Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Byron ARGIRIS I "rediscovered" and just watched this little gem of a film with Good classical music and great performances, particularly by Maximilian Schell. It's technically a war movie though. My rating of 7 is based on purely entertainment value. Pretty good

Gunn I know the plot may be a little far-fetched, but this is still a very involving and entertaining film. It takes place near the end of World War II when most of central Europe is secure and USO troupes are busy entertaining the Allied troops. A Philharmonic Orchestra on a USO tour ends up in Belgium and encounters a pocket of Nazi soldiers. Captured, the orchestra is to be exterminated after the General (Maxmillian Schell) wangles a personal concert out of the arrogant conductor (Charlton Heston). The mind games between these two, regarding the staging of a concert is part of the fun. The music is great, adding to the tension and enjoyment of the film. It holds up very well after 40 plus years. It works both as an action film and a character study. Anton Diffring stands out in a very fine cast. Topnotch! BEWARE the DVD: I ordered the DVD from a company I will not name nd it was of very poor quality. The film, which is in color, was dark and black most of the way through and the focus was not sharp. The sound was low-fi, fuzzy and unacceptable to my criteria. We need to wait for Universal to put out a decent print. Don't waste your money on this one!

juan carlos I make a difference, referring to war movies. There are some that are very faithful to the history such as Midway, Tora, Tora, Tora and there are some that emphasize the epic and heroic aspects of soldier life in terrible circumstances. I have to say that I am more interested in the second ones such as The Dirty Dozen, The Eagle has landed, etc. Counterpoint belongs to the second category. A famous music director (C. Heston) and his orchestra is kidnapped by the Nazy army in Belgium. The German General (M. Schell) wants this orchestra to play for him but the director delays this concert as much as possible to avoid his musicians to be killed. I think Ralphn Nelson felt some empathy for the character, starred by Heston because he was in the Army in the II World War and participated in different plays in Broadway to entertain people in the same way Heston tries to entertain soldiers in the cold Europe. Schell and Heston perform their roles perfectly: they admire each other but war has placed them in different sides of the river. Schell is far from the archetype of the Germans in the Hitler era. There is a love subplot between Heston and one old love, his musician,Kathryn Hays, who is now married with a partner, a serious Leslie Nielsen. This love story and the sequence in which an American soldier is nearly discovered by a German Colonel but he feigns to be a musician of the orchestra, playing the U.S. hymn, remind me of Casablanca. The cinematography of Russel Metty, in which the shadows have a relevant role, is quite brilliant. So, it deserves to be seen.Juan Carlos del Castillo Álvarez

Deusvolt When I first walked into a showing of this movie, I thought I had made a mistake because it reminded me of another movie I had seen as a child (The Journey) because of the element of the bus in the snow trapped behind enemy lines. But it turned out to be refreshingly different.Lionel Evans (Charlton Heston), an internationally acclaimed music conductor touring Europe to entertain allied troops, is captured along with his entire orchestra by a German force commanded by a General Schiller (Maximillian Schell). The name is fitting because just like the towering intellectual, philosopher and lyricist, the general is highly cultured, sensitive and humane. That is not to say, however, that he was not like many Germans of his time in being ultra-nationalistic and therefore, discriminatory of other cultures. This dark aspect of his personality comes to fore when he insists that Evans play Wagnerian music rather than the latter's preference for Beethoven.Under the Nazis, Beethoven was frowned upon because of the widespread belief that he had Gypsy or perhaps even Jewish ancestry. He was said to be somewhat on the swarthy side of complexion. Wagner on the other hand extolled the purity of blood of the Germanic race in operas such as Parsifal with its veneer as an adventure of a Christian knight but is actually a neo-pagan worship of race. This musical bigotry of the Nazis was exploited by the allies as the BBC regularly played Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with special emphasis on the "Ode to Joy" movement in its broadcasts to occupied Europe and Germany.The atmospherics are great as the scenes are set in what seems to be a manor with its own castle and cavernous chapel where the symphony orchestra plays classical music. Despite their differences, the two men get to like one another and as the allied forces close in on the German forces, Evans acquiesces to play a Wagnerian piece for Schiller. The latter for his part invites him to share a bottle of cognac "which Napoleon left unopened" as they discuss the background and implications of the war. Between the two topics, however, I prefer to dwell on Napoleon's bottle of cognac. How would such a thing taste after well over a hundred years? I know we must be wary of very old wine which could still continue fermenting and thus spoil. But cognac is a distilled liquor and so with its high alcohol content, it could almost last forever under tight seal.I really can't spoil the ending of this movie for you because I don't remember it. But I can make a guess. Schiller lets Evans and his orchestra go while he goes on to face the overwhelmingly superior allied onslaught presumably to his death.