Billy
(14:21):
Bronk Guthrie played by Bill Fletcher Rockwell, Rocky Rockman
played by Claude Akins, Al Manella played by Tom Troop and
Hubert Hickson played by Luke Askew.
So many, so many dudes, they don't don't like the sun, so
we're lucky. Yeah, we're glad that all these
white guys don't look the same for once.
(14:41):
Yeah, this idea of the force as being recruited from jails and
all the worst guys you can imagine is not 100% true.
I think it's part of the legend a little bit.
So, the book says, the recruiting notices that were
sent to be tacked on Army post bulletin boards stated that
preference would be given to menwho had previously been
(15:02):
lumberjacks, forest strangers, hunters, northwoodsmen, game
wardens, prospectors, and explorers.
As a practical matter, many postcommanders seized this
opportunity to empty their stockades and rid themselves of
hard case troublemakers in all categories.
Prisoners frequently were given the option of continuing their
sentences or quote UN quote of volunteering for Frederick's
(15:24):
force. Many of the forest men, of
course, were not felons. They were also ex college men,
teachers, farmers, and the former bodyguards of movie stars
and political bosses. But it would be difficult for an
observer to separate the two categories on the basis of their
subsequent combat records. I do get the idea that they
wanted woodsmen strong, strengthen guys who knew how to
(15:47):
be in the woods and then the outdoors and all that.
But the movie, of course, just makes them all like bandits.
The rascals, yeah, It's more funthat way if you lean into that,
I guess. Yeah.
And I mean, part of the reason why they wanted the Canadians
involved in the 1st place was because they were like, we need
people who have experience in the snow, who have operated in
(16:08):
cold weather conditions before. We stayed with the Americans for
quite a bit. We got to know them a little
bit, but the movie doesn't thinkwhere.
Not a lot happens. There's a lot of a little bit
clunky dialogue between them, but it's fun.
You get to know them a little bit, but eventually the
Canadians from in with very coolblack pipe playing if you really
(16:30):
do that, and you can immediatelytell that these guys are the
opposite of the Americans. They're very organized in their
elite and hand picks and among them these aren't all of them
that some of our main charactersfrom the Canadian sides are
nature. Ellen Crown also my favorite in
(16:51):
this movie I think played by Craig Robertson.
He's possibly based on Lieutenant Colonel John McQueen
who was the Canadian Executive officer and 2nd in command of
the brigade in Tony Burke is like parachute jumping and was
replaced prior to the we used toget couple Peacock which is a
(17:11):
big strapping man played by JackWatson.
With a big old moustache. And we used to get a Frenchman
called Harry Laurent, played by Jean Paul Fionn, and he becomes
the medic of the. Yeah, I was quite entertained
when the Canadians came in. In real life, the Canadians
(17:31):
would have come from groups across the country, but it seems
like they're kind of being represented here as, you know,
some kind of Highlander unit. So they've all got their kilts
on and they're playing Scotland the Brave as they come marching
in, which was, you know, a hilarious song to choose.
And then throughout the rest of the movie, it becomes like a
little motif. So anytime you hear the score
(17:52):
playing while they're doing action Y stuff, you'll hear a
little lick from Scotland the Brave a little.
And it just is woven in over andover again.
It's very funny. And I also think it's very funny
that the actor playing Major Alan Crown is doing this soft
Scottish accent. And I looked online so I could
find out if John McQueen was legitimately fresh off the boat
(18:16):
Scottish, and I couldn't find anything.
So it could be that the real guywas Scottish and that's why he's
doing this. But it just made me laugh
throughout the whole movie watching this guy being like,
what is a Canadian accent sound like, I don't know, kind of
Scottish? Yeah.
And the thing you just said about the music, about the
themes, the other half of that theme is American.
(18:36):
And I forget where the theme is from, but they kind of
intertrine and they start intertrining more as the unit
becomes more solid. So it's quite a nice way of
showing the Canadians versus Americans and then kind of them
working together later on. So it's quite a funny musical
joke that's in there. Yeah, we also get introduced to
(19:00):
Theodore Ransom, played by Andrew Prine.
He's a washed out flyer from theUSAAF who walked over to the
Fort because he wanted to join the 1st Special Service Force
just so badly. Also because he got into a fight
with his superior officer I think and decked him after
sleeping with his girlfriend. Yeah, pretty representative of
(19:24):
the kind of guy we're supposed to expect to be in this unit.
I think the movie could have done without this character.
I don't think he brings a whole lot to the movie.
I agree, and I don't think the actor did the most incredible
job that could have been done either.
No, I agree. It's a bit on the nose, yeah,
(19:46):
But the next note that I've put down here is a very short note.
It says, let's say the Americansand Canadians clash, and this is
a short note, but it takes a while on the it's just kind of
especially the Americans pickingon the Canadians because the
Canadians are very well behaved and the Americans obviously are
(20:07):
not because we're all criminals.It's basically the Americans
taunting mostly Peacock at the Canadian side.
Yeah, they definitely played this up quite a lot for the
movie. In real life, it seems when the
Canadians and Americans first met each other, there's a little
anecdote about how they started swapping uniforms because the
(20:29):
Canadians liked the American uniform because it was sort of
like their officers uniforms. And the Americans like the
Canadian uniform because they had these pretty brass buttons
on them. They were a bit more dashing or
whatever. And yeah, they had, I guess, a
few minor difficulties because the Canadian Army was trained
quite a lot like the British Army, like you see in the movie,
(20:49):
like quite strict and regimented.
And the American Army was a bit more.
You could have more informality between officers and enlisted
men and that kind of stuff is, you know, a little bit more
relaxed in that way. But yeah, once they sort of got
to know each other and and started training, a lot of them
said you didn't necessarily knowwho was American or who is
Canadian. They wasn't necessarily like a
(21:10):
big deal. I was watching them clash on my
computer, so I was watching. It was like, how old are you?
Are you 12? Because they're all like just
being stupid boys to each other.You could tell that this wasn't
wouldn't have been the case in real life.
It was just really childish kindof behavior.
(21:32):
Yeah, I guess they wanted to because the training sequence
part of the movie is so long, asyou noted before.
I guess they had to have some kind of conflict to spice it up.
Yeah, when they finally got to do some actual training, their
gear has not yet arrived, so they can't take their actual
backs to that they would have incombat.
(21:52):
So instead they have to haul 30 lbs of rocks up the hill instead
of their gear. So this whole scene, I figure it
must have happened in real life as well, because I watched part
of another movie about this brigade.
The movie was really bad, so I turned it off.
But this also happened in that movie, so it must have been a
(22:14):
real thing. Yeah, I mean, I didn't read
anything specifically like that in the book, but it wouldn't
surprise me. They definitely had some some
growing pains initially with getting their supplies and that
kind of stuff. Yeah, so tell me about the next
guy. This is a really cool guy.
Yeah, so we get introduced to Sergeant Patrick O'Neal, played
by Jeremy Slate. He comes in to whip everybody
(22:35):
into shape with some hand to hand combat, and his intro in
the movie is kind of fun. Our intro to him in the movie is
that he comes in and tries to goad one of the Americans into a
fight, and when the American takes the bait, Patrick O'Neal
fucks him up hand to hand style.And he's based on a real guy.
I don't know that this altercation that happened in the
movie actually happened, but thereal guy was quite an
(22:57):
interesting character. There's a quote from the book.
Before 1941, Pat had been a detective, a member of a riot
squad, and an officer of the farfamed Shanghai International
Police. His reputation for a brand of
fighting in which he mixed jiu jitsu, karate and several other
methods of barehandedly crippling an antagonist had
brought him to the attention of Colonel William while Bill
(23:18):
Donovan, who made him a member of the Super spy organization.
He was then forming the OSS. And O'Neill was sort of blown
out to the force from the OSS. And then when Bill Donovan tried
to get him back, he found out that Frederick had gotten
O'Neill a Commission so that he could keep him.
Because O'Neill was an Irishman,right?
He was not in the American or Canadian military.
(23:40):
And so Donovan thought it'd be easy to get him back.
And then it turned out Frederickwas like, no, actually, I made
him. I'm an officer, so I get to keep
him now. Although I don't believe the
real guy actually went into combat with them.
I really quite like how the movie introduces different types
of characters to us, because it's a tough thing to do because
they come in at different times.So how do you keep us
(24:01):
interested? And I don't quite know how to do
it, but it works. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And this is also the part where we see the guys training in
their special skills. So they're learning how to ski
and of course all the Canadians are better at it than the
Americans. So that's the whole thing.
So after a lot of fighting and antagonizing each other, the
(24:23):
Americans and the Canadians finally find themselves on the
same side of a brawl in a bar ora club somewhere.
And this is one of two places wesee some women in this movie.
And there's three of them all atonce.
And they're played respectively by Gretchen, while Maggie Threat
and Rita Rogers. And basically they get into a
(24:46):
fight over these ladies, but then they're all fighting on the
same side. So when they go back to base
from the military police, they kind of had them back after
Frederick. Frederick lost them off easy
because he's happy that they're not fighting anymore.
Yeah, I think this is loosely based on real life.
The men of the force would go out into the town, which was a
(25:08):
small enough town and so it was quite noticeable that they had
all these young men that they hadn't had there before.
And a lot of the local, those were miners and sort of rough
and tumble type. So I believe there was a few
altercations here and there between the men of the Force and
some of the locals. Yeah, this thing, I liked it.
I also thought I would have liked for the women to have
(25:29):
another scene that wasn't just them.
The Our gold fine man. Yeah, yeah.
I guess. I guess one of them gets a sing
because I think the American FlyBoy plays piano and they have a
little sound together. That's true.
Actually, you're right. Yeah.
So just as they finish training,they all look all nice and fancy
(25:52):
in their uniforms, and they are definitely much more of a clean
cut, orderly unit than they wereinitially.
They're ready to go on their first mission to Norway, but
then Frederick gets word that the Norway mission has been
scrubbed and the unit's going todisband because there's not
really a reason for it. And he's pretty miffed about
this. So he decides he's going to go
to Washington and try to figure out what's going on.
(26:14):
At this point in the show, I waskind of confused about when we
were in time. Like they kind of tell you at
the very beginning and then after that, you've got no clue
where we are. It's another one of those movies
that doesn't really care if you know the timeline, and I guess
it doesn't really matter on the right fellow Frederick to
Washington. And when he's there, he managed
(26:37):
just to persuade Lieutenant General Mark Clark with an end.
And he was the commander of the US 5th Army, played by Michael
Rennie. And he makes him give his men a
chance to prove themselves on a new mission in Italy.
And he agrees. Mark Clark.
Yeah, so in real life the project was dropped because the
(27:00):
Norwegian government backed out.They had some serious concerns
about what would happen in a post war Norway if all of their
infrastructure was sabotaged, which I mean, understandable, I
suppose. And the British, who were
supposed to supply the bomber planes that were going to be
needed, couldn't justify the diversion of resources.
(27:22):
And so it kind of seemed like the project was going to dwindle
because they just weren't getting the support they needed
from these important corners. And then General George C
Marshall kind of popped in to save the day.
At the time, the Canadians were thinking they were going to pull
out of the project because it didn't seem like it was going to
go ahead. So he personally asked them not
to do that. And this kind of lit the spark
(27:44):
in Frederick again to say, OK, well if there's still some
support for this, maybe I'll tryand make it work.
So this is where he kind of started to transform it into a
multi purpose fighting unit. Instead of just being these guys
that were going to be really specialized in the snow.
He's like, let's try and make this into a unit that can be
dropped anywhere and be successful anywhere.
And so this meant they got rid of the weasel, this super
(28:07):
special snow going vehicle, and they sort of tried to expand
what they would be capable of doing.
And their first mission was actually to Kiska, which is in
the Aleutian Islands of by Alaska.
And they were going to fight theJapanese, but they made their
beautiful amphibious landing. It was textbook.
They did a great job. And then they discovered that
(28:27):
the Japanese had already gone. So they didn't actually do any
combat there. And that was August 15th, 1943.
For those of us trying desperately to follow the
timeline. Oh my.
God, I imagine just doing an amphibious, landing something
that must be pretty damn scary to do, and then landing and
something at there's no one there.
(28:47):
Right. Yeah.
And it's funny because they weretrained to do amphibious
landings and I believe they onlydid two of them.
I think they also did one in theSouth of France.
So this is part of a long standing thing where when
historians talk about this unit where they had all these
specialized skills and they really weren't perhaps used to
the optimal degree, to what theywere good at, they ended up
(29:10):
being sort of thrown into the meat grinder a lot of the time.
But we'll talk about that more as we go on here.
In Washington we do get another female character who plays, I
don't know who's secretary, but a secretary, and I tried to find
her on IDP but I couldn't succeed.
But there is another lady in there that's got some actual
(29:31):
good dialogue too, so I just wanted to do a little shout out
for her. Yeah, she was there.
She had lines. We saw her.
We skip ahead. We're on the Italian front now.
Frederick takes a risky Recon flight that gets him into some
hot water with Major General Maxwell Hunter, played by
Carroll O'Connor, his superior officer, and he ends up sending
(29:52):
Frederick and the men on a patrol mission to get prisoners
in a town called Santa Elia. Yeah, this mission, man, I was
happy that something was going to happen.
I was happy to get a mission this point, but also the Recon
flight project is pretty damn risky because they're being shot
at by Germans. I think I do understand his
(30:14):
superior officer for not being to police, but then again
nothing happened and he got valuable information about the
time that they're meant to be doing something.
I think something similar to this did happen in real life,
but it was when they were still in Alaska if I'm not mistaken.
He wrote along on a bombing mission.
But they were bombing the Japanese all right.
So they kind of took some liberties and went to show that,
(30:38):
I guess. Yeah, that's fun.
The scene that covers the patrols pretty long because we
see them going through the country and through rivers and
all that sort of stuff. Also, this mission, I think, was
meant for them to fail. You get a feeling that Maxwell
or Mr. Hunter, what whatever hisname is, General Hunter doesn't
(30:59):
want them to succeed, but they do.
They go on this patrol. They seek through rivers.
Obviously they are used to roughcountry, so they're pretty good
at this and they're pretty quiet, so the Germans don't
really see them coming. But on this patrol, a ransom,
the American flyboy, he hesitates to kill a German who's
(31:21):
sitting in a tank, but Bronk hasgot his back.
And this is where we start seeing some blood that looks
like Red Tent. And it just made me laugh.
What made me laugh is I'm prettysure he gets cut in the arm or
something. I don't remember what it is.
And just like immediately, there's so much blood on his
sleeve and I'm like, I don't think it that's how it works.
(31:42):
And. Ransom, because he failed to
kill the German because he has attention, he has to stay behind
and watch the tanks and kind of keep the perimeter there.
They're picking off men from a German patrol by being very
sneaky and they're grabbing themone by one and they end up
taking the entire town. They'll grab one or two Germans
at a time and be like silence oryou're dead, and then they'll
(32:04):
grab the next two, etcetera, etcetera.
And then Ransom gets the chance to kill a man, and he does it
instantly, redeeming himself. Yes, this line too, they're
saying in German, so it's like 1German line that they know.
And I thought it's funny how these people just comply
credentials like, OK, I guess I'll shut up and not make a
(32:25):
sound. Yo, what really made me laugh
was this German patrol, I guess,coming up a street and they keep
grabbing the back two guys from the patrol and it just reaches a
point where the only one left isthe officer.
And the officer turns around andwhen none of his guys are there,
he does a little like he's sort of jumps like he's like, oh,
(32:47):
where are my guys? You can tell it's not meant to
be a serious scene. It's meant to be a little skit
almost. But I guess maybe they did some
of us in real life, who knows. They were commenders.
They were probably capable of being really quiet.
Yeah, no, it could happen. We can't rule it out.
No. So this mission, as we see the
(33:07):
mission end, is basically with them just holding the entire
town of Germans hostage. But this is the mission that
earns them the nickname the Toy football gather, which is German
for the Devil's Brigade. And it also earns them some time
in person for defying orders because they were not meant to
take the entire time. They were just meant to get some
(33:29):
prisoners and then go back home.But meanwhile, they also got a
second mission, but it's again, a mission that's not really
aiming to be one that they succeeded because it's to take
on one day or as they say in themovie, very American accent.
But no one else has managed to do this because the Germans are
(33:53):
pretty real fortified up there. So it's just really impenetrable
situation up on the mountain. And you look at it and you're
like, no one's going to make it out of life.
Yeah, so in real life, none of that first mission stuff
happened. The Force never had to prove
itself. I believe General Marshall was
looking for somewhere that he could use them in the European
(34:14):
campaign or, you know, maybe in the Pacific or wherever.
And then Mark Clark's 5th Army, it was basically scrambling
because they had a desperate shortage of men.
So they ended up being assigned to the 5th Army, and they
subsequently were assigned to take La Defensa as part of this
broader plan to breach the mountainous German winter line
in Italy. And so while they were taking
(34:35):
Monte La Defensa, there was alsoa British force that was trying
to capture a couple of peaks that were sort of a little
further away. So they were part of this
coordinated effort. And there's a quote from the
book. A chain of heavily fortified
hills linked together by some ofthe toughest German army units
in the European theatre constituted Field Marshall
Kesselring's Winter Line. It was the Germans main stand in
(34:58):
front of Rome, and it had stalled the advance of the 5th
Army through Italy. The key to cracking this line
was represented by two formidable mountain masses named
Monte la Defensa and Monte la Urematania.
No matter how ferocious a fighting force General Mark
Clark hurled against these twin weeks, the attack had not only
been repulsed, it had also resulted in heavy Allied
casualties. So if you're picturing the area
(35:20):
in your mind, it's kind of in the Apanine Mountains, which
fall between Naples and Rome. So in order to get to Rome from
Naples, they're going to have topass through this heavily
fortified mountain area. Yeah, if you say no matter how
ferocious a fighting ferocious or Mark like her old against
this dream gigs, it's just me like a mansion and just people
(35:40):
flying at the mountain just go. Just catapulting them.
Yeah, but yeah, I feel like the movie is trying to make The
Devil's Brigade look like this. Really unpopular brigade, like
no one likes them and I'm just giving them all the chores they
don't want to do. But that really wasn't the case
(36:03):
in real life. Yeah, they're kind of making
them into an underdog story. Yes.
So hurray, we get another mention of time.
We're in December 1943. Oh, crucially, I put that in.
Put that in. Thank you.
That's helpful. Thanks, Anne.
So it's winter time, so it's freaking cold.
(36:26):
You get no sense of this in the movie, but it's good to know.
Frederick makes a plan to have Allied artillery on one side of
the mountain to distract the Germans on the mountain, when in
actuality, they'll be coming up on the other side, and they'll
have to climb to the top of the mountain in three hours.
And they're hoping to gain the high ground and in that way to
(36:50):
surprise the Germans because they'll be focused on the
artillery is down there. And this climb was pretty wild.
There's a reason why the Germanswere not expecting to be
attacked on that side, and it's because they didn't think that
any substantial force would be able to scale that mountain.
Apparently once the combat started and they had to get
wounded men down the hill, it would take eight men 10 hours to
(37:13):
get a wounded guy down if they had to use, you know, cables and
stuff like that. And a good chunk of the brigade
ended up being sort of relegatedto supply duty, which was no
mean feat because they had to get all these supplies up the
hill. The only way was to get men to
carry them on their backs. So these big 5 gallon water jugs
and medical supplies and food and all this stuff.
(37:34):
And the strongest dudes they hadcould only go up the mountain
three times a day. Most guys were only making two
trips a day because it was so strenuous.
Where is Desmond Dos and his books when you need him?
Yeah. Where is Desmond Dos when you
need him? Exactly.
As the Germans fire in the direction of the artillery fire,
so their distraction works. The devils get closer and they
(37:56):
attack. And there's this combat scene
that's very loud. Had to turn the volume down on
ITV because it's very like, if you can picture just 1960s
explosions, it's constant monotonous noise.
It's hard to pull out distinct sounds.
It's just an overall barrage of sound, but yeah so we get a
(38:16):
whole bunch of little moments. Grigo doesn't make it RIP.
Hickson dies as well after telling the medic to give his
love to the medic's wife being ashit till the end.
The way this happens in the movie, a lot of people die for
the curriculum succession and you're like, wait a second,
let's be fast and mourn for thisperson that you don't really get
(38:37):
any time to mourn anybody because it happened so fast.
So Peacock, which is our Canadian Red head with the
mustache, gets shot and Rocky iskind of his adversary on the
American side, tries to save hislife because nobody's now, and
he gets a German prisoner to carry him down the mountain.
(38:59):
But then the German tries to escape and tries to kill Rocky,
who just about manages to get away and kill him instead.
But Peacock unfortunately dies, so it's over.
Not. That was the only part that I
found actually a bit sad, where Rocky was just so upset, you
know, this rough and tumble American who was kind of an
(39:19):
asshole for so long as like, finally.
Oh, he does have a heart after all.
And he's quite sad when his Canadian buddy dies.
He's a really big tough guy, so when he starts crying you're you
definitely feel like a little bit.
I think most of the characters we probably didn't get to know
them well enough to be that impacted by their deaths, but I
always find in movies deaths aremore impactful when I get to see
(39:43):
the reaction of the character left behind and like it kind of
empathize with those feelings. And then the Germans wave the
white flag to surrender. But as Major Crown and his guys
come in to take the Germans captive, the cowardly German
commander shoots Major Crown andthat's the end of our brave
Canadian commander. RIP.
(40:05):
This made me so sad. This was my favorite director.
I really like the commander. Come on.
There's an anecdote in the book about something similar
happening to Captain Rothlin, and when the men saw it, it
essentially prompted them to nottake any more prisoners unless
they were specifically told to because they needed them for
interrogation or something like that.
(40:26):
Yeah, I guess once you break that peace out thing where you
wave the white flag and then kill someone, that's not going
to go over very well with soldiers that are already riled
up. Like good luck staying alive.
Yeah, for sure. And it's understandable that
when they first started attacking, you know, you see
(40:47):
someone waving the white flag and it's your first time in
combat, you're not actually going to want to shoot that
person. And then I guess they learned
their lesson pretty quick on that front.
Frederick reports back, but he'son this phone, but he can't
stand to listen to the congratulations and praise that
he's getting. Is all he can think about is a
(41:07):
man who lost and that's the end of the movie.
It ends kind of straight after direction.
Yeah, it ends a bit suddenly. In real life, the brigade had
something like 30% casualties atMultila Defenso, which is a
(41:29):
pretty high number. So yeah, it's kind of indicative
of their whole wartime experience, you know, these
super specialized guys, and theywere just being what what is it?
He says in SAS, rogue heroes flung at the enemy like gravel.
Kind of a waste. When you were reading the book
and talking to me offline about this, it's like they were such
good fighters, but the missions they were being sent on weren't
(41:52):
necessarily the ones that could use their skills the most.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a sad reality. And that war.
One of the things that the authors of the book that I read
felt quite strongly about was that they were like, well, yes,
you had to take these mountains in order to get to Rome.
(42:14):
But why did the allies need to get to Rome other than as a
symbolic victory? Because it seemed pretty clear
at the time that really the onlyway that they we're going to be
able to destroy the heart of theGerman war machine was through
some kind of cross channel invasion in northwestern Europe.
Really the only thing that the Italian campaign was kind of
(42:35):
accomplishing at this point was attrition, you know, wearing
down the German army and taking away divisions who could
potentially be on the Eastern Front and, you know, that kind
of stuff. So the author kind of felt maybe
these missions were not even strictly necessary to be carried
out. Again, I suppose part of that is
hindsight too, but then again, maybe they did know at the time
(42:59):
that they weren't going to be focusing their efforts in Italy
anyway. The brigade itself, they went on
to take the next peak, Ramat Tania, and they continued
conquering their way through themountains, taking peak after
peak. And then when the Allies landed
at Anzio, which you may have heard of before, they did an
amphibious landing sort of Southof Rome.
(43:20):
They held 1/4 of the beachhead, which was 13 kilometers.
There were just 1300 guys at this point out of 40,000 total
men who were holding this beachhead.
And not only did they hold their13 kilometers, they sort of set
up shop there. So there was a little town that
was empty of civilians and they kind of took it over and they
had a bar and they would steal cows and sheep and chickens and
(43:45):
stuff from local civilians. And they were kind of farming.
They would do this by day, and at night they would go out and
annoy the shit out of the Germans and do these nighttime
raids. So there's this quote from the
National Post, which is a newspaper here in Canada that
says heavily outnumbered, they launched offensive but silent
night raids using primarily their daggers against the enemy
and leaving their red spearhead shoulder Insignia as a calling
(44:08):
card, carrying the ominous message in German.
The worst is is yet to come. Well, they could deal with the
show like SAS. Right and then as they went on,
they in real life still this here because the movies ended so
we don't see any of this, but they were one of the first
allied units into Rome. They then made an amphibious
landing in the South of France. This was called Operation
(44:30):
Dragoon. They captured 5 forts on two
islands. They move through the French
Riviera. They killed or captured a whole
German battalion, which is like 1000 men.
And they were liberating all these little towns along the
French, Italian border. And then they ended up being
disbanded in December of 1944 because at that point, the war
was starting to wind down. And really it was about harrying
(44:53):
the last of the Germans, which, you know, you can do with a
regular army. You don't need special operation
skills for that. And yeah, apparently a lot of
the men were, you know, this is a bit of an emotional moment for
them. You know, they had found sort of
a home in this force and this unified personality and
identity, and they lost that when the force disbanded.
And yeah, there's another quote from the National Post that says
(45:15):
rarely exceeding 2000 in number,the 1st Special Service Force is
credited with the capture of 12,000 prisoners and 15,000
enemy killed, the equivalent of 2 German line divisions.
But these achievements came at atremendous price, a 600%
attrition rate with more than 500 killed and 2400 wounded
many, several times. What is an attrition rate?
(45:38):
Attrition is like when you wear away at something that's the
rate at which they were taking casualties and having to replace
them. Right, that's a lot then.
Wow. I think this was a really fun
introduction to the Devil's Brigade for me.
I really enjoy this. Well, we should rate this movie
Let's Read Fake Red Berets out of 10 because the red berets
(45:59):
they wear in the movie are not hats that they ever actually
wore. And The funny thing is that on
the cover of my book they are also wearing red berets because
I guess this edition was meant to tie in with the movie, but
they never actually wore. These.
That's stupid. Why?
I feel like Ben Simmons would beupset about this.
He would. Ben Simmons would not have
(46:19):
allowed this to happen. Military advisor Ben Simmons of
SAS Rogue Heroes, who is a friend of the pod.
All right, that's rated. I will rate this movie 8 Fake
Red Berets out of Town because I'm really just enjoyed it even
though not even a whole lot happens in a movie like we only
got maybe 1 1/2 mission. But it's just a really fun
(46:42):
classic movie and I just like classic movies that I can't help
it. It's my jam.
How about you? Yeah, I don't think it's broke
any new ground. I think if you've seen The Dirty
Dozen and similar movies like that, you'll be like, Oh yeah,
this is something you throw on and watch and it's kind of fun,
but it's not necessarily. It's not out here winning awards
and stuff like that, but it's a fun adventure movie managed to
(47:05):
actually make these characters separately identifiable to us,
which we always appreciate an award film.
I don't think the acting or the script or anything to write home
about, but it was kind of fun towatch the Canadians and
Americans clash a little and forthem to play up these
differences between the two groups and then get to see them
work together. You know, it's always fun.
So I think I'll give it 7 fake red berets out of 10.
(47:28):
A fun movie, perhaps nothing to super write home about, but I
had a good time watching it. William Holden was good in this.
Yeah. And I, I gather this was a time
in his career where he hadn't had any really meaty starring
roles in a while. So this was like a little bit of
a comeback for him, almost. Well, are you reading anything?
(47:57):
Good question. No I'm not, but I say that.
But I have 8 books on the docketright now that I can start
reading. How about you?
That's OK. Sometimes a stack of books is
just fun to look at. Yeah.
I'm reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Nice. Yeah, I am actually really
enjoying it. I mean, it's almost kind of the
(48:18):
template for a lot of that styleof adventure novels.
So I'm, I'm having a good time, you know, pirates and Long John
Silver and all that stuff. Something not World War 2 for
once, yes. Nice.
Well, you can follow us whereveryou get your podcasts.
You can rate US five stars. You can send this episode to a
friend. You can go to our website,
(48:40):
rosiethereviewer.com, or you canfollow us on Instagram at Rosie
the Reviewer Podcast. Thank you for listening.
See you next week. Bye.
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