Situation Hopeless … But Not Serious is a quirky little black-and-white film from 1965.

Set near the end of World War II, it concerns two U.S. flyers kept hidden in a German basement after bailing out over enemy territory; their kooky captor winds up holding them long after the war has ended — by not revealing that American troops are peopling the village and the country.

That oddball German is played by Alec Guinness — with Mike Connors (TV’s Mannix) as one of the airmen; and the film is based on a novel by Robert Shaw — yes, that Robert Shaw: the one who played Quint in the smash-hit Jaws.

The other flyer, as it happens, was an early role for Robert Redford, who passed away Sept. 16 at the age of 89.

This is just my way of indicating that Redford — one of the most beloved actors of his generation and (along with Tony Curtis) perhaps the handsomest ever to grace the silver screen — did a number of nifty lesser-known films.

Needless to say, countless tributes have already highlighted such hits as The Way We Were, The Sting, All the President’s Men and of course, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

My own favorite Redford was 1975’s compelling and well-acted thriller Three Days of the Condor; it was No. 6 at the box office during that boffo year — which also gave us Jaws and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

In any case, instead of the usual career encomium, I thought I’d focus on some under-the-radar Redfords — of which Situation is decidedly one.

Here are three others:

The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) – From the same team that gave us Butch and Sundance — director George Roy Hill and writer William Goldman — comes this engaging tale of a reckless barnstorming pilot in the 1920s. Redford is joined by a strong supporting cast: Margot Kidder, Susan Sarandon, Bo Svenson, Edward Herrmann and Geoffrey Lewis; the latter, a consummate character actor who also happens to be Juliette Lewis’ dad, is particularly strong here.

But what stands out are the gripping aerial sequences — so authentic that Waldo nailed a “four-star rating” from film and aviation historians Jack Hardwick and Ed Schnepf (so says Wikipedia).

Hill is a fascinating figure who worked with Redford three times — and who seems to have mastered an endless variety of genres: comic Western (Butch); biplane drama (Waldo); spy thriller with a female lead (Little Drummer Girl); hockey comedy (Slap Shot); con movie (The Sting); young geniuses in love (A Little Romance); and historical epic (Hawaii). Hill even managed a decent version of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, a seemingly un-filmable blend of satire, sci-fi, war drama and time travel.

Goldman, meanwhile, has a similarly impressive resume: three terrific novels which he adapted for the screen (Magic, Marathon Man and The Princess Bride) — along with All the President’s Men, plus the chilling screen version of Stephen King’s Misery, which won Kathy Bates a Best Actress Oscar.

All Is Lost (2013) – Redford is entirely alone on screen in this late-career triumph — the story of a single sailor fighting to stay afloat after his craft is struck by a shipping container. With almost no dialog and a mere 32-page shooting script, All Is Lost nonetheless keeps a firm grip on one’s attention; I was not wild about the ending — but more than 30 national critics put the film on their 10-best list that year. For his stellar work here, the New York Film Critics Circle named Redford Best Actor of 2013.

The Old Man & the Gun (2018) – I thought I should include this even though I haven’t seen it yet — because it was Redford’s swan song. (A couple of his other titles came out after this one, but they’d been filmed earlier.)

Old Man is based on the true story of Forrest Tucker, a career criminal who claims to have made more than 30 jailbreaks — succeeding in over half those escapes. Like Waldo Pepper, it has a strong supporting cast — in this case Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek, Tom Waits, Keith Carradine, Danny Glover, Elizabeth Moss and John David Washington. The film was well received by critics — 93 at Rotten Tomatoes — with Redford singled out for his work in the lead.

He also served as co-producer on Old Man — as he did so often in his career, likewise working as director on such projects as A River Runs Through It, The Horse Whisperer and of course, Ordinary People, which won him the Academy Award for Best Director.

Though Redford never won a competitive acting Oscar — having been nominated only once, for The Sting — he did receive an Honorary Award from the Academy in 2001.

So long, Kid.