Details

Release year: 1966

Storyline

In World War II, a strategic Italian village agrees to surrender to the Allies only if it's allowed to organize a celebratory festival while giving aerial reconnaissance the false impression of fierce ground fighting.

Top credits

Directors

Blake Edwards

Writers

Cast

James Coburn — Lieutenant Christian
Dick Shawn — Captain Lionel Cash
Sergio Fantoni — Captain Oppo
Giovanna Ralli — Gina Romano

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Did you know

• Harry Morgan played Major Potts who becomes comically nonsensical in this movie. In the third season of the TV series MASH, he played essentially the same character as Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele. The episode was "The General Flipped at Dawn", which first aired on September 10, 1974. When McLean Stevenson as Colonel Henry Blake, left the show at the end of the 3rd season, the producers hired Morgan and created a new character, Colonel Potter. Interestingly, Potter is similar to the name of role he played here; Maj. Pott, sometimes referred to as "Potty".

• The pigeons at the fountain as the soldiers enter town are all domesticated fancy breeds, not wild pigeons, which explains their calmness around the soldiers.

• The actor Dick Shawn, who played Capt. Lionel Cash, is from the town of Lackawanna N.Y. that they drunkenly try to pronounce in the photograph scene with the mayor.