Details

Release year: 1959

Storyline

After 1945, six German ex-soldiers are hired to defuse unexploded Allied bombs in the ruins of Berlin.

Top credits

Directors

Robert Aldrich

Writers

Cast

Jeff Chandler — Karl Wirtz
Jack Palance — Eric Koertner
Martine Carol — Margot Hofer
Robert Cornthwaite — Franz Loeffler

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Did you know

• Gerhard Rabiger, a German bomb expert, was hired to instruct Jeff Chandler and Jack Palance in defusing techniques. Rabiger had defused as many as 20 bombs a day in Berlin just after the end of WWII. Even while this film was being made, bombs were still being discovered in Berlin at a rate of about two a week.

• Jack Palance and director Robert Aldrich had worked together with distinction on two previous occasions - in "The Big Knife" and "Attack" - but fell out most acrimoniously during the making of this film. Aldrich later remarked wryly that it was probably unwise for any director to work more than twice with an actor as volatile as Palance, but nonetheless sought him out yet again a few years later when Palance was offered the role of Archer Maggot in "The Dirty Dozen". It seemed there might be a reconciliation at last, but Palance dropped out at the last minute (because of illness, some sources have claimed) and the part was taken over by Telly Savalas.

• Director Robert Aldrich had his name taken off the credits as producer because the studio cut a half-hour out of the picture without telling him, and he believed that unless they put that footage back in, the film made no sense. The studio refused.