In Roger Corman's low-budget combat film The Secret Invasion (1964), a group of British criminals, each possessing a special skill, is pardoned in order to be assigned to a dangerous, possibly suicidal mission during World War II. That plot sounds familiar, of course, from two huge productions that this movie preceded - The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Play Dirty (1968), the latter perhaps the best of its type - but in truth the general story idea had been around awhile. "Dirty group" combat movies, as film historian Jeanine Basinger has labeled them, have their genesis in Gung Ho!, which came out all the way back in 1943, smack in the middle of the real WWII. In that film, the soldiers aren't specifically pardoned criminals, but they might as well be, seeing as they're such an astonishingly ugly and bloodthirsty bunch of characters. (They do, however, get their job done in most entertaining fashion.)

The Secret Invasion is unique as a Roger Corman version of this story trope. (He sandwiched the picture in between two of his Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, both of which also came out in 1964: The Masque of the Red Death and The Tomb of Ligeia.) Even though this was Corman's biggest-budget production to date ($590,000), The Secret Invasion still feels like a typical Corman movie, with a lurid atmosphere, "shock" cuts, and a down 'n dirty, somewhat rushed feeling.

It does result in an odd mishmash, however, which ultimately doesn't add up to a very successful movie. While it was filmed on location in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), and along the Adriatic coastline (one of the most beautiful in the world), large portions of the film are set in enclosed rooms or on the sea, making it pretty startling to suddenly see the characters in a "big-budget" location. It makes one wonder why Corman didn't devise his story to be filmed more fully in those exterior settings.

Furthermore, the characters are generally lacking in big star power, furthering the feel of this as a B film and not the A production that the locales would indicate. Stewart Granger and Mickey Rooney are the biggest names in the cast, though both were in career decline. Henry Silva, a "bad guy" character actor, makes a strong impression as a silent killer, and Raf Vallone is most appealing as a former organized-crime head. He comes off as something of an Italian Burt Lancaster. Rooney is given little to say - a good thing, for he is meant to be Irish and his accent is just terrible!

While there are a few exciting action sequences, The Secret Invasion feels in the end like a series of vignettes which are not strung together by any cohesive emotional coil. It lacks proper transitions between sequences, making the cut to a new situation seem jarring in a disjointed rather than purposeful way. Other times, the movie just doesn't make sense: when the group escapes from a castle where they have been imprisoned, what starts as a handful of Nazis chasing them suddenly turns into 20, then 50, then hundreds! Maybe Corman was in a bit over his head with the scale of the production, but probably a better script would have solved many of the problems.

Fans of TV's M*A*S*H will also recognize a powerful plot device involving a crying baby - 19 years before it was used in the series' final episode.

Fox Home Entertainment has put out a very good-looking anamorphic release of this United Artists/MGM production. There are zero extras - just the movie. As has become customary around Memorial Day each year, this is but one of many male-oriented war films and westerns to be released from studio vaults. Some other MGM titles (distributed by Fox) which fall into this category and are now available include Man of the West (1958), Day of the Outlaw (1959) and Morning Departure (1950).

For more information about The Secret Invasion, visit MGM Home Entertainment. To order The Secret Invasion, go to TCM Shopping.

by Jeremy Arnold