SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

andrew jones Here we have a war film dealing with Nazi Germanys attempts to build and launch the dreaded V1 and V2 rockets.Lots and lots of superb well known faces here and quite a few more that ended up on the cutting room floor by all accounts.The good: Tells the story from both perspectives on one hand we have the dying Nazi war machine trying to build wonder weapons to bomb its way to victory and then we have Richard Johnson and John Mills desperately trying to launch bombing raids and spying missions to foil them while getting little help from ignorant Trevor Howard.Some good little plot twists such as the identity of man Tom Courtney assumes being wanted by the police which seals his fate due to another bit of bad luck. The fact the Germans really do speak German does help it to carry more wait rather than a load of actors talking with a silly accent. Keeps the tension going well for the most part and you do feel quite sorry for George Peppard and Jeremy Kemps characters as it dawns on them they will forfeit their lives for the mission.The Bad: Sophia Loren flouncing about with 60's hair and make up,she was added just to get a bigger audience. The scenes with her in are not needed and slow things down. Cheap editing trick of pasting in real war footage of aerial bombings and AA guns! Why do they do it? it never works and looks naff when you go from film quality to grainy footage some of it not even colour!One or two less than convincing models but we are talking early/mid 60's here so fares fare. Gearge Peppard was OK but the part needed more,to me he was out shone by Jeremy Kemp when they had scenes together.All in all a good film with lots of fine actors telling the story of another dark chapter of world war two.A lot better war film than the over hyped Guns of Navarone.

zardoz-13 This tense World War II thriller about the threat that the Nazi V-1 and V-2 rockets posed to the Allies after D-Day in 1944 does not surpass "The Dam Busters." Director Michael Anderson helmed both films, and producer Carlo Ponti blew major bucks on this large-scale saga about sabotage behind enemy lines in an underground German laboratory. Nevertheless,this atmospheric, star-laden movie lacks the momentum and the charisma of "The Dam Busters." Aside from George Peppard and Sophia Loren, who appears in an cameo, a line-up of classic British actors, including John Mills, Richard Johnson, Tom Courtenay, Trevor Howard, Anthony Qayle, Richard Todd, Allan Cuthbertson and Patrick Wymark, dominate the cast. It is great to have so many of them on-screen at the same time. Predictably, however, these civilized chaps chat quite often for lengthy periods about information that we have to know about but are not shown. The serious espionage military action follows a surefire formula and the characters remain unruffled throughout the action whenever they have an opportunity to react. Anderson and scenarists Emeric Pressburger of "One of Our Aircraft is Missing," Derry Quinn, and Ray Rigby of "The Hill" struggle to enliven this tight-lipped melodrama with elements of surprise and terror in a narrative that takes its toll on all the Allied characters trapped behind enemy lines in what boils down to a suicidal mission. The action opens with German scientists trying to figure out why their flying bombs crash. As one Nazi scientist explains to Peppard, they are experiencing trouble with vibration. Eventually, photos of mysterious launching ramps intrigue the British into bombing the site as well as sending in skilled saboteurs who are specialists in rocket propelled technology. Peppard, Courtenay, and Jeremy Kemp volunteer to bail out over enemy country and carry out sabotage. No sooner have the British parachuted in than the V-1 rockets start raining down terror on London. Our heroes have to figure out some what to expose a factory some 80 feet underground. Peppard holds a number of factory workers at gun point while he opens the launch windows so the British bombers can see where the plant is. The explosions that devastate the factory are terrific, especially as the Nazis attempt to launch one missile during the bombing raid. Sophia Loren's last scene comes as quite a shock and adds fiber to this thriller. The sensation that anybody can die enhances the tension in the atmosphere. Sadly, "Operation Crossbow" misses the mark and amounts to little more than a respectable wartime white-knuckler. Altogether, "Operation Crossbow" amounts to a flawed, heavy-handed, but traditional World War II thriller with the Germans as the in-name-only villains and the Allies as the heroes. Composer Rod Goodwin of "Where Eagles Dare" and "633 Squadron" provided the exceptional orchestral music.

arthaupt1 In some ways an old-fashioned, star-studded, overstuffed "mission" movie, "Operation Crossbow" has, to me, an authentic WWII feeling to it. I'm guessing this movie's scenes and attitudes may have resonated with people in 1965 who'd lived through that period.World War II was Big, and that's reflected here. The movie's individual characters are less important than the group war effort, something they're very aware of. And the nothing-personal killing of one character by a Resistance member, is pretty stunning. My hat is off to that.Side note: During the '60s did Thomas Pynchon ("Gravity's Rainbow") go see this movie? He was then working on his big novel about the V-2 rocket. People have noodled about a possible cause-and-effect between movie and novel, including Dave Kehr in the NYTimes. FWIW, somewhere in "Gravity" I think there's a description of someone's wristwatch being worn on the inside of the wrist, "World War II style." (So the luminous hands wouldn't show during night operations??) That's the way George Peppard wears his watch.

vitaleralphlouis OPERATION CROSSBOW was a box office disaster, possibly because of the dreadful title as well as a trailer that makes the film look awful; BUT...The film itself is a way-above-average WW II story --- brilliantly directed, well acted, lavishly produced, with a cast of over a dozen stars. The on-location filming in Europe, in wide screen color, is another big plus.The story involves the German development of missile bombs as well as the V-2 rockets that devastated London in the early part of the war (before American involvement). This is the story of the intelligence agents assigned to infiltrate the manufacturing plant for these new high-tech weapons, carefully protected by 80 feet of rock in the German Alps. Very fine movie. Not one dull minute. Nuff said!