CASTLE KEEP: An Analysis

Few movies resonate as deeply with me as Castle Keep.

It is truly sui generis.

It’s a deceptively simple story:
In the waning days of WWII, eight walking wounded American soldiers occupy a castle in Belgium, a token sign of force as the war rages past them.
The castle belongs to a noble family who owned it for generations and stocked it with a vast collection of priceless rare and irreplaceable classical art.
The current count wants to keep his castle and his collection intact, but he also wants a son to carry on the family name and tradition.
He is, unfortunately, impotent.
And even more unfortunately, the castle is located in the Ardennes forest, on the road to Bastogne…

Now, those raw elements are more than enough to fuel a perfectly good run of the mill WWII movie, with plenty of bang-bang-shoot-em-up and some obligatory musings on the meaning of it all.

And I’m sure that’s the way they pitched Castle Keep.

But director Sydney Pollack and screenwriters Daniel Taradash and David Rayfiel (adapting the eponymous novel by William Eastlake) delivered something far more…well…phantasmagorical is as apt a way of describing it as any.

Because despite being solid grounded in a real time and a real place and a real event, Castle Keep moves out of the realm of mere history and into a much more magical place.

Not so much fact, as fable.

And as fable, it gets closer to the Truth.

. . .

Before we analyze the movie, let’s set the contextual stage.

First off, understand the impact WWII movies still had on audiences of the 1960s and early 70s.

For those who lived through the war years, it occurred scarcely more than 20 years earlier, a period that seems like forever to teenagers and young adults but flies past in the blink of an eye when one reaches middle age and beyond.

Not only were WWII movies popular, they were relatively easy to make.  A lot of countries still used operational Allied and German equipment up through the 1960s (Spain’s air force stood in for the Luftwaffe in 1969’s The Battle Of Britain), and for low budget black and white films or pre-living color TV, ample archival and stock footage padded things out.

Most importantly, WWII was a shared experience insofar as younger audiences grew up hearing from their parents what it was like, and as a result there was some degree of relatability between the Greatest Generation and their children, the Boomers.

But the times, they were a’changin’ as Dylan sang, and the rise of the counter-culture in the 1960s and the civil rights, feminist, and anti-Vietnam War movements (and boy howdy, is that a lot of history crammed into one sentence but you’re just gonna hafta roll with me on this one, folks; we’ll examine that era in greater detail at some point in the future but not today, not today…) led to younger audiences looking at WWII with fresh eyes and to older film makers re-evaluating their own experiences.

So to focus on WWII films of the time, understand there were 3 main threads running through the era:

• The epic re-enactment typified by The Longest Day (1961), The Battle Of The Bulge (1965), Patton (1970), and ending with A Bridge Too Far in 1977

• The cynical revisionism of The Dirty Dozen (1967), Where Eagles Dare (1968), and Kelly’s Heroes (1970)*

• The absurdity of How I Won The War (1967) and Catch-22 (1970)

Castle Keep brushes past all those sub-genres, though it comes closest to absurdity.

. . .

While released in 1969, Castle Keep started development as early as 1966 (the novel saw print in 1965).  Burt Lancaster, attached early on as the star, requested Sydney Pollack as director.

Pollack, an established TV director, started making a name for himself in the mid-1960s with films like The Slender Thread and This Property Is Condemned; he and Lancaster worked together on The Scalphunters prior to Castle Keep.

While his first three films were well received, Pollack’s career really took off with his fifth movie, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and after that it was a string of unbroken successes including Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Three Days Of The Condor, Tootsie, Out Of Africa, and many, many more.

In fact, the only apparent dud in the barrel is Castle Keep, his fourth movie.  

Castle Keep arrived at an…uh…interesting juncture in American (and worldwide) cinema history.

The old studio system that served Hollywood so well unraveled at the seams, the old way of doing business and making movies just didn’t seem to work anymore.

Conversely, the new style wasn’t winning that many fans, either.

For every big hit like Easy Rider there were dozens of films like Candy and Puzzle Of A Downfall Child and Play It As It Lays and Alex In Wonderland.

As I commented at the time, it seemed as if everybody in Hollywood had forgotten how to make movies.

It was a period rife with experimentation, but the thing about experiments is that they don’t always work.  While there were some astonishingly good films in this era, by and large it’s difficult for modern audiences to fully appreciate what the experimental films of the era were trying to do -- and in no small part because when they succeeded, the experiments became part of the cinematic language, but when they failed…

Castle Keep is not a perfect film.  As much as I love it, I need to acknowledge its flaws.

The Red Queen brothel sequences feel extraneous, not really worked into the film.  Women are often treated like eye candy in male dominated war films, but this is exceptionally so.  Brothels and prostitution certainly existed during WWII, servicing both sides and all comers, but the Red Queen’s ladies undercut points the film makes elsewhere.  

Their participation in the penultimate battle shifts the film -- however briefly -- from the absurd to the ridiculous, and apparently negative audience testing resulted in a shot being inserted showing them alive and well and cheering despite a German tank blasting their establishment just a few moments earlier.

Likewise, an action sequence in the middle of the film where a German airplane is shot down also seems like studio pressure to add a little action to the first two-thirds of the movie. 

Apparently unable to obtain a Luftwaffe fighter of the era, Pollack and the producers opted for an observation aircraft, then outfitted it with forward firing machine guns, something such aircraft never carried.

Once the airplane spotted the American soldiers at the castle, it would have flown away to avoid being shot down, not return again and again in futile strafing runs while they returned fire.

It’s action for the sake of action, and like the Red Queen scenes actually undercuts other points the film makes.

. . .

But when the film works, ah, it works gloriously…

Pollack used a style common in films of the late 1960s and early 70s:  Jump cuts from one time and place to another, with no optical transition or establishing shot to signal the jump to the audience.

Star Wars brought the old school style of film making back in a big way, and ya know what?  Old school works; it was lessons learned the hard way and by long experience.

Still, Pollack’s jump cuts add to Castle Keep’s dreamy, almost hallucinogenic ambiance, and that in turn reinforces the sense of fable that permeates the film.

For as historically accurate as Castle Keep is re the Battle of the Bulge, as noted above it is not operating in naturalism but rather the theater of myth and magic.

Pollack prefigures this early on with a dreamy slow motion sequence of cloaked riders galloping through the dead trees of the Ardennes forest, jumping a fence directly in front of the jeep carrying Major Falconer (Burt Lancaster) and his walking wounded squad.

It’s a sequence similar to one in Roger Vadim’s "Metzengerstein" segment of 1968’s Spirits Of The Dead, and while it’s unlikely Pollack found direct inspiration from Vadim, clearly both drew from the same mythic well.

The sequence serves as an introduction to the count (Jean-Pierre Aumont) and Therese his wife (?  Niece?  Sister?  Nobody in the movie seems 100% sure what their relationship is, but she’s played by Astrid Heeren) and the fabulous Castle Maldorais.

The castle is fabulous in more ways than one.  While the exterior was a free standing full scale outdoor set and some large interior sets were built, many of the most magnificent scenes were filmed in other real locations to show off genuine works of art found in other European castles.

This adds to the film’s somewhat disjointed feel, but that disjointed feel contributes to the dream-like quality of the story.  

. . .

As mentioned, Maldorais is crammed to the gills with priceless art, and the count doesn’t care who prevails so long as the art is unmolested.

The same can’t be said about Therese, however, and as the film’s narrator and aspiring author, Private Allistair Piersall Benjamin (Al Freeman Jr.), notes “We occupied the castle.  No one knows when the major occupied the countess.”

The count, as noted, is impotent.  To keep Castle Maldorais intact for future generations, he needs an heir and is not fussy about how he obtains one.  Therese’s function is to produce such an heir, and if the count isn’t particular about which side wins, neither is he particular about which side produces the next generation.

Despite being the narrator and (spoiler!) sole American survivor at the end of the film, Pvt. Benjamin is not the focal character of the film, nor -- surprise-surprise -- is Lancaster’s Maj. Falconer.

Falconer is evocative of Colonel Richard Cantwell in Ernest Hemingway’s Across The River And Into The Trees, in particular regarding his love affair with a woman many years his junior.

Falconer wears a patch over his right eye, the only visible sign of wounding among the GIs occupying the castle.

Several military movie buffs think they found a continuity error in Castle Keep insofar as Maj. Falconer first appears in standard issue officer fatigues of the era, but towards the end and particularly in the climactic battle wears an airborne officer’s combat uniform.

This isn’t an error, I think, but a clue as to Falconer’s personal history.

An airborne (i.e., paratrooper) officer who lost an eye is unfit for combat, and if well enough to serve would be assigned garrison duty, not a front line command.

Falconer figures out very early in Castle Keep the strategic importance of Castle Maldorais re the impending German attack and very consciously makes a decision to stand and fight rather than fall back to the relative safety of Bastogne.

Donning his old airborne uniform makes perfect sense under such circumstances.

If the count is impotent invisibly, Falconer is visibly impotent -- in both senses of the word -- and sees his chance to make one last heroic stand against the oncoming Nazi army as a surer way of restoring his symbolically lost manhood than in impregnating Therese.**

. . . 

Before examining our focal character, a few words on the supporting cast.

Peter Falk is Sgt. Rossi, a baker.  Sgt. Rossi’s exact wounding is never made clear, but it appears he suffers from some form of shell shock (as they called PTSD at the time).

He hears things, in particular a scream that only he hears three times during the movie.

The first time is after an opening montage of beautiful works of art being destroyed in a series of explosions.  When a bird-like gargoyle is blow apart, a screech is heard on the soundtrack, and we abruptly jump cut to Maj. Falconer and Sgt. Rossi and the rest of the squad on their way to Castle Maldorais.

For a movie as profoundly philosophical as Castle Keep (more on that in a bit), Sgt. Rossi is the only actual philosopher in the group.  His philosophy is of an earthy bent, and filtered through his own PTSD, but he’s clearly thinking. 

Rossi briefly deserts the squad to take up with the local baker’s wife (Olga Bisera, identified only as Bisera in the credits).  This is not adultery or cuckoldry; Rossi sees her bakery, knocks, and identifies himself as a baker.

“And I am a baker’s wife,” she says.

“Where’s the baker?”

“Gone.”

And with that Rossi moves in, fulfilling all the duties required of a baker (including, however briefly, standing in as a father figure for her son).

The baker’s wife is the only female character who displays any real personal agentry in the film, Therese and the Red Queen and her ladies are there simply to do the bidding of whichever male is present.

This is a problem with most male-oriented war films, and especially so for late 60s / early 70s cinema of any kind; for all the idealistic talk of equality and self-realization, female characters tended to be treated more cavalierly in films of that era than in previous generations.  Olga Bisera’s character appears noteworthy only in comparison to the other female characters in the movie.

Pvt. Benjamin, our narrator and aspiring author, is African-American.  There is virtually no reference made to his race in the film, certainly not as much as the references to a Native American character’s ethnicity.

Today this would be seen as an example of color blind casting; back in 1969 it was a pretty visually explicit point.

Again, it serves the mythic feel of the movie.  At that time, African-American enlisted personnel would not be serving in an integrated unit.

While Castle Keep never brings the topic up, the film -- and Pvt. Benjamin’s narration -- indicates these eight men are bottom of the barrel scrapings, sent where they can do the least amount of damage, and otherwise forgotten by the powers that be.

With that reading, Benjamin’s presence is easy to understand.  As the apparently third most educated member of the unit (Falconer and our focal character are the other two), he probably would not have been a smooth fit in any unit he’d been assigned to.

Whatever got him yanked out of his old company and placed under Maj. Falconer’s command probably was as much a relief to his superiors as it was to him.

Scott Wilson is Corporal Clearboy, a cowboy with a hatred of Army jeeps and an unholy love for Volkswagens.

Volkswagens actually appeared in Germany before the start of WWII but once Hitler came out swinging those factories were converted to military production.  Nonetheless, the basic Beetle was around during the war, and commandeered and used by many Allied soldiers who found one.

Clearboy’s Volkswagen provides one of the funniest bits in the movie, and one that plays on the mythical / surreal / magic realism of the film.  Clearboy’s obsession is oddly touching.

Tony Bill’s Lieutenant Amberjack tips us early on to the kind of cinematic experience we’re in for.  Under the opening credits, Amberjack is asked if he ever studied for the ministry; Amberjack says he did.

“Then why aren’t you a chaplain?”
-- and Amberjack bursts out laughing.

Amberjack does not go with the others to the Red Queen -- “That’s for enlisted men” -- and while he enjoys playing the count’s organ, by that I mean he literally sits down at the keyboard and plays music.

But as we’ll see, Castle Keep is not the sort of movie to shy away from sly hints.  Amberjack’s specific “wound” is never discussed, so it’s open to speculation as to why he’s assigned to Maj. Falconer’s squad.

(Siderbar: Following a successful acting career, Bill went on to produce and direct several motion pictures, sharing a Best Picture Oscar for The Sting with Michael and Julia Phillips.)

Elk, the token Native American character in every WWII squad movie, is played by James Patterson.  Elk doesn’t get much to do in the film, though Patterson was an award winning Broadway actor.  Tragically, he died of cancer a few years after making Castle Keep.

Another character with little to do is Michael Conrad’s Sergeant DeVaca.  Most audiences today remember him for his role in Hill Street Blues.

Astrid Heeren (Therese) gets a typically thankless role for films of this type in that era.  She possessed a beautiful face that’s so symmetrical it gives off an unearthly, almost frightening vibe.  A fashion model in the 1960s, she appeared in only four movies -- this one, The Thomas Crown Affair, and two sleaze fests -- before quitting the business.

As noted above, no one is ever quite sure what her exact relationship to the count is.  Towards the end it’s speculated she’s his sister and his wife, but since the count is impotent, does that really constitute incest?

Whatever she is, it’s clear the count considers her nothing more than an oven in which to bake a new heir, and in a very real sense she possesses less freedom and personal agentry than the ladies of the Red Queen.

At least she survives at the end of the film, pregnant with Falconer’s child, led to safety by Pvt. Benjamin.

Finally, Bruce Dern as Lieutenant Billy Byron Bix, a wigged out walking wounded who is not a member of Falconer’s squad.

Bix leads his own rag tag group of GIs, equally addled soldiers who proclaim their newly found evangelical fervor renders them conscientious objectors.  They wander about, singing hymns and scrounging for survival, until the penultimate battle of the film.  

Falconer, trying to recruit more defenders from the retreating American forces, dragoons Bix and his followers into singing a hymn in the hopes of luring some of the shell shocked GIs back to the keep.

Bix agrees -- and is almost immediately killed by a shell, not only thwarting Falconer’s plan but also raising the question of whether this was divine punishment for abandoning his pacifist ways, fate decreeing Falconer and his squad must stand alone, or pure random chance.

Dern, as always, is a delight to watch, and he and Falk get a funny scene where they argue about singing hymns at night.

. . .

So who is our focal character?

Patrick O’Neil was one of those journeymen actors who never get the big breakout role that makes them a star, but worked regularly and well.

He worked on Broadway, guest starred on TV a lot, starred in a couple of minor films (including the delightful sci-fi / spy comedy Matchless), but spent most of his movie career supporting other stars.

Castle Keep is his finest performance.

He’s supposed to be supporting Lancaster in Castle Keep, but dang, he’s the heart and soul of the film.

O’Neil plays Captain Lionel Beckman, Falconer’s second in command, a professor of art and literature whose name is well known enough to be recognized by the count.  

Besides Falconer, Beckman is the only character explicitly acknowledged as having been wounded; this is revealed when Falconer mentions Beckman won the Bronze Star (the second highest award for bravery) and the Purple Heart.

Beckman is enthralled by Castle Maldorais; he and the count strike up a respectful if not friendly relationship.

He sees and appreciates the cultural significance of Castle Maldorais’ artistic treasures and futilely tries to share his love of same with the enlisted men.

He also understands how little Falconer can do at the castle to slow the German advance, and makes the entirely reasonable suggestion that perhaps it would be best for the squad and the castle to retreat and let the treasures remain intact.

Lancaster reportedly wanted to make Castle Keep a comment on the Vietnam War, but the reality is there’s no adequate comparison.

History shows the Nazis were a brutal, aggressive, racist force determined to conquer all they could and destroy the rest.

Beckman is not a fool for wanting to spare the castle and its art, and that’s why he’s vital as the film’s focal character.

He sees and feels for us the horror at what appears to be the senseless waste about to befall the men and the castle.  His voice is necessary to express there are ideals worth fighting for, and there are times when not fighting is the best strategy.

But Maj. Falconer is shown as a good officer.  While he maintains an aloof attitude of command, he’s interested in and concerned about the men under him, he’s willing to be lenient if circumstances permit, and he keeps them openly and honestly informed at all times of the situation facing them.

He figures out the meaning of the flares seen early in the film, anticipates what the German line of attack will be, but most importantly realizes more will die and more destruction will occur if the Nazis aren’t resisted.

He and Beckman’s difference of opinion is not simplistic good vs evil, brute vs beauty, but a deeper, and ultimately more ineffable one over applying value in our lives.

Falconer and Beckman represent two entirely different yet equally valid and equally human points of view of when and how we decide to act on those values.

Falconer by himself cannot tell the story of Castle Keep, he needs the sounding board of Beckman, and only Beckman can bridge the gap between those opposing values for the audience.

. . .

Before we go further, a brief compare & contrast on an earlier Burt Lancaster film, The Train (1964).

It touches on a theme similar to Castle Keep:  As Allied armies advance on Paris, the Germans plan to move a vast collection of priceless art by rail from France to Germany.  Lancaster, a member of a French resistance cell, doesn’t see the military value of stopping the train, but when other members of his cell decide to do so in order to save French culture, he reluctantly joins their efforts.

The film ends with the train stopped, the French hostages massacred, the art abandoned and strewn about by the fleeing Germans.  Lancaster confronts and shoots the German officer responsible then leaves, dismayed and disgusted by the waste of human life over an abstract love of beauty.

The French resistance fighters who died trying to stop the train did so of their own fully informed consent; they knew the risks, were willing to take them, and faced the consequences.

The civilian hostages massacred at the end had no knowledge, much less any say in the reason why their lives were risked.  Lancaster, in successfully derailing the train to prevent it leaving France, also signs their death warrants when the vengeful Nazis turn on their victims.

The Train proved a critical success and did well at the box office, yet while it raises a lot of interesting points and issues, it ultimately isn’t as deep or as humane as Castle Keep.

The Train ends with a bitter sense of futility.

Castle Keep ends with a bittersweet sense of sacrifice.

. . .

All of which brings us to the screenplay of Castle Keep, written by Daniel Taradash and David Rayfiel off the novel by William Eastlake.

I read Eastlake’s book decades ago and remember it to be a good story.  

The screenplay kept the basic plot but built wonderfully off the complexity of the novel, reinterpreting it for the screen.

It’s one of the few cinematic adaptations of a good literary work that actually improves on the original.

Taradash was a classic old school Hollywood screenwriter with a string of bona fide hits and classics to his credit including From Here To Eternity (1952), Picnic (1955), and Hawaii (1966).  He also scripted the interesting misfire Morituri (1965), about an Allied double-agent attempting to sabotage a German freighter trying to get vital supplies back to the fatherland.

I suspect Taradash was the studio’s first choice for adapting the book, and as his credits show, an eminently suitable one.  

But when Pollack came on as the director, he also brought along David Rayfiel, a frequent collaborator with him on other films.

Rayfiel’s career as a screenwriter was shorter than Tardash’s but more intense, vacillating between quality films and well crafted potboilers.  Rayfiel and Pollack doubtlessly shaped the final form of the screenplay, and despite what appears to he studio interference, turned in a truly memorable piece of work.

As I said, Castle Keep is truly sui generis, but there are other films and screenplays that carry some of the same flavor.  

The Stunt Man (1980; directed by Richard Rush, screenplay by Rush and Lawrence B. Marcus off the novel by Paul Brodeur) bears certain similarities in tone and approach to Castle Keep.  It represents an evolution of the cinematic style originally found in Pollack’s film, now refined and polished to fit mainstream expectations.

True, it has the advantage of a story that hinges on sudden / swift / disorienting changes, but it still managed to pull those effects off more smoothly than the films of the late 1960s did.

As I said, some experiments work…

Castle Keep’s screenplay works more like Plato’s dialogs than a traditional film script.

Almost every line in it is a philosophical statement or question of some sort, and underlying everything in the film is each character’s quest for at least some kind of understanding if not actual meaning in life.

As noted, Sgt. Rossi is the most philosophical of these characters, though his philosophy is of a far earthier, more pragmatic variety than that of the count, Falconer, or Beckman.

All the major characters have some sort of philosophical bent, even if they’re not self-aware enough to recognize it in themselves.

The dialog is elliptical, less interested in baldly stating something that in getting the audience to tease out its own meanings.

Pollack directs the film in a way that forces the audience to fill in many blanks.

Early in the movie, Falconer and the count find themselves being stalked by a German patrol.  They take refuge in a gazebo, duck as the Germans fire the first few shots --

-- then we abruptly jump to the aftermath of the firefight, with Falconer and the count standing over the bodies of four dead Germans.

Falconer, seeing they’re all enlisted men, realizes they wouldn’t come this far behind enemy lines without an officer.

There can be only one destination for the officer, one goal he seeks…

Pollack then visually cuts away from Falconer and the count to Therese in the castle, but keeps the two men’s dialog going as a voice over.

In the voice over, we heard Falconer stalk and kill the German officer as he approaches the castle…

…and without ever explicitly stating it, the audience comes to realize the count and Therese are not allies of the Americans, that they are playing only for their own side, and that their values are alien to those of both the Allies and the Germans.

The count is using Therese -- with or without her consent -- to produce an offspring for him, and if the Germans can’t do the job, let the Americans have a go at it…

This theme provides an undercurrent for Beckman’s interactions with the count.  Beckman would like to believe the count’s desire to keep the war away from Castle Maldorais is just a desire to preserve the art and beauty in it, but the count’s motives are purely selfish.

He doesn’t desire to share his treasures with the world but keep them for his own private enjoyment.

The works of art are as good as gone once they pass through Castle Maldorais’ gate.

Later, at the start of the climactic battle for the castle, the count is seen guiding German troops into a secret tunnel that leads under the moat to the castle itself.

Falconer, having anticipated this, blows up the tunnel with the Germans in it.  Through Falconer’s binoculars, we see the Germans shoot the count in the distance, his body collapsing soundlessly into the snow.

A conventional war film would show his death in satisfying close up, but Pollack puts him distantly removed from the Americans he sought to betray, and even the Germans he inadvertently betrayed.  

It shows him going down, alone, in a cold and sterile and soundless environment, his greed for beauty scant comfort for his last breaths.

The film portrays the Germans as mostly faceless, seen only in death or at a distance, rushing and firing at the camera.

The one exception is a brief scene where Lt. Amberjack and Sgt. Rossi patrol the forest around the castle.

Amberjack, playing a flute he acquired at the castle, catches the attention of a German -- a former music student -- hiding in the nearby bushes.

The unseen German compliments Amberjack on his playing, but says if he’ll toss him the flute he’ll fix it so it plays better.

And the German is true to the word.  Unseen in the bushes, he smooths out some of the holes on the flute and tosses it back to Amberjack.

Amberjack thanks him --

-- and Sgt. Rossi shoots him.

“Why did you kill him?”
Amberjack demands.

“It’s what we do for a living,”
says Rossi, ever the philosopher.

. . .

Castle Keep isn’t a film for everyone.

It offers no pat answers, no firm convictions, no unassailable truths.

It’s open to a wide variety of interpretations, and the audiences that saw it first in 1969 approached it from a far different worldview than we see it today.

It isn’t for everyone, but for the ones it is for, it will be a rich meal, not a popcorn snack.

Currently available on Amazon Prime.

© Buzz Dixon

*  I’d include M*A*S*H (1970) in this group even thought (a) it’s set in the Korean War and (b) it’s really about Vietnam.  Except for the helicopters, however, M*A*S*H uses the same uniforms / weapons / vehicles as WWII films; for today’s audiences there’s no discernable difference from a WWII-era film.  It was a toss-up between putting this in the cynical revisionism or absurdity class, but in the end M*A*S*H is just too self-aware, too smirking to fit among the latter.

** Falconer’s relationship with Therese and (indirectly) the count and the castle also harkens back to a 1965 Charlton Heston film, The War Lord, arguably the finest medieval siege warfare movie ever made.  Like Falconer, Heston’s Norman knight must defend a strategic Flemish keep against a Viking chieftain attacking to rescue his young son held hostage by the Normans; complicating matters is Heston’s knight taking undue advantage of his droit du seigneur over a local bride which leads to the locals -- whom the Normans are supposed to be protecting from the Vikings -- helping their former raiders.  Life gets messy when you don’t keep your chain mail zipped.