Cross of Iron (1977)

It is 1943 in Russia near the Black Sea.  Corporal Rolf Steiner (James Coburn) leads a platoon of soldiers on a patrol through Russian held territory.  He returns to the lines to find that Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell) is the new commander.  Stransky voluntarily transferred from a cushy assignment in France in order to win an Iron Cross on the front lines.  Stransky has already learned that Steiner is a living legend among the men and highly valued by the regimental commander, Colonel Brandt (James Mason).  Steiner has won the Iron Cross.  During a particularly difficult battle, Steiner is wounded and sent far behind the lines for recovery.  When he returns, he is asked by Brandt about the battle and whether Stransky deserved the Iron Cross for his part in it.  Stransky had never left his bunker.  When the army retreats, Stransky abandoned Steiner and his men to be overrun, hoping they would be killed.  Can Steiner dodge Russian soldiers and find the German Army?  Will he have his revenge?

As often is the case with a Sam Peckinpah film, the blood is plentiful.  The battle scenes dominate, a mixture of explosions, airborne bodies, bullet riddled soldiers, and collapsing buildings.  More time is spent on nameless soldiers being killed and blown up than is spent developing the characters.  When Lt. Meyer was killed, I only vaguely knew who he was, though it becomes noteworthy later.  To help differentiate them, several of his men have some distinctive characteristic: half an ear, severely scared face, impressive mustache, youthful grin.  Don't recall the names.

The conclusion wasn't.  The German lines are falling and the various characters are engaged in battle, but their fates are unknown.  They probably all died, except for Steiner; he returns in a sequel.

Just okay.

The Black Hole (1979)

The USS Palomino is returning from a long exploratory mission when they pass near a black hole.  To their surprise, the long lost USS Cygnus is located nearby.  Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux) is particularly interested since her father served on the ship when it went missing.  They fly in to take a closer look, fighting the increasing gravity of The Black Hole all the way, but suddenly enter a zero gravity field around the Cygnus.  There appear to be no signs of life.  No sooner have they made a pass of the ship than the gravity takes hold again.  The Palomino suffers damage fighting back to the null gravity field of the Cygnus and must make repairs before they can continue.  They land on the Cygnus, which suddenly shows signs of life.

Boarding the ship, they are disarmed by unseen forces and then 'led' by opening doors to the ship's bridge. There they meet Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell) and his robot enforcer, Maximilian. Reinhardt spins a tale about a damage ship unable to return. The crew left - never making it back - while he stayed to repair the Cygnus and continue his research. In the intervening years, he has constructed faceless androids to crew the ship. Captain Holland (Robert Forester), Reporter Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine), and Vincent the Robot (Roddy McDowell) all encounter things on the Cygnus that contradict Reinhardt's telling.

There are some oddball facets to the movie.  Vincent has a fully developed personality and is entirely unlike a robot.  He provides snarky banter and certainly doesn't follow Asimov's laws of robotics.  Bob (Slim Pickens) even has a western twang.  Meanwhile, all other robots are mute, including Maximilian.  Oddly, Maximilian seems able to speak with Reinhardt.  Perhaps they shared ESP, like Kate did with Vincent.  It was strange that she could only use her ESP with the robot and not her fellow humans.  Does Vincent have a special ESP circuit installed? 

There are a lot of crazy problems with the movie. The Cygnus has been here for 20 years and, on the very day it plans to fly through the black hole, it is smashed to bits by a meteor storm. What, they didn't see them coming? They were glowing red! Why did Reinhardt turn against the crew of the Palomino? If he had just let them go, all would have worked out fine, except for that meteor storm he didn't see coming. After seeing what happened to the fully-crewed Palomino last time it was beyond the null gravity field of the Cygnus, what made Harry Booth think he could pilot it solo? The ending is truly bizarre, with Reinhardt melding with Maximilian and ending on a fiery landscape, presumably hell. Hardly a sci-fi ending. Meanwhile, the survivors of the Palomino find themselves traveling through the black hole, flung to some distant and unexplored region. Happy ending? Hardly! That scout ship isn't going to support them for long and the odds of finding a habitable planet are extremely slim.

When I originally saw this - as a 12 year-old - I thought it was mostly cool.  I loved Vincent and Bob most of all and made them out of Legos.  Today, it's a movie that had potential but was poorly executed.  The effort at some 2001: A Space Odyssey ending was misguided.  Vincent and Bob are now my two least favorite characters.