Kelly's Heroes (1970) (Movie)

format_quote Big Joe: Take that underwear off your head, enh? Enough is enough.

stars  Film is based upon a true incident. The caper was covered in a book called "Nazi Gold: The Sensational Story of the World's Greatest Robbery - and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up" by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting. The heist was perpetrated by a combinations of renegade Nazi and American officers. It was also listed as the "biggest" robbery ever in the Guinness Book of Records, in the 1960's.

stars  The German Tiger tank commander (played by Karl-Otto Alberty) appears to be a parody - both in appearance and manner of speaking - of Marlon Brando's portrayal of German Lt. Christian Diestl in THE YOUNG LIONS.

stars  14,000 gold bars, valued at $16M, equals about $1,143 per bar. At the long-standing price of $35/troy ounce, the bars would have had to weigh only 32.6 oz (almost 36 oz avoirdupois) each--probably a gross understatement, even though the bars are clearly much smaller than the standard "Fort Knox" size. But even assuming the weight is correct, 14,000 bars would weigh almost 16 tons (not counting boxes, men and equipment)--well beyond the capacity of the truck they were using. Then again (still with me, folks?), 14,000 bars, at only 12 to a box, would require over 1,100 boxes--seemingly a lot more than is in the pile. So maybe the German colonel was wrong.

stars  The number of gold bars stated in the heist is 14,000. The initial value of the stolen bars was estimated at $1.6 million and then later corrected to be estimated at $16 million in total. The international standard weight for gold bars is 400 troy ounces and in 1944, the price of gold was $35 dollars per (troy) ounce. That would make approximated total value of the score to be closer to $196 million dollars; not $16 million dollars as stated.

stars  It was during shooting in Yugoslavia 1969, that Donald Sutherland received word, via co-star Clint Eastwood, that his then-wife Shirley Douglas was arrested for trying to buy hand-grenades for the Black Panthers with a personal cheque from an undercover FBI agent. Sutherland recounts this story often, mentioning that when Eastwood got to the part about the personal cheque, he laughed so hard, he fell to his knees, and Sutherland had to help him up. Eastwood then put his arm around Sutherland and walked him down the hill that overlooked the Yugoslav countryside, assuring his friend with complete support of his predicament. Sutherland and Douglas, who are the parents of Kiefer and twin sister Rachel Sutherland, later divorced in 1970