too many contrivances (spoilers)

The Story is complete tripe! The fact that people in the 70's would pay to see this indicates they were light headed. Seriously, you would never today let an idiot like Larry Hagman's charter ruin your film. What was the point in that?

It is always difficult to condense a book into a 2 hour movie. In the book the author had time to develop the relationship between Devlin and Molly. Here she kills for him on day two or three ... and we don't even know if they have slept together.

The strength of this film is the cast and their individual performances. Everyone of them ... except Larry Hagman ... knocks it out of the park. Especially Donald Pleasence who played the best Himmler I have seen.

Alas it is an entertaining film but a foolish one

1. Time is always condensed in movies. The viewer assumes that some things are left out. For instance, you don't see the characters going to the bathroom or eating breakfast. The railroad scene with the Jewess was just as long as it needed to be. As it is, the film runs 2 hours, 11 minutes, so that scene didn't need to be any longer for the purposes of the story/movie.

As for placing her on the train, she was clearly trying to escape in a life or death situation so Steiner did it on a whim, which at least gave her a chance. Remember, he was a "romantic fool," as Himmler described him.

2. Devlin possessed a towering charisma and easily kicked the butt of his stalwart rival for Molly's affections in the graveyard. It's not hard to see how a naïve 18 year-old lass would be smitten by him, keeping in mind the "love at first sight" phenomenon. Meanwhile she shot the lunk on a rash impulse because he threatened to destroy an awesome thing she just discovered, love, not to mention she found the guy odious.

3. Steiner & his men made the non-negotiable decision to fight & die as German paratroopers if it came down to it. Enough said. As for the way the soldiers' real identity is accidently exposed at the mill, fluke things like that happen all the time. Plus this revealed the noble side of the Germans.

4. There are gung-ho officers who lack combat experience and make stupid decisions in every army. His subordinate captain (Treat Williams) functioned in glaring contrast to him.

5. The ruse was over by that point and both were going to leave the country.

6. Obviously he did have a clue where Churchill was going to be taken (whether via the details of the mission or acquiring further data in England with the possible help of Devlin, Grey or whomever). It was night and he was traversing through the woods, so wearing a German jacket didn't matter. Besides, all his men died in action and he was intent on at least trying to fulfill their mission in order to honor their deaths. Plus, as previously noted, he made it clear that they purposed to fight & die as German soldiers if it came down to it.