Kelly's Heroes/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Executive Meddling - According to Clint Eastwood, MGM, against both his wishes and those of director Brian G. Hutton, re-edited the film to remove some character-driven scenes and a more obvious anti-war message. This was also responsible for the addition of "Burning Bridges" as the title song, rather than the original theme composed by Lalo Shifrin.
  • Retroactive Recognition: One of Oddball's tank crew is Gavin MacLeod, Captain Stubing.
    • Hey, hey! Uncle Leo is brought in to the plan by Oddball to build a bridge.
    • Archie Bunker is a glory seeking general.
  • One of the assistants working on the film was a young budding filmmaker named John Landis. While in Yugoslavia shooting the movie, Landis witnessed an event involving gypsies burying a corpse in the middle of a road which inspired him to write the script for An American Werewolf in London. He also got to be friendly with one of the Kelly's Heroes stars, Donald Sutherland and years later got him to an appear in two of his early films, The Kentucky Fried Movie and Animal House.
  • During the filming in Yugoslavia in July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.