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War Fever (1969)

This is a below mediocre war film that doesn’t have much to say. It was made by Cine Azimut, which isn’t famous for other hits as “Cost of Dying”, “Death Laid an Egg” (real title), this one, and two others. After seeing this film, I’m not surprised he’s not more well known. There is occasionally some good action and a few tense moments, but it mostly just felt heavy-handed with the message. War movies fall into the trap of their message all the time. This was a “War is hell and people sometimes become the animals war requires them to be”. I think that’s what they were going for, anyway. The climax is so far over the top that it was completely unbelievable, but in an over-zealous, yet somewhat touching kind of way. The shining performance came from Klaus Kinski, but even then it was a larger than life performance in a wild and woolly kind of way. I did like the location filming. Most of it was filmed in Italy and Monte Carlo, so it’s got that rustic, believable old-world WWII feel, a gold star for that. Ultimately, this is not a terrible film, far from it, but it’s likely not one I’ll be watching again or can recommend.