IN HARM'S WAY has some great bad-movie moments--Barbara Bouchet's anachronistic catastrophe of a role, Burgess Meredith's corny dialogue, some horrible special effects--but at 167 minutes, it's mostly just dull, and enough of it is passably competent to keep from becoming classic garbage. Otto Preminger was a hard director to pin down, but his films tend to have an extra layer of interest that's rather hard to define. That intermittently applies here as well, but it's for completists only.

A fine cast makes the most of a generally entertaining war epic, though the screenplay has its share of incredibly goofy lines, and unresolved story threads, and spectacularly unconvincing casting of Holloway as Australian scout almost derails the film at times. Wayne in particular is excellent; Preminger also takes full advantage of the wide aspect ratio resulting in many gorgeous screen compositions.

Preposterously overlong and painfully stale and boring.