the night of the generals is a 1967 franco-british-american second world war crime mystery film directed by anatole litvak and produced by sam spiegel. it stars peter o'toole, omar sharif, tom courtenay, donald pleasence, joanna pettet and philippe noiret. the screenplay by joseph kessel and paul dehn was loosely based on the beginning of the novel of the same name by german author hans hellmut kirst. the writing credits also include the line "based on an incident written by james hadley chase". gore vidal is said to have contributed to the screenplay, but was not credited.