The Blockhouse (1973) Reviews

• A rare hidden diamond !

  dver172001-10-25

  Clive Rees has made a wonderful "dark" film based on Jean-Paul Clebert's book which describes a WWII story that one can hardly believe, yet true! The film was ahead of its time and the production suffered from financial problems and lack of faith in the film. This caused in cutting down scenes, and finally in never releasing the film, despite the great stars involved in it (Peter Sellers, Jeremy Kemp, Peter Vaughan, Charles Aznavour and others)! Since then, the film has appeared a handful of times in festivals & retrospectives and was released as a VHS in USA (1984). Yet, the VHS version is a vulgarly abridged one where entire scenes are missing... I was happy to help the film be part of a Peter Sellers retrospective in the annual Athens International Film festival (September 2000), held by Sinema magazine. Clive Rees attended the screenings and brought with him the directors' cut version of the film, which runs about 15 more minutes. The result is a totally different film, a poetic creation, a really great drama, with wonderful performances of the participating actors! The audience gave 95,3% positive votes for the film and gave a long, spontaneous applause, which I think was, at last some reward to Clive Rees' unlucky film. If only had the film been released nowadays, I am pretty sure it would have had a completely different chance. Now, at least it deserves a great DVD version and I hope it soon will (but of course it would have to be the director's cut and hopefully a making of documentary). Does anyone listen???

• Wow! Wow! True story? What a great movie anyway!

  kulaboy2005-01-26

  This is an amazing film. Listen for the movie soundtrack... yes, what soundtrack? There is a little music at start and end, and then... the silence becomes the tomb that these men are trapped in. It's based on a book, and I don't know if it's a true story or not, but I'd love to find out. This isn't a flashy movie and it's darkly lit and the sound (on my video anyway) is poor. But wow! Men trapped in a tomb with no hope of escaping for SIX YEARS. What a story. There is enough food, water, liquor and candles to last them for most of the movie.. the only thing is, being trapped near the ocean without any hope of escape, the men face boredom. Interesting relationships bloom and ways of passing the time, such as games, are the men's only escape. When a bicycle is discovered, the men go crazy with delight. This is a tough film to watch. It's scary to imagine it happening. And there are good, good performances by the crew involved. I saw it because of Peter Sellers- I came away realizing this movie is stolen by the whole cast and I wish it would be seen more and appreciated. This is a film I think Alec Guinness would have appreciated.

• The Blockhouse-director's cut : FANTASTIC !!!

  num-num2000-12-06

  Last September I had the chance in co-organising a retrospective for Peter Sellers for Athens' international film Festival("Sinema" magazine)and amongst the material selected, top of the list to be exact, was "The Blockhouse". Clive Rees, the film's director, flew to Greece to attend the screening and brought with him his own version of the film. Well, anyone who has seen the VHS version that was distributed in the early 80s in the US, should better forget it! The director's cut was fantastic and what seemed "strange" in the other version(where, even a death was missing, along with some of the film's most beautiful scenes), now was complete and absolutely wonderful. The film is a drama, based on a true story of seven men captured in a German blockhouse, where all the exits are destroyed. They find there food, candles and wine and two of them survive until their (accidental)rescue, six years later. All performances are great(Peter Sellers, Charles Aznavour, Jeremy Kemp, Nicholas Jones, Per Oscarrson, Leon Lissek, Peter Vaughan)and Clive Rees has given us a film of strong emotions and unforgettable atmosphere. I strongly hope the film will find its way on DVD (and I hope it is the director's cut that would be chosen)! A great movie! But beware, despite Sellers' involvement in it, the film is not a comedy! It's is a drama... A great one!

• The great lost performance

  num-num1999-10-12

  This film could have been a masterpiece as the cast was great and the story was moving.Peter Sellers gives an excellent performance, in one of his most dramatic roles, but the film was hampered by the bad sound (mostly).What's more, its direction didn't help much and it is sad that great performances of most of the actors, remained, for many years,lost and forgotten. I guess its grade should be 3 stars.

• Finally Saw It, and it's fantastic!!!

  carver762003-02-12

  I consider myself as big a Peter Sellers fan as there is in the world, but this one film had eluded me for years until now...It is one of my favorite of Sellers' performances, and is a very powerful film overall. Highly recommended!