SOURCE: A review of The Last Detail, in The New Republic, Vol. 170, No. 8, February 23, 1974, pp. 22, 33-4.

Kauffmann, one of the most respected and well-known film critics in the United States, has reviewed movies for The New Republic for many years. In the following positive review of The Last Detail, he notes a number of Towne's improvements to the novel upon which the film is based.

There's a kind of film that reveals its entire shape very early, with a cleverness that makes us both interested and wary. During such a picture the main question isn't "What happens next?" It's "Are they going to muff it?" Some examples, differently successful: The Gunfighter, The African Queen, The Informer, Lifeboat, The Lost Patrol, The Defiant Ones. Latest example: The Last Detail.

The script by Robert Towne is based on, and better than, the novel by Darryl Ponicsan. Two US Navy sailors...