Lo Sbarco di Anzio

Timidity at the top is soundly but turgidly castigated in this otherwise run-of-the-mill account of World War II's Anzio landing, when the Allies might have marched straight on Rome, but instead dug in on the beaches and allowed the Germans to prepare emergency defences. Some superb camera-work by Giuseppe Rotunno, and nicely choreographed action sequences; but the whole thing is sunk by the pseudo-philosophical profundities spouted by a war correspondent (the hapless Mitchum).