''Counterpoint'' is a 1968 war film starring

Charlton Heston Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008) was an American actor. He gained stardom for his leading man roles in numerous Cinema of the United States, Hollywood films including biblical epics, science-fiction f ...

Maximilian Schell Maximilian Schell (8 December 1930 – 1 February 2014) was a Swiss actor. Born in First Austrian Republic, Austria, his parents were involved in the arts and he grew up surrounded by performance and literature. While he was still a child, his fa ...

Kathryn Hays Kathryn Hays (born Kay Piper; July 26, 1934 – March 25, 2022) was an American actress, best known for her role as Kim Hughes on the CBS soap opera ''As the World Turns'' from 1972 to 2010. Life and career Hays was born as Kay Piper in Princ ...

and

Leslie Nielsen Leslie William Nielsen (February 11, 1926November 28, 2010) was a Canadian actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he appeared in more than 100 films and 150 television programs, portraying more than 220 characters. He made his a ...

. It is based on the novel '' The General'' by

Alan Sillitoe Alan Sillitoe FRSL (4 March 192825 April 2010) was an English writer and one of the so-called " angry young men" of the 1950s. He disliked the label, as did most of the other writers to whom it was applied. He is best known for his debut novel ...

. In the United States the film was released as a

double feature The double feature is a Film, motion picture industry phenomenon in which theaters would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which the presentation of one feature film would be followed by various short subjec ...

with ''

Sergeant Ryker ''Sergeant Ryker'' is a 1963 drama war film directed by Buzz Kulik and starring Lee Marvin, Bradford Dillman and Peter Graves that was initially shown on television but released theatrically five years later in 1968. The film was originally br ...

'', a 1963 television film starring

Lee Marvin Lee Marvin (February 19, 1924August 29, 1987) was an American film and television actor. Known for his bass voice and prematurely white hair, he is best remembered for playing hardboiled "tough guy" characters. Although initially typecast as th ...

Plot

Lionel Evans is the director of a well-respected symphony orchestra touring European concert halls in Belgium in December 1944 in World War II. In the midst of one concert, the city where they are playing is attacked by German troops, and when Evans and his musicians try to escape, they are captured by Nazi soldiers led by Col. Arndt. 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, is a big classical music fan. 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.

Cast

Music

The orchestra's performances, which include works by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, and Schubert, were performed by the

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra The Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. The orchestra holds a regular concert season from October until June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from ...

Production

Filmed at

Universal Studios Universal Studios may refer to: * Universal Studios, Inc., an American media and entertainment conglomerate ** Universal Pictures, an American film studio ** Universal Studios Lot, a film and television studio complex * Various theme parks operat ...

including a set built for the 1923 film '' The Hunchback of Notre Dame'', the film began shooting on 21 November 1966 and concluded 24 January 1967. Two days were removed from the production schedule and the script was rewritten without consulting the director Ralph Nelson.

Critical response

Writing in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', critic

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...

speculated that the film was "manufactured on the company's back lot to give Universal City tourists something to gawk at," and described it as "an aggressively unbelievable melodrama" and an "anachronism." Film critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

described the film as having a "perverse charm and a lot of good classical music" and "atmosphere," but also reported that it had a "preposterous story" and "if only they had said the hell with it and made a Gothic horror movie they would have had something." A review of the film in ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' noted it was "one of those rare films in which Heston is not in a toga, a doublet, or spurs," and that "the best thing about the movie was the classical music

hich is Ij () is a village in Golabar Rural District of the Central District in Ijrud County, Zanjan province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq ...

what will be most remembered about this film."

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Counterpoint (1968 Film) 1967 films American war drama films Films about classical music and musicians Films directed by Ralph Nelson Films scored by Bronisław Kaper Films set in Belgium Universal Pictures films Western Front of World War II films 1960s English-language films 1960s American films