Inglorious bastards, released in 1977/78, became one of those films banned in Sweden. Had I grown up watching it as a kid, this would be the war movie to remember, instead the Swedish audience had to stick with rather cheap takes on world war II.<br /><br />A rag tag bunch of (U.S. soldiers) misfits escapes the death penalty by firing squad and journeys into German occupied France in an attempt to find refuge in Switzerland. In doing so they accidentally kill a German squad who turns out to be Yankee special forces and now they're forced to undertake a "mission impossible", by blowing up a mobile research faculty, a train lab if you will and demolish a mobile V2 rocket system.<br /><br />The story is original although in features all the commando raid ingredients, like sneaking into a SS-Castle, blowing up a bridge and stab German sentries from behind. It might sound like a cliché filled, typical classic, and in someways it is, but here is where the similarities stops in comparison with all other vintage war flicks.<br /><br />Some examples: The movie is European so you don't get to see Hollywood-ish standard crap, with Stars and stripes in slow motion, dying soldiers telling how much they love their wives and so on and so forth. Even, though many scenes are shot against animated backgrounds, it contains one of the best of it's kind, take notice of the huge field of scrap metal after the Americans have dropped a plethora of nasty bombs. <br /><br />To be this a old, it's a movie that sometimes is breathtaking and I got flabbergasted by the fact how detailed and accurate the German army is portrayed; they wear Zeltbahn camouflage tunics, all German dialog is in German and it surpasses the standard phrases like: "Achtung!" and "Granate!".<br /><br />Some scenes are in the same league as Cross of Iron and Sergio Leones spaghetti westerns. The french resistance are though and they all speak french and are not clowns.<br /><br />You don't get to see Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers style violence, instead the action sequences are very stylized and rather gritty. <br /><br />You don't get to know the main characters and the dialog seems deliberately directed in the course of being over the top unsentimental and cold. <br /><br />It's very noir-ish in the way the dialog is spoken and those who long for a really crappy, laughable B-movie will be disappointed. It's 30 years old and contains many scenes seen in many movies made after Inglorious Bastards; the air of the movie is filled with scenes, seen in other movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Enemy at the Gates, Stalingrad, Das Boot.<br /><br />Furthermore: Take notice of the color of blood. Back then you could only watch bloodbaths in orange, here the blood is really realistic. The scenery reminds me of scale model dioramas and train sets in combination with European country side.<br /><br />1977 the Vietnam war marched into to the history books as a sadistic conflict and social democratic Sweden were a nation banning all sorts of military conflicts worlds wide. I suppose this was the reason why the Swedish public never got to see this. A true classic gone missing.<br /><br />The not so cool parts are few but stands out. The scene (although Wehrmacht did "loan" enemy vehicles) where a huge convoy passes through is a bit over the top containing just a tad much American half tracks although most other vehicles are accurate and the T & A scene with naked Valkyries firing MP-40's are a bit to sleazy for my taste.<br /><br />Summary: The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, Guns of Navarone are pretty bad in comparison and I almost hold a tearful respect towards this movie in the course of being so obscured. Quentin Tarantino is the last person to re-write and direct a movie like this if he don't get a grip after his total fiasco Grindhouse: Deathproof.<br /><br />Had this movie been made before Ryan and Brothers this would be the movie to set the standard with todays technique.<br /><br />I enjoyed this movie very much, it's good to be positively surprised! This is a boy adventure well made and with the heart in the right place. <br /><br />Good craftsmanship.