- Actors: Charlton Heston, Maximilian Schell, Leslie Nielsen, Anton Diffring, Kathryn Hays
- Directors: Ralph Nelson
- Format: Import, PAL, Widescreen
- Language English
- Subtitles: English
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: 15
- Studio: Universal
- Run Time: 102 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- ASIN: B004ED338A
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 83,249 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Spain released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), Spanish ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), English ( Subtitles ), Spanish ( Subtitles ), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Anamorphic Widescreen, Black & White, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: The beauty of classical music confronts the ugliness and treachery of war in this unusual drama. Lionel Evans (Charlton Heston) is the director of a well-respected symphony orchestra touring European concert halls in 1944. In the midst of one concert, the city where they are playing is attacked by German troops, and as Evans and his musicians try to escape, they are captured by Nazi soldiers led by Col. Arndt (Anton Diffring). Evans and the orchestra are taken to a castle where they are to bide their time before being executed; but it turns out that Arndt's superior, Gen. Schiller (Maximilian Schell), is a classical music buff. Schiller commands Evans and his symphony to prepare a special concert for the Nazis, but Evans realizes that the moment the concert is over, he and his musicians will be killed. The orchestra's performances, which include works by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, and Schubert, were performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
With a pitch that sounds like an especially absurd Geraldo Rivera show - American symphony orchestra captured by Nazis in medieval castle and forced to give Wagner concert! - Counterpoint may well be one of the oddest mainstream studio releases of the sixties. Charlton Heston (his first lines appropriately joking about the exodus) is the egomaniac conductor complete with Dracula cape on a USO tour of the frontline who gets captured during the Battle of the Bulge by a ruthless German lieutenant with orders to execute all prisoners ("Typical minor executive. I've been dealing with his type all my life") and finds himself given a brief respite when Maximilian Schell's equally egomaniacal but much more genially ruthless commanding officer turns out to be a fan and wants him to perform for him before he kills the orchestra. Cue a battle of wills between the intransigent conductor and the deviously pragmatic Nazi in a script that's full of bum notes and bad dialogue but which does improve as it goes along, particularly when using orchestra rehearsals as cover for the noise of escape attempts in the film's best moments.
The `clash of moralities' the film aspires to is no better developed than the plot or the characterisation - it's the kind of film where Anton Diffring turns up as usual as yet another of his patented ruthless and humourless Nazi officers, the musicians are all bickering and selfish whingers you'd probably like to line up against a wall yourself and the script can't even be bothered to attempt to build any suspense around the identity of the inevitable informer in their ranks - but it does manage turn into something of a guilty pleasure long before Chuck's maestro picks up a submachine gun for the inevitable shoot `em up grand finale.
No extras on Universal's Spanish PAL DVD, though it offers a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with English subtitles for the German language scenes.
The `clash of moralities' the film aspires to is no better developed than the plot or the characterisation - it's the kind of film where Anton Diffring turns up as usual as yet another of his patented ruthless and humourless Nazi officers, the musicians are all bickering and selfish whingers you'd probably like to line up against a wall yourself and the script can't even be bothered to attempt to build any suspense around the identity of the inevitable informer in their ranks - but it does manage turn into something of a guilty pleasure long before Chuck's maestro picks up a submachine gun for the inevitable shoot `em up grand finale.
No extras on Universal's Spanish PAL DVD, though it offers a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with English subtitles for the German language scenes.
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