1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah
Cross of Iron (German: Steiner – Das Eiserne Kreuz, lit. 'Steiner – The Iron Cross') is a 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, and David Warner. Set on the Eastern Front in World War II during the Soviets' Caucasus operations against the German Kuban bridgehead on the Taman Peninsula in late 1943, the film focuses on the class conflict between a newly arrived, aristocratic Prussian officer who covets winning the Iron Cross and a cynical, battle-hardened infantry NCO. The screenplay is based on the semi-autobiographical 1955 novel The Willing Flesh by German author Willi Heinrich.
An international co-production between British and West German companies, the film's exteriors were shot on-location in Yugoslavia. The film was released in West Germany by Constantin Film on January 28, 1977, and in the United Kingdom by EMI Films on March 8. It received a mixed critical reception on initial release, though retrospective reviews have been much more positive, with some critics citing it as one of Peckinpah's best works.
A sequel, Breakthrough, was released in 1979.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.