Getting in late one Thursday night from the wargames club, I sat and surfed through the Sky TV channels in the hope of something decent to watch. Finding a war movie which I didn't recognise on one of the German channels, I set the remote aside. As it was in black and white, the uniforms weren't immediately recognisable. One man wore an Adrian helmet and others wore side caps. WW2 Russians perhaps? However the officer and one man wore berets. The officer's beret sported a white metal star with an oblong patch underneath it...then a name -- Jose! My interest grew.

The film I'd tuned into was set in the Spanish Civil War. Made in East Germany in the late 1950s, the topic of the Republican cause in Spain would obviously be politically in keeping with their Soviet overlords' ideologies, and not open to (much!) censorship. So it did sort of make sense. The same probably can't be said of the story! Admittedly, I didn't see the beginning or the end of the movie (it didn't finish until 1am), but it seemed that a plot was definitely amiss.

The title translates as "Five Cartridge Cases": As their beloved officer (a political commissar!) is dying, he tears a letter to his loved ones into strips. The Five men with him are each given a strip of the letter, rolled inside an empty cartridge case. (An earlier scene had established that it was common practise for a soldier to write a letter home and give it to a trusted comrade for safe keeping prior to going into battle.) Presumably the five of them each receiving a strip of the commissar's letter demonstrates how he loves and busts each of them.

Our five heroes then spend the rest of the movie wandering (aimlessly?) around enemy territory, mostly in the search for water, but also being pursued by Nationalist infantry, cavalry and Civil Guard. The Civil Guard turn up quite a lot - possibly because they looked particularly authentic in their patent leather tricorns! In my favourite scene of the movie, two of our five heroes watch as a group of peasants, hands tied behind their backs, are shepherded up a hill by Civil Guard. At the top of the hill is a bare tree, from which the Civil Guard have hung a rope. The two heroes decide not to intervene (discretion being etc.). At the head of the peasants, a young man starts to sing a Republican song. In response, the old men behind him hold their heads high with typical Spanish pride, and stride towards the top of the hill with smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes. All very symbolic!

As the five central characters are all armed with WW2 MP38/40 machine guns, the authenticity of what is already a weak movie, is limited. Using such recognisable machine guns (after all they could have used any old rifle) seriously damages the visual aspect of the movie, although I was willing to forgive WW2 German trucks and Kubelwagens.

All in all it's no 'Dances With Wolves', but it is relevant to people with an interest in the period. The bad news is that I've been keeping a look out for it coming back on German TV... and it hasn't been on again since. The good news is that it's also not available on video!