Wonderful character development!

Memorable, crazy movie

i must have seen a different film!!

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

A 'Stalag 17' style P.O.W. action adventure feeble on jokes and suspense but it is packaged with pleasing elements. A joke cameo appearance from William Holden early on prepares us that it's going to be a good, old fashioned war romp. It's beautifully shot (blu-ray version is sumptuous) with a stellar cast and there is a fabulous motorcycle chase through the narrow streets of Rhodes. One of the main criticisms is that with no obvious lead role it has a disjointed feel. It's good Sunday afternoon fun after the roast beef and pudding.

Hogan's Heroes meets Batman-like camp. Totally and utterly implausible and fluffy. A lot of dumb Germans, etc. But if you go int it thinking that way it's not THAT bad. After all, it is a movie. Lots of explosions and gunfire and flames. It looks like they had fun making it. A nice vacation for all involved. If not just a payday. weird jump to "current times" (1979?) at the end. I saw this twice as a kid at the local town theater. Probably had a pack of Sweettarts and a flat coke. End credits include "lingerie by.......". Definitely wouldn't pay $10+ to see it but if you catch it on cable, give it a try. I'm now trying to make the required 10 lines here for submission.

Despite the interesting cast (Elliot Gould! David Niven! Roger Moore as a German! Sonny Bono!) and the truly amazing scenery on the island of Rhodes, I have to disagree with other posters on this site who have given this film even a modestly positive rating. This has to be one of the worst war films ever.If you've ever seen Kelly's Heroes (1970), you may remember Donald Sutherland's character Oddball, who spoke in a late-60s, early-70s hippy-dippy patois, calling things "groovy" and "out-a-sight" and so on. This kind of anachronistic speech spoils large sections of Escape to Athena. I wonder how old the script was at the time it was made... When Gould's character says to Moore's that he will have the "grooviest camp around," I had to check the release date (NINE years after Kelly's Heroes).***SPOILERS AHEAD*** Near the end of the film, when the true objective of the Greek resistance becomes clear (a V-2 type rocket installation), the Germans roll out one of their weapons, trailed by a company of men in (anachronistic) mirrored-visor helmets. I presume that buying the helmets was cheaper than hiring more extras, since they allowed any actor, even one that had appeared earlier, who had been shot or blown up, to reappear in a jumpsuit and helmet and...march...slowly... in lockstep....behind...a rocket...without performing any function whatsoever! It's laughable! I though I had suddenly fallen through a filmic wormhole into a bad James Bond imitation.A complete waste of time.

Absolutely dreadful 70s mish mash of comedy and action - all overacted and under directed. This really has lazy written all over it - dialed-in performances and everything is done in a way that belittles everyone involved.The plot of a misfit gaggle of POWs on a Greek island with a benevolent German commandant (Roger Moore) who decide to rob a Monastery sounds good but the reality is just awful, and horribly banal.The whole film is not helped by occasional forays into a harder colder sadistic SS company who arbitrarily hang and shoot the Greek citizenry, and Telly Savalas as an ex-monk with too much testosterone is no better.Have to be honest and say this is probably my least favourite war film of all time - it just jars at every stage - even the great David Niven - who could make any line seem natural - seems totally bemused by the awfulness of the effort here. Maybe he did it out of paternal love for his son who co-produced this fiasco.I firmly believe this film was one of the main reasons Hollywood stopped making WWII films and started making Vietnam films, and on the evidence here who can blame them? Fantastic cast, awful, awful, awful film - not even worth watching on a cold, wet Autumn Saturday - honestly...Look and feels like an amateur holiday video... good luck enjoying this one!