You Can't Win 'Em All (1970) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by panos75 ★★

  In the midst of civil war, an American ship-owner arrives in Turkey to reclaim a boat that was interned during WWI. He hooks up there with a compatriot and along with a group of mercenaries they get hired by a local governor to protect and transport out of the country some cargo of paramount importance.

  Lazily written and sluggishly paced, "You Can't Win 'Em All" tries to cross-pollinate two popular genres (exotic adventure and war movie) with frustratingly limited success. The plot is historically inaccurate to a comical degree but that wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't so ho-hum. Alas, Peter Collinson seems to be there only for the paycheck and shows none of the playful inventiveness of…

• Review by threepenny ★★★½

  I've admired the Frank McCarthy poster for this movie for some time and the movie just about lives up to it. Charles Bronson and Tony Curtis are fast frenemies, a couple mercenaries roaming Turkey during a civil war, each with their own motives. They constantly cross and double cross each other but are in such good humor about it they join forces again every single time. It's a good thing, too, because everyone else is trying their own angles too when they get hired to escort a train filled with gold bullion and, it turns out, the Sultan's daughters and their minder (Michèle Mercier) through enemy territory. Shot on location throughout Turkey in epic widescreen scope. Cappadocia, Ephesus, it all…

• Review by Mandrakegray ★★★ 3

  "You know what we got here? Motherfuckin' Charlie Bronson."

  Damn straight, and I'm always on board with viewing a movie of his I've yet to see. Despite it's critical reputation, this one turned out to be worth the curiosity.

  Set in the 1920's, I love the ridiculously macho world these characters live in, where a boat thief and a gun runner meet as adversaries...but immediately know they're the two coolest bad-asses on the planet, and will soon be pairing up on an adventure filled with wine, women and (in this case) civil war. Seriously, Bronson and Curtis are damn near in love with each other from the get-go, and the two can't keep from smiling at the other's words and…

• Review by Yo_Roboto ★★★★ 8

  I hate to spam reviews on here, but sometimes I gotta get the word out with whatever dribbles of clout juice I can squeeze.

  So I was avoiding starting work this morning by perusing Charles Bronson's Letterboxd filmography, as one does, and I stumbled all the way down to this awesome poster for You Can't Win 'Em All. The plot synopsis (Bronson and Tony Curtis play mercenaries escorting a gold shipment during the Turkish Civil War) seemed in a vein of mercenary war adventure that sounds like 100% pure weapons-grade My Shit.

  I was baffled that I hadn't heard of it. One youtube search later and I'm watching it.

  And good god damn the only thing I might've gotten wrong…

• Review by Jeff Kycek ★★½

  "The thing that did us in was the very shoddy British production set up. They promised certain things on location and didn't provide them.
  There were inadequate sanitary conditions: people got sick. The director, Peter Collinson? I have no comment about Mr Collinson. Someday I'll tell you about him."
  -Tony Curtis

  Director Peter Collinson followed upThe Italian Jobwith a rip-roaring mercenary team-up across the Turkish countryside.
  Unfortunately it’s more RIP than roaring.

  Tony and Bronson seem to be up to the task and the beautiful Turkish location makes for nice eye candy but the story itself is uneventful and stumbles from one poorly constructed set piece to another featuring cheap pyrotechnics and lackluster stunt work.
  It has its moments but it’s more fun starring at that great poster imagining it had been directed by John Huston or even J. Lee Thompson.

• Review by Jay D 's Watching ★★★

  two stars for the meandering storyline, four stars for Bronson and Tony Curtis's chemistry (Bronson in particular is having a blast here, it's a good reminder that he didn't always play things stoic)

• Review by Ivica_Pusticki ★★★ 2

  Now, this is one of (rare) Charles Bronson movies I didn't watched before. I didn't even watched the trailer for this! I know about this movie, and I have seen that awesome bad ass poster, but it took me a while to actually to see the damn film!

  And this was quite OK movie! Its an fun adventure action movie that has elements of grand scale epic filmmaking...you know, wide shots of beautiful (Turkish) egzotic locations, lots of extras, and couple of big (and epic) action scenes. And it all looks quite nice, big and expensive. Plus, both Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson worked well together, and they were quite amusing. One was a smart ass, other was a hard…

• Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★½

  Action/Europudding aims to find a Butch-n-Sundance chemistry between Chas Bronson and Tony Curtis. Made with uncommon grace, overall effect for me was like unto a spaghetti western crafted by V. Minnelli, all technicolor/cinemascope and pictorialism.

• Review by Luke Thorne ★★

  Peter Collinson’s action-comedy adventure in which two Americans and a gang of foreign armed forces offer their facilities to a local Turkish governor – who appoints them as guards.

  The story concerns two American explorers (Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson) who line-up women and gold throughout a power battle in 1920s Turkey.

  Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson both give okay performances in their respective parts as Adam and Josh, the two soldiers who don’t show a great deal of determination in trying to protect themselves – and everyone else around them – from trouble.

  In fact, there are occasions where the characters don’t know what to do with themselves, which makes it irritating for the viewer.

  Elsewhere, Michele Mercier as…

• Review by Jeannie🐈‍⬛🐕

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

• Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★★½

  Peter Collinson's You Can’t Win ’Em All was banned in Turkey for over 40 years because of how.... playful it was with the facts about the Turkish Civil War, when the movie is set.

  Can't blame them, to a degree. Its politics and views on the conflict are absolutely all over the place, to the point where it was confusing itself. But I don't really watch a Charles Bronson film for political reasons and neither should anyone else. This was a really enjoyable action-adventure that was surprisingly sprawling and constantly in motion.

  Bronson and Tony Curtis, who reportedly hated this and Collinson, make for an amusing couple and have good comedic chemistry. They play a pair of soldiers of fortune…

• Review by Luscious Johnny V ★★½

  Beat for beat, this is Aldrich's Vera Cruz transposed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, where two American mercs are on the make; in look and tone it's very much a zapatista western, albeit a zapatista western with bellydancers and biplanes and a politically agnostic point of view. (Shame those Capodoccian landscapes weren't put to use in more Euro westerns.) Bronson is quite good — actually, he gives one of my favorite Bronson performances here, dropping cynical little zingers throughout and deploying that wry wisp of a grin of his almost as effectively as his eyes, which is fortunate because Collinson doesn't seem to understand or care about their inimitable gravity. Curtis, less so — imagine Sidney Falco at…