The Ravine (1969)

Very well executed

Very best movie i ever watch

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Blistering performances.

I saw this as a child in a drive-in theater, and it influenced me for life! Enmity turns to love, conflict to passion, and this doomed tragic romance is set in the deep snow. After years of struggle, I got the original Italian version LA CATTURA, and feared I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it 40 or so years later as I settled in one Sunday afternoon last year during the peak of winter. I discovered that you hardly need to be a Maestro to decipher what is being said, and there is, in any case, very little dialog. Recently I did find the dubbed English version on WapTrick/WapNext/Mobile9 and I thank them for it, English is the most glorious language on this planet and everybody should be speaking it! But this hasn't been converted to disc yet, so I haven't watched it yet, though the South-African mid-winter is coming up in two months...It deserves more than my score of 5 out of ten, but remains rather more an idea that begs to be remade. Though another Nicoletta Machiavelli will be hard to find...A very romantic movie with badly constructed war scenes, but a definite Love Conquers All message, although the weak ending leaves much to be desired. Okay, in real life, those two wouldn't have gotten away, but perhaps, with a better script, it wouldn't have been so poorly executed. Yes, a shoe-string budget clearly added to the problems, but nowadays, with two popular lead actors willing to freeze their asses off, this could be the recipe for award-winning box-office hit material, and there'd be money a-plenty if a major movie studio was involved.Initial conflict makes for the best romantic drama, as witnessed by scores of soap operas. Here it starts off as 'romancing the enemy girl' and although the brutality doesn't fail to make me wince, it eventually becomes a totally realistically-filmed love affair, blossoming in the harsh snow. Nicoletta is just darling once the love bug really bites! For all its faults, the movie contributes one of the cinema's greatest couples, although David NcCallum is hardly a strong lead, note to contemporary movie-makers, you just need a blonde, blue-eyed Aryan-looking guy, and I can just already hear the money rolling in, and see struggling cinemas get saved! :) Okay, anything to convince Hollywood to tackle this project...It always stayed with me, how gentle he was with her after she had passed out in the snow after he left her tied to the tree, and I have tried my hand at writing similar stories, all clearly inspired by THE RAVINE.Italy - other people refer to this country for vastly different reasons. I have found many film titles, especially Hard-to- Find stuff, that has an Italian connection, and I am very fond of them, just please make them properly available on DVD, and supply the English soundtrack! THE RAVINE is one of my dearest memories!Making love is so much better than making war.

The year is 1943. German sergeant Hallmann, who previously was on duty in North Africa, arrives in Yugoslavia by parachute and can't believe the new mission they give him. '3000 km to capture a woman?' - 'She is not a woman', he is told, 'she's a beast. And who is the best to capture a beast? A hunter.' Hallmann needs all his experience as a hunter to find Anya, a partisan who is hiding in the deep snow of the forest. Spies have warned Anya about her new opponent, and she knows the territory better than anyone else. During the chase, they get separated from their comrades and spend a few days (and nights) behind the enemy lines, together in a hut. Once they have the chance to speak to each other instead of shooting from long distance, they find they like each other a lot. But obviously, under the circumstances of war, it is impossible to fall in love and just live a happy life.I admire the dedication many people put into movie-making. I mean, filming in the snow must be hell. Walking through snow four feet deep is exhausting for the actors, their footprints must be wiped out for the next shot every time, the crew must be freezing all those days in the middle of nowhere (shot on original location in Yugoslavia), and if you ever tried taking photos in winter, you know how poor and treacherous the light is. Yet the effort of filming under these difficult circumstances results in remarkable films sometimes ('Il Grande Silenzio', anyone?), and also for 'La Cattura' it was worthwhile. I don't like the movie being described as love story or romance, because in the whole first half of the movie, there is not a trace of anything like that. It's a war movie most of the time, about chasing an assassin, slowly developing into something more sophisticated: enemies who find they are more than just soldiers. It takes time to trust each other (she bites his hand the first time he tries to feed her), thus it makes sense to take the time of the audience as well and proceed in small steps. Lots of dialog to push the relationship forward faster would have killed the atmosphere, so personally I'm glad it's a slow, careful movie. I hope somebody is going to restore 'La Cattura' properly and save it for posterity. What I watched was a grainy Italian language DVD (from the label Medusa) with full frame, i.e. quite a lot of the picture cut off to the right and left. It shouldn't be hard to make a better re-release sometime, and that's what the picture deserves.

A decent WWII drama, shot on a shoestring budget in Yugoslavia with a mixed American, Italian and Yugoslav cast and crew. In 1942, the war in Yugoslavia is raging full-force. An isolated German unit battles with a small band of Partisans, as the front has moved away from their position. A beautiful Russian sniper aids the Partisans in battling the enemy, so the Germans call in their own man to hunt down and capture her. Not surprisingly, due to circumstances beyond their control, the two find themselves isolated in the snowy forest and must depend on eachother to survive, eventually falling in love.Well, it's nothing you haven't seen before. The film is essentially a re-make of HELL IN THE PACIFIC, with a romance theme and more physical action. Still, the cast makes the best of it. David McCallum (Mosquito Squadron) is surprisingly good as the German sniper, Sgt. Holman. He is portrayed as a completely human character that only kills when he has to. He is not a killer by nature; rather, he's a hunter who is selected for his outdoor skill and deadly accuracy with weaponry. On the flip side, Nicoletta Machiavelli makes a pretty good counterpart. Here we have a young, beautiful woman doing what one would usually envision as a "Man's Job". This shows just important everyone was to the cause; women were just as involved in Yugoslavia and Russia as the men were. The conflict between the two is well-written and excellently acted, as the relationship slowly progresses from enemies, to comrades, to lovers - reaching an inevitable climactic ending scene. In support, John Crawford is acceptable as the maniacal German captain, although he only has a few scenes. Demeter Bitenc (Operation Cross Eagles) as a substantial part as a German officer and Lars Bloch (Heroes in Hell) makes a good partisan leader. Unfortunately, these are about the only cast members who get to do anything. Not many other actors or extras are onhand throughout the film. The few combat scenes are badly filmed, with lots of fake-looking action and death scenes as well as a very limited number of extras. What's supposed to be a huge partisan attack looks like a dozen or so men at best churning through the snow aimlessly. The lack of action is offset by some excellent Yugoslav scenery. Although the film is presented full-frame on home video, the Yugoslav forests look stunning. The snow is beautiful and the people look to be in an angelic paradise even if they are freezing. Camera-work is above average, capturing the emotions of characters perfectly and filling the screen with as much information as possible in even the slowest of scenes. Riz Ortolani's fine score adds some life and hope to the bleak atmosphere. While the movie does a have a lot going for it (as I hope you can tell from my review), it also has one major strike against it: pacing. The first half of the movie contains some great stalking scenes and plenty of good dialog scenes, but the second half is filled with little action and hardly any dialog to support the onscreen activity. There are lots of very long, drawn-out romantic scenes which fail to develop the characters or push the story forward. These scenes are simply included to fill out the 90 minute running time, and the story would have been a lot better if more action - of any kind - was included in the second half to keep viewers more interested. This movie was released in the US quite some time ago by InterVision. I received a copy from this videocassette. The quality is not too great. Colors are reasonably accurate, but not at all intense. The image lacks sharpness and clarity in some scenes. The tint control is also pretty bad; in some scenes, the snow looks to have a gross yellow-green glare. The pan-and-scanning is just fine, and nothing major is missing from the sides of the image. Despite the quality, this film is so rare that if you can find it, I recommend buying it.THE RAVINE is a worthy addition to the ranks of Italian war films. It contains material that has not been touched in any other Italian war movie, and also has plenty of good technical stuff to keep film buffs satisfied. But the whole impact is offset by frustratingly slow pacing. You'll walk away feeling unsatisfied, but not empty either.

I guess this movie is not to everyone's liking but if you are a David McCallum fan you will enjoy it. It is a love story with a different twist. It has been a long time since I first saw this movie on TV and no one seems willing to air it again. Also,it is not currently on video which is a shame. I would very much like to view it again.