With Bank Holiday Monday taking place,I decided to watch one of the longer flicks I have laying around waiting to be played. Having enjoyed seeing members of the cast in a number of movies, I got set to witness their war-time weekend.

View on the film:

Despite having shown in other works that they can give mesmerising performances, Catherine Spaak and Marie Dubois are here pushed to the sidelines with flat roles, which to the credit of them both, are given a nervousness that does not come across in the script. Performing his own stunts, Jean-Paul Belmondo gives a fittingly rugged performance as Maillat, whose swagger gets cut down by Belmondo when the bombs land.

Filmed on the Bray-Dunes beaches where some Dunkirk evacuations actually took place, director Henri Verneuil & cinematographer Henri Decae charge in with a "Teatime Movie" atmosphere of rattling wide crane shots sweeping along the explosive battlefield. Attempting to turn the mood serious near the end with an attempted rape, Verneuil never fully frees the flick from the Boys Own Adventure setting, (complete with British generals sipping tea) via scenes such as the attempted rape being swiftly moved on for more grand-standing action. Firmly established as a family friend,come on chaps wartime adventure, Francois Boyer adaptation of Robert Merle's sits utterly at odds with the tone, being most bluntly felt in the swearing dialogue coming across utterly miss-matched to the Teatime spent on a weekend a Dunkirk.