More like The Confused Hills because I defy anyone to make sense of the usually good A. I. Bezzerides' screenplay. There are numerous story holes, unmotivated actions and bad decisions. To list just the four most prominent:
1) How exactly does Mitchum's American newsman get from an allied troop truck in perfect consciousness to lying delirious in a Greek peasant hut?
2) One moment Mitchum is being nursed to health by a pretty Greek peasant gal and in the very next scene they are passionately embracing. (Can we have a modicum of motivation, please?)
3) Why is the Greek peasant gal suddenly killed off in the middle of the friggin movie and offscreen, no less, so that it has zero dramatic impact?
4) I watched Gia Scala's long, boring love scene with Mitchum TWICE and still don't get why she collaborated with the Nazis.
Director Robert Aldrich pins the blame for the above creative transgressions on producer Raymond Stross who yanked the film from Aldrich when he was done and authorized his own cut so maybe Bezzirides' script wasn't so horrible, but, still, this is one godawful mess of a film and would have rated lower than it does except for some good support from Theodore Bikel, Stanley Baker and Marius Goring as various types of Nazi scum. Solid C.
PS...Even the Greek location shooting, usually a plus, is undone by undistinguished cinematography.