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Castle Keep (1969)
Director: Sydney Pollack
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
An eccentric endgame allegory based on William Eastlake's novel, critically culted in France but a commercial disaster everywhere, Pollack's war movie contrasts two sets of civilised values (American/European) as Lancaster's platoon fights to hold a medieval castle and its treasures against the German advance, and finds both too retrogressively dogmatic in the face of the holocaust. An ill-omened attempt at likewise fusing an American action genre with Euro art-house 'ideas' ('I didn't intend for people to believe that the castle really existed.'), Pollack's folly remains an intriguing curio in spite of its pretensions. Shot in Yugoslavia by Henri Decaë, with similar sterling French support from art director Max Douy and composer Michel Legrand.Author: PT
Cast & crew
Director: Sydney Pollack
Producer: Martin Ransohoff, John Calley
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Peter Falk, Al Freeman Jr, Scott Wilson, Astrid Heeren, Tony Bill, Bruce Dern full cast
Genre(s): War
Duration: 107 mins
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