VICTORY (1981) Three stars
It’s hard to believe that any movie directed by the late John Huston (1906-87) and starring Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone could possibly be a “buried treasure,” but that’s definitely the case for 1981’s VICTORY in North America or ESCAPE TO VICTORY in international markets.

Huston, born in Nevada, Missouri, to actor Walter and sports editor Rhea (who gave up her career after her son was born), debuted with THE MALTESE FALCON in 1941 and his distinguished directorial career included THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, THE AFRICAN QUEEN, BEAT THE DEVIL, THE MISFITS, FAT CITY, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, WISE BLOOD, ANNIE, UNDER THE VOLCANO, PRIZZI’S HONOR, and his final movie, THE DEAD, in 1987.

Huston directed four more films after VICTORY.

Huston previously directed Caine in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975) and Caine’s an actor who has persevered through many a bad movie during his nearly seven-decade career, including such epic disasters as THE SWARM, BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, BLAME IT ON RIO, and JAWS: THE REVENGE. (Caine did not accept his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for HANNAH AND HER SISTERS in person because he was making JAWS: THE REVENGE, a role for which he famously stated, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” Honestly, Caine gave a better performance in the 1984 Madness song “Michael Caine.”)

Stallone has mostly struggled outside the ROCKY and RAMBO franchises.

If you’ve seen THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE LONGEST YARD, and ROCKY, for example, then you’ve basically seen VICTORY, a movie built along similar lines except for it substitutes fútbol for football (THE LONGEST YARD) and boxing (ROCKY). It leads up to both a big game and the great escape from Nazis in the grand finale, and it features several training sequences as this ragtag group of war prisoners takes on the German national team in a propaganda soccer match.

Although VICTORY is a very predictable movie, it’s a rousing crowd pleaser just like THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE LONGEST YARD, and ROCKY before it.

You do feel good watching it.

Normally, action movies with an international cast (like VICTORY) bite the big one. Not here and it’s not your average international action spectacular cast.

Here, we have soccer players Pele from Brazil, Bobby Moore, Russell Osman, and Mike Summerbee from England, Osvaldo Ardiles from Argentina, Paul Van Himst from Belgium, Kazimierz Deyna from Poland, Co Prins from Holland, John Wark from Scotland, Soren Linsted from  Denmark, Halivar Thoresen from Norway, and Kevin O’Callaghan from Ireland.

That’s just the Allied team.

Caine and Stallone play soccer in the movie, although we can be thankful Caine used a double, professional football player Kevin Beattie. Paul Cooper’s credited for being Stallone’s double, although Stallone insisted on his own work during the big match.

Stallone initially blew off training from England’s World Cup winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks. In a 2015 interview, Pele talked about Stallone and the movie.

“When I got the first script I was a goalkeeper and Stallone was a forward,” Pele said. “I said, ‘Listen, I can’t play as a goalkeeper.’ When we started training for the film, we saw Stallone knew nothing about football. We teased him because he didn’t even know how to kick a ball. Michael Caine was my teacher. He’d call me over and say, ‘Pele, you must be more patient — this is a film, not reality.’ He was fantastic.”

Stallone dislocated a shoulder and broke his ribs a couple times during filming.

Ardiles said of the 47-year-old Caine and his physical and soccer abilities, “Awful, and he couldn’t even run 20 yards.”

Acting wise, though, Caine blows Stallone right off the screen in VICTORY and gets us more from the beginning to the end of the picture than his American counterpart.

Stallone’s not very good in VICTORY.

Apparently, Stallone antagonized cast and crew by eating by himself and flying off to either London or Paris every weekend on his private jet.

Also, Stallone reportedly insisted that he end the film on the note of a game-winning goal. “A game-winning goal from a goalkeeper?” Ridiculous.

That’s why the match ends on a penalty kick where, you guessed it, Stallone makes the save that saves the day.

In “Booked! The Gospel According to our Football Heroes” by John Smith and Dan Treifer, Wark talked about the film with much praise for Caine and the opposite for Stallone.

“Stallone was nowhere near as sociable. He and his entourage, which comprised several minders, were even booked into a different hotel.”

Wark touched on Stallone and a prisoner shower scene in the movie, “We spotted that Stallone preferred to wear a pair of mini briefs and all these years later I still can’t help wondering what ‘Rocky’ wanted to keep hidden from us.”

In the same book, it’s said by Pele that Stallone refused to allow anybody else to sit in his chair on the set and by Ardiles that it took Stallone at least 17 takes before he could make the save on the penalty kick.

You can bet the film’s writers took it all hard.

Yabo Yablonsky, one of two screenwriters and one of three credited for the story, apparently hated the revisions so much that he contemplated taking his own life upon seeing the finished project.

Stallone later made OVER THE TOP, that 1987 epic combining arm wrestling, child custody, and truck driving.

That brings us to a story involving Stallone and professional footballer Beattie.

Beattie told the East Anglian Daily Times in 2008, “We had finished for the day and I was at the bar with Russell Osman and John Wark and we were winding each other up. Somehow we started chatting about arm wrestling and there was a lot of laughing and joking.

“I was just sitting there and Stallone came over and asked if I’d like to give him an arm wrestle. I said, ‘By all means, no problem.’

“He had muscles on his muscles but I don’t remember him being that tall. I just thought I’d give it a go — I’d always been quite strong. Anyway, I ended up beating him and I don’t think he talked to me again for the rest of the film!

“Stallone got a bit of a shock but it’s a good claim to fame. I guess I was naturally strong. I used to carry the bags of coal for my dad and when I was at the gym at Portman Road, I was one of the only ones who could lift all the weights.”

I’d prefer footage of Beattie and Stallone arm wrestling in a bar over all of OVER THE TOP.

That’s because I take my arm wrestling without child custody and truck driving.