Snug Slug Activities

As my brother concludes his journey through WWI and enters WWII, I decided that it was past time he was introduced to the delightful heist film that is Kelly’s Heroes (1970).

The first time I saw this film, I was probably around seven or eight years old. My favourite character was Oddball, which holds true to this day. Donald Sutherland embodied the wacky but chill Sargent in a way that no one else could.

The movie had a real all-star cast with some great actors sharing the screen; among them were Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Gavin MacLeod, Carroll O’Connor, and Dan Rickles.

The film was based very loosely on a true story.

The event was credited as being the “Greatest Robbery on Record” by Guinness World Records from 1956 to 2000. The entry stated, “The greatest robbery on record was of the German National Gold Reserves in Bavaria by a combine of U.S. military personnel and German civilians in 1945”.

While it had long been suspected that the US and German governments had been involved in covering up the robbery, this wasn’t confirmed and made public knowledge until 1984, fourteen years after the film was released. This was as a result of the investigative work of British researcher Ian Sayer, who published his book Nazi Gold — The Sensational Story of the World’s Greatest Robbery — and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up, which he spent nine years working on.

Kelly’s Heroes may be a romanticization of the robbery, but it is a fun and enjoyable movie with a loveable cast of characters.