The Last Valley is a 1971 film written and directed by James Clavell, an historical drama set during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).

During their campaigns, they encounter Vogel, a former teacher trying to survive the fighting and resulting chaos in south-central Germany.

Vogel runs from the Captain's force, and eventually stumbles upon an idyllic mountain valley, untouched by war.

Vogel convinces the Captain to preserve the village so it can shelter the band through the coming winter, as the outside world faces famine, plague and the devastation of war.

The local Catholic priest is livid that the mercenaries include a number of Protestants (and nihilistic atheists for that matter), but there is nothing he can do to sway the Captain.

The Captain kills several dissenting members of his band to uphold their pledge to set aside religious divisions.

As long as food, shelter, and a small number of women are provided, the mercenaries leave the locals alone.

From the first peddler to enter the valley in the spring, the Captain learns of a major military campaign in the Upper Rhineland and decides to seek employment with Bernard of Saxe-Weimar.

However, the Captain orders Vogel to stay as the condition of not sacking the village, leaving Geddes and Pirelli behind as guards.

To spare her further suffering, Vogel volunteers to tie her up, so he can secretly knife her just before her body is consigned to the flames.

Inge, a young woman who has fallen in love with Vogel, wants to leave with him, but he tells her to stay, and walks off alone.

[7] The head of ABC was Martin Baum who was Clavell's agent and who had helped put together To Sir, with Love.

"[22] Art Murphy of Variety said it was "disappointing" and faced "an uphill fight for domestic general audience attention".

"[24] With its setting in the Thirty Years' War, it dealt with a historical period seldom depicted on film.

In this light, George MacDonald Fraser wrote in 1988, "The plot left me bewildered - in fact the whole bloody business is probably an excellent microcosm of the Thirty Years' War, with no clear picture of what is happening and half the cast ending up dead to no purpose.

... As a drama, The Last Valley is not remarkable; as a reminder of what happened in Central Europe, 1618-48, and shaped the future of Germany, it reads an interesting lesson."

Fraser says of the stars, "Michael Caine ... gives one of his best performances as the hard-bitten mercenary captain, nicely complemented by Omar Sharif as the personification of reason.

But it meant absolutely nothing to the public, the critics were extremely unkind, and it was a terrible thing for me because everybody was sure it would be a big hit — and so was I.