KELLY'S HEROES
MOVIES!, 8:00 p.m. ET
This WWII movie came out of nowhere in 1970, the same year as Robert Altman’s MASH. And just as Altman’s film used the setting of the Korean War to present an anti-authoritarian war movie populated with characters with anachronistically modern attitudes, so did Kelly’s Heroes. It’s set during WWII, and ends up being not a traditional war movie, but more of a heist film – involving a cache of gold bars secreted behind enemy lines. And watch for Donald Sutherland, in particular. The same year he starred as Hawkeye Pierce in MASH, as that most modern and authority-opposing of front-line physicians, he also co-starred here as Oddjob, a tank commander who, though operating in the 1940s, is about 98 percent hippie. That he pulls off this role, the same year as he played Hawkeye, is amazing enough. The fact that he co-stars here, opposite Telly Savalas, Clint Eastwood and Don Rickles, and makes it work, is a magic trick of sorts – like Andy Kaufman finding a way to populate the same world as Judd Hirsch and company on ABC’s Taxi.