The Secret Invasion (1964)

No Quote for this film.

Director Roger Corman has commented on the script changes of this movie: "Initially, the prisoner being held was an atomic scientist, the only man knowing the missing key ingredient in the equations to make an atomic bomb. So by freeing him, the five criminals help unleash atomic warfare. And UA studio United Artists said they liked the idea but not that man. So I changed him to an Italian general who would lead the resistance against the Nazis and thereby facilitate an Allied invasion of Italy. UA wanted them to be full-out heroes with less subtlety than I might have sought. I had wanted them to unwittingly and ironically do something bad on their way to being heroes. But this was the majors and with a half-million of their dollars at stake, I had a feeling these characters might lack nuance. I knew this was one of the drawbacks to working with the studios - story by committee."
Roger Corman came up with the idea for the film during a visit to the dentist, when he read a magazine article about Dubrovnik. To take his mind off the pain while the dentist was working, he tried to create a story which could be filmed there. After leaving the dentist, he returned to his office and wrote the first treatment for the script.
This movie is considered to have beaten The Dirty Dozen in having the first film story about World War II prisoners recruited to go on an impossible suicide mission in exchange for pardons. "The Dirty Dozen" had the same plot but didn't come out until three years later.
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