OPEN THREAD: What is your favorite war movie?

Hi Sarah,  I am with you on Saving Private Ryan.  I am not generally big on war films but would add to the list the film that Michael J Fox starred set in the Vietnam War (the name is escaping me right now).  I also rather enjoyed Mrs. Miniver, set in WW2 England.

Sarah, I’d put your movies as some of my favorate but on Memorial day and the 4th of July I go to some very old favorites. Ones that feature John Wayne.
In Harm’s Way and The Longest Day
I just bought The Longest Day so I’ll be watching it first.
Bob+

I would have to say “Patton”. Runner up and quite different is ” Life is Beautiful”.

As a Texan, I would have to add John Wayne’s “The Alamo” from the early sixties. For natives of the Lone Star State, it is hard to make it through it without shedding a tear!

More generally, I would say “Patton” and “Saving Private Ryan” are fine films I can watch once a year.

While not a move and it makes for a marathon in its own right, Band of Brothers needs to be included in this list.

Not exactly a barrel of laughs, but Blackhawk Down is the best war movie ever made.

Yikes, I have many faves in this category.  Some of the ones I can think of right now are:

The Warlover with Steve McQueen
Strategic Air Command
Bridge on the River Kwai
Porkchop Hill
300

OK, two in German Das Boot and Downfall.  Both are excellent films.

RS Bunker

The Desert Fox with James Mason playing Field Marshall Irwin Rommel. The Bridge on the River Kwai. The Great Escape. The Battle of the Bulge. These are justa few that come to mind, but probably a film that I can watch every year is The Longest Day.

Saving Private Ryan is superb.  I also like “Where Eagles Dare”, “Patton”, and “Sands of Iwo Jima.”

Can I also nominate “Henry V?”

I’ll have to think hard about my top choice. Patton is certainly a strong contender.

Some fine war films not yet mentioned are:
—- Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
—- Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
—- A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977)
—- Glory (1989)
—- Gettysburg (1993)

There are a few of them but I seem to plug in the Great Escape DVD more than any of the others. Another family member loves Band of Brothers (a TV series more than a movie, I guess, but the distinction seems blurred).

“Can I also nominate Henry V?”

I’d considered doing the same but puzzled over whether it counted as a “war film.” On reflection, I follow you into the breach.
_ _ _ _ _ _

Another top choice, not strictly about a war but certainly about warfare:
The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954).

I suppose because I am an old retired USAF pilot that I am quite fond of 12 O’Clock High, and The Battle of Britain.

We watch The Longest Day every June 6th.  If my wife would let me keep the kids up we would watch it at midnight.

Other than that some of the favorites around here:
Tora, Tora, Tora
12 O’Clock High
Run Silent, Run Deep
Gettysburg
Henry V
U-571
Casablanca Yes, it’s a war movie, not a love story.

The Seige of Firebase Gloria -very gritty.
The Big Red One
The Battle of the Bulge
All Quiet on the Western Front

The Great Escape

Not my favorite genre either, but Bridge on the River Kwai, The Great Escape, Paradise Road and In Harm’s Way stand out in my mind.

My favorite war movie is “Come and See.”  It is a Soviet era (1985) Russian film about a young boy, Florya, who joins the partisan resistance against the Nazis in Byelorussia (now Belarus) in 1943.

The title of the film is taken from the Book of Revelation 6:1: “And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.”  The iconoclastic director, Elem Klimov, often ran afoul of the Soviet authorities throughout his career but achieved great critical acclaim nevertheless.

This film depicts bestial atrocities on the part of the Nazi invaders and it is difficult to watch.  It is like taking a glimpse into hell itself.  When I first saw it, I remember thinking that if you did not already believe in the doctrine of original sin and the Fall of man, you would begin to do so after seeing this.  And I’d be tempted to throw in total depravity as well.

The facial expressions of the actor who plays Florya (Aleksei Kravchenko) are riveting throughout.  During the course of the film he makes the transition from a young boy to a man who has become psychologically and emotionally very old.  Without giving away the ending, Florya does learn that there is a point beyond which vengeance cannot go, regardless of how demonic one’s enemy may appear to be.

Not for the squeamish, or those who object in principle to R-rated movies.  But otherwise, check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMKwMzLj8Ow&feature=related

I’m surprised no one’s mentioned “Band of Brothers” (it’s a movie I suppose, though a really long one). I’ve watched all 12(?) hours of it several times and am amazed at how well it shows the grunt’s eye view of WW2. One episode in particular stands out (among several), in which Winters (who is actually still alive) has to relinquish command to a lower officer. The officer is supposed to take a Belgian town, but unfortunately he has no courage or will to do such a task, and the mission almost fails. Winters has to be held back by his commanding officer and instead sends another man down to take over, after which the mission succeeds. It’s a great episode about leadership and courage!
  #2, or maybe it’s a tie, would also be “Glory”. Everyone needs to see it.

Without a doubt, for me it’s “Saving Private Ryan”.  I really need to get my act together and see “Life is Beautiful”, as I’ve been wanting to see that for years.

Das Boot.

Elaine F. -Downfall is amazing.  I also liked Stalingrad (the movie).

All of the ones mentioned are worth viewing again. “The Longest Day” is at the top of my list, “Glory,” and “Saving Private Ryan,” come next.

A series not mentioned with unique strength: “The Winds of War,” and “The Last Samauri,” [could have been “The Sand Pebbles,” are strong films as well.

If you’ve never read “Panzer Leader,” by Guiderian, your grasp of WW II strategy could be greatly enhanced by securing a copy. There are times since ‘03 when I’ve heard the idling engines of the Panzers surrounding Dunkirk. . .

Lots of good choices mentioned but I’d say that Band of Brothers far exceeds Pvt. Ryan which seems to get smaller over time as does most of Spielberg’s works.
I’d include We Were Soldiers (true story) and Hunt for Red October (cold war fiction) in the list.
For really remembering on Memorial Day I’d suggest some documentaries - Victory at Sea, The World at War (narrated by L. Olivier) and Outside the Wire.

Andrei Rublev
Burnt by the Sun
Night of the Shooting Stars
The Garden of the Finzi Cotini (sp?)
Playing for Time
The Franciscan Underground (?)
Das Boot
Heimat (Homeland)
The Soldier of Orange
Land of the Rising Sun
Seven Samurai
The Last Emperor
Iwo Jima; Flags of Our Fathers
Casablanca
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Forgot,
The Cain Mutiny

Also,
One of my most dearly beloved,
When the Messiah Comes, a Hungarian film, I think, that also goes under another title in English.  Beautiful and heart breaking.

And how could I forget parts of that Polish filmaker’s,
The Decalogue, especially the one about the professor of ethics talking about dilemmas faced under Nazi occupation.

Interesting - but not surprising - that an entire genre of war movie is missing: war movies as social commentary like “Full Metal Jacket,” “Platoon” and “Jarhead.”

I would second “In Harms Way” and the “Band of Brothers” series.

M*A*S*H
You may not think of it as a serious movie but it led to a terrific TV series, the last episode of which I just saw last weekend.  In its own hysterical way it highlighted some endearing and enduring concerns of war, not the least of which was the importance of relationships established at the front lines.
and of Brothers is tremendous, too.  I was all the more impressed with it after spending time in Normandy last fall.
Black Hawk Down is important.
Behind Enemy Lines with Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman is really good.
Glory is wonderful.
Charlie Wilson’s War gives a lot of insight into the situation we find ourselves in now.

I personally think any war movie—well, almost any—is worth looking into if not seeing.  No matter who puts the movie out, it reflects a point of view, often not mine.  But such movies give us insight into what is happening in our world.  There are war movies that glorify the process, war movies that condemn it, and war movies that simply show us what is happening.  We usually need some sense of those various perspectives.

Many good ones already listed. 
Crimson Tide (Cold War)
Midway

Maybe not quite traditional:
Star Wars!
War Games - good example of escalation

Go Tell the Spartans
Zulu

For me it is “The Thin Red Line.”

I appreciate it for the juxtaposition of the beauty of nature, and it’s potential for pain, and for director Terance Malik’s willingness to recognize these traits as inherent in the flora and fauna around us…not just in the realm of warring humanity.

I like this movie because it doesn’t have one plot line that drives the film, but instead merely slides between various charachters, and their experience of life in the midst if war. 

With that said, the one charachter that I enjoy watching the most is played by Jim Caviezel, as he develops from being an awol-prone individualistic mystic to a spiritually confident team leader.

Saving Private Ryan and Das Boot for me too, but also The Beast, which is an amazing movie the mutiny of a Soviet tank crew during “their” Afghanistan war. I liked A Bridge Too Far because I saw it when it came out at a midnight showing at the Odeon Leicester Square in London, and it was so long that when it was over and I came out of the cinema, the sun was already up.

“The Gallant Hours,” starring James Cagney as Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey Jr.

Saving Private Ryan and The Fighting SeaBees (I think that is the title anyway), a John Wayne flick that I love because my SeaBee Grand-Dad loved it. I always think of him particularly when I see the sequence where the SeaBees create an airfield in a jif by unrolling huge rolls of metal mesh for military planes to land on. He liked to point out that that was exactly how they did it. He liked that many things about the movie were true to life even if other parts were not.

Wake Island
Run Silent, Run Deep
Destination Tokyo
Tora, Tora, Tora
Midway
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Dirty Dozen
The Battle of Britain
Patton
The Longest Day
The Dam Busters
The Guns of Navarone
Force 10 from Navarone
Sink the Bismarck
The Great Escape
Von Ryan’s Express
Das Boot
Iwo Jima
Victory at Sea
The Hunt for Red October
The Battle of the Bulge
U-571
12 O’Clock High

K-19: The Widowmaker
The Beast of War

Favourite is ‘The ship that died of shame’ but not seen for years and never networked as far as I know.  As much a morality tale.

Others: Apocalypse Now [heart of darkness], Patton, Waterloo, Zulu, Band of Brothers and Das Boot for reality.

I just realized that I completely forgot Doctor Strangelove.

“Breaker Morant”, an Australian film from the 1980s, based on a true story, about three Australian calvarymen court-martialed for political reasons.  It shows what happens when individuals are used for political reasons. It was based on a true, and awful, book called “Scapegoats for an Empire”, writen by a man who was one of the main characters in the book.

I also like “The Caine Mutiny”. In addtion to the famous “Strawberries” and “Old Yellow Stain” scene, I sometimes use as an object lesson the way that the Fred MacMurray character turns out to be such a creep when he loses his nerve halfway through the trial and abandons the common defense strategy with his co-defendant officers, whereas the guys who stick together during the trial (and testify consistently with the truth) come out fine. Remember Van Johnson throwing a drink in Fred MacMurray’s face in the officer’s club in the last scene?
About ten years ago, there was an HBO movie called “Nuremberg” which is was remarkable for its fidelity to historical sources.  From my extensive study of the trial (including reading most of the 277 days of testimony), as well as reading books on the trial, it seems that virtually every line spoken by the main characters came directly from authentic sources…you could literally footnote the script. Even so, the movie is lively and entertaining. The only bad thing about the movie is that the writers for some reason threw in suggestions of a love affair between US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (the chief American prosecutor) and his secretary.  The historians who have addressed this issue have been very sceptical about the possible “affair.”  The Scottish actor Brian Cox portrays Hermann Goring in a way that makes you understand the twisted charisma that the leading Nazis had.
“Downfall” is another outstanding movie, also very authentic and well-sourced, although it takes some historical liberties with some of the characters and events. 
For pure spectacle:  “Zulu”, “The Buccaneer”, “The Longest Day” (not “D-Day”, which is a cheesy 1950s romance story), “Gettysburg” and “Gods and Generals”, although the beards in the last two are incredibly distracting.

Finally, “Casablanca”, which is not, I believe, really a love story, but essentially a story of how a man overcomes his own selfishness and self-pity and comes to realize the importance of a cause bigger than himself.

And yet another one, for a truly guilty pleasure”  “Red Dawn”, from 1984, a film depicting a Soviet/Cuban invasion of the rural US, and a group of high school students who form a resistence group (led by Patrick Swayze).  For those who remember that time (I was finishing college and starting law school when it came out), it is a fascinating portrayal of one American view of US/Soviet relations (and I believe the dominant one) in 1984.  The movie is obviously informed by the Ronald Magnus “Evil Empire” image of the Soviet Union (a position with which I was, and am, in sympathy), and shows how we in the US thought, and feared, that the USSR was militarily much stronger than it really was, in a movie made just a view years before the whole rotten edifice came tumbling down.  Especially chilling is the scene in which the Soviet occupiers stage a reliatory execution of some townspeople, who are singing “America the Beautiful” right before the machine gun starts running.

I’m not much of a war movie buff (I prefer musicals and comedies), but here goes:

Zulu- If ever you need to be pumped up about fighting at incredible odds against you, this is the movie

Casablanca- Simply my favourite movie of all time.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Fort Apache- Two of John Ford’s best.

All Quiet On The Western Front- The version with Lew Ayres. Another classic. This isn’t gory, but it is unrelenting.

Saving Private Ryan- Good story coupled with a higher level of realism about war than previously shown on screen.

Ran- One of Kurosawa’s best.

Das Boot- Conveys what it must have been like to serve on a submarine very effectively.

The Great Escape and Stalag 17- The two best movies ever made about prisoners of war.

And lastly- Mr Roberts- There’s no combat, and no gore, bad words or nudity, but it’s a war movie and despite the comedy makes a very powerful point.

No one has mentioned The Bedford Incident with Richard Widmark and Sidney Portier.  James McArthur mistakenly nukes a Soviet Sub, and in it’s last act the sub nukes their frigate.

Run Silent, Run Deep has been mentioned, as has The Longest Day.

Growing up, one of the shows to watch on Saturday afternoons was Combat! with Vic Morrow, which was interesting.

I have to admit I’m with Greg on Blackhawk Down.  Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of our Fathers haven’t been mentioned yet, but are fantastic films from both sides of WWII. 

On the lighter side, one of my favorite all time movies is Kelly’s Heroes.  Some of the lines from that movie are permanently engraved in my psyche, mostly from Donald Sutherland’s character, Oddball.  “Stop it with those negative waves, Moriarity.  This is a beautiful tank!”  What a cast, as well:  Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Carol O’Connor (Archie Bunker, for those who don’t remember him), Harry Dean Stanton, Gavin McLeod, and Stuart Margolin.  A practical who’s who of 1970’s television, only this movie came out in 1970.

The plot is great - this unit decides to go behind German lines to rob a bank full of Nazi gold.  They make a deal with the German tank commander guarding the bank at the end at Crapgame’s (Don Rickles’) suggestion (You know, a deal deal.  Hey, maybe he’s a Republican.)

Three Kings, which takes place in Iraq, is sort of a remake of Kelly’s Heroes.

Prior to the arrival of “Saving Private Ryan” and “Band of Brothers” I would put the 1947 classic “Battleground” with Van Johnson, James Whitmore, a verrrry young Ricardo Montalban among others.  It is about the Battle of the Bulge, but it was a rare movie in that brief inter-war (WW II and Cold War) era that was not propaganda.  It strove for reality because the producers knew they weren’t going to fool millions of soldiers just back from the real thing.  The movie examines a whole broad array of human emotions in combat and the cruelty of war.  Much like the first two I mentioned.

Patton—As a former Armor officer, how could it not be?

We Were Soldiers—The book, We Were Soldiers Once, And Young was even better, but great stuff.

Red Dawn—As has been mentioned, interesting speculative fiction.  There was a time when the scenario presented wasn’t all that implausible; given that Russia and China are getting cozy, I pray that time doesn’t come around again (particularly if B. Hussein Obama ends up in the White House).

Failsafe—An interesting look at ethics in the Cold War/nuclear age (as a guilty pleasure and for just good satire, Dr. Strangelove [or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb] is just good satire—interestingly enough, Slim Pickins wasn’t told that it was a comedy and thought that he was playing it straight).

Full Metal Jacket—Especially the Paris Island Scenes.

The Great Santini—Not exactly a war movie, but an interesting look at military life.

Apocalypse Now—Most especially the scenes involving 1-9th Cav (Airmobile) (I served in Armored Cav).

Two of my guilty pleasures are the Horatio Hornblower series and the Sharpe’s Rifles series.  I also like the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey/Maturin novels, but the film Master and Commander/The Far Side of the World didn’t do them justice.  Another guilty pleasure is Last of the Mohicans, where the Daniel Day Lewis movie is better than the novel.

All my favorites have been already mentioned, except one:  “The Enemy Below,” with Robert Mitchum and Kurt Jurgens.

Das Boot
Blackhawk down
Saving Private Ryan
The Longest Day

William Witt:

Yes, both the Horatio Hornblower books and movies are wonderful.

I think Band of Brothers is wonderful. 
Ken Burns Civil War series is also great.

For just one movie:  “Saving Private Ryan”.

In no particular order:

Run Silent, Run Deep
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Longest Day
Guns of Navarone
The Great Escape
Casablanca
Stalag 17
Mr. Roberts

I second “The Last of the Mohicans,” but I’m a sucker for love stories and breathtaking scenery.

Your question is for one favorite. It might be one of the WWII Pacific navy movies named above—imagine being totally confined to one location while bombers, suicide planes, submarines, and battleships launching projectiles the weight of Volkswagen bugs are attacking you. These sailors had nowhere to go but down.

But for depicting the horror of war, mine has to be Saving Private Ryan. I can’t watch the German slowly pushing the knife into the Jew, I can barely watch the opening, and the biggest star dies as a civilian-soldier doing his best.

Now—naughty me—Zulu is a good one for fighting against impossible odds. In this “season” let us remember that the Zulus, have given us the key word “indaba,” which means resolving differences in group meetings by beating the cr@p out of each other with sticks.

Gettysburg - the series
Patton
Glory
Ken Burns’ The Civil War

Da Boot and Cross of Iron.

I meant Das Boot!

Most of my favorites were mentioned but two not mentioned that were memorable for me; “They Were Expendable” (1945) with Robert Montgomery John Wayne and Donna Reed and “The Longest Hundred Miles” (1967) with Doug McClure, Katherine Ross and Ricardo Montalban, both films concerned the fall of the Philippines in 1941-42.  A movie that scared the poop out of me as a 10 year old was “On the Beach” (1959) with Gregory Peack, Ava Garner and Fred Astaire. For a few months after seeing it, I really feared we were going to be nuked by the Russians. Finally three satires come to mind, “Dr Strangelove” (1964) with Peter Sellers and George S Scott, “Catch 22” with Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam and Richard Benjamin and “1941”(1979)with Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi and Slim Pickins.

Irenaeus?  You are perhaps a fan of Akira Kurosawa?  I don’t meet many people who have seen the 1954 version of Seven Samurai.

That man is a masterful director.  My respect for you grows even though you are a political liberal.  I do not know how you developed such taste given your philosophies.

; > )

One I haven’t seen mentioned yet is “The Patriot” - the scene where Mel Gibson rides up carrying the flag his recently-killed son had repaired still brings a tear to my eye.  Tom Wilkinson is excellent as Cornwallis.
So many others:
Glory
Gettysburg
Alvarez Kelly
The Alamo
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
The Horse Soldiers
Bridge on the River Kwai
Saving Private Ryan
Band of Brothers
The Longest Day
Guns of Navarone
Patton
Midway
Pearl Harbor
Judgment at Nuremberg
Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
Bridges at Toko-Ri

I liked certain touches in The Hunt for Red October (think was the title?), such as the teddy bear at the end.  It made me think that someone writing the script knew what they were talking about.

Saving Private Ryan and Blackhawk Down are at the top of my list—incredible realism.

Having spent a dozen years in the Stategic Air Command (SAC), Dr. Strangelove is the most entertaining.  I watch it every couple years.

Das Boot ( german edition )The other side of the story.
Stalag 17 - Best POW
The Battle of Britain - British Tenacity
The Alamo (2004)- Texas History
The Patriot (2000) - American History
Band of Brothers - Why soldiers fight
Gettysburg (1993) - Worth Opponents fighting each other

and finally…

The Longest Day - Largest Military Operation ever and after visiting the cemetery of Normandy myself - a story that should not be forgotten.

I meant Das Boot!

Good because we were going to have give you da’ boot!

I would say Saving Private Ryan is one of the best. It conveys the bravery and the horror.

I agree with Brad Drell that Kelly’s Heroes was fun. I actually bought in the old movie bin at WalMart and it is still fun.

I forgot the Dirty Dozen—great entertainment!

Troy.

Exhilarating and tragic, an archetype for countless wars of Western Civilization against itself.

I remember the radio message that Pearl Harbor had been hit and friends left quickly to return to their bases.

I have many “old friends” to remember as you and I watch movies this week-end.  Husband on Saratoga when attacked and damaged WII He talked very little about the fires on carriers.  He was a night fighter pilot when many times things didn’t work on planes.
Friend who was on Battan and lived through the Death March, to spend the war trying to just live through it.

Friend in Great Escape Camp but not in the Escape. When the War was over, no one told them.  Officers/ Guards disappeared and they found the gates open and started walking a “long long way “to reach Americans.

Friend whose plane was shot down on the LAST Day
of War II in Europe. The War just 24 hours too long.

The friends who landed on the Island campaigns in the Pacific to come home, and not come home.

We all have much to think about and Movies help many remember or learn about another time.

If I didn’t have a sermon to finish I’d spend the day in front of the tv with my stack of movies.

Kelly’s Heros was mentioned. My son gave it to me for Christmas and I just got to watch it last week. I enjoy it for the music and the charators. Another good one is Dirty Dozen.

Some one mentioned Fail Safe. The movie was good but the book was so much better. Way to many important sub plots were left out of the movie.

I have one dvd of Victory at Sea and a trip to walmart might find a few more. It’s too bad that Navy Log from 1950’s tv is not on dvd.
I think I just aged the heck out of myself with that last suggestion.

1.  Zulu
2.

Off topic—As this is the most active thread, I encourage your prayers for a battle of a different kind taking place today.  The diocese of Texas is holding an election for bishop coadjutor.

Ooops!

1.  Zulu
2.  A Bridge Too Far
3.  The Longest Day
4.  The Great Escape
5.  The Graf Spee
6.  Dr. Strangelove or .....
5.  The Guns of Navarone
6.  The Aftermyth of War ... by Beyond the Fringe (Alana Bennetk, Dudley Moore et al)
7.  The Battle of Britain
8.  The Dambusters
9.  SDamurai

How could I have forgotten THe Cruel Sea, one of the best naval movies of all time..but also hkey after fifty years.

What about ‘home front’ films?

‘Mrs Miniver’ has already been mentioned, but what about also:

Humphrey Jennings ‘Fires were started’ 1943 (aka ‘I was a Fireman’), a semi-documentary about the London fire brigade in the Blitz.

‘Went the day Well?’ 1943, an English village is taken over by disguised German soldiers aided by a despicable local fifth columnist. Edge-of-the-seat stuff even now, but it conveyed a real warning about vigilance in 1943.

‘Hope and Glory’ 1987. Also a Blitz background - How sudden death and destruction enter the lives of an ordinary family in very ordinary London suburbia, while the ups and downs of family life go on. (I love the scene when a German pilot lands in the allotments, giving the local bobby a problem - but the parachute silk gives the womenfolk a bonanza!).

I’ll put in another plug for James Cagney in “The Gallant Hours.  This is the true story of Admiral Halsey from the time he relieved Rear Admiral Robert Ghormley following the Battle of Guadalcanal to the shooting down of Admiral Yamamoto’s plane in New Guinea by a flight Army P-38s in 1942.  No combat scenes, but the tension is there nevertheless.  Dennis Weaver is also in the film as Halsey’s pilot.

Henry V (another vote here)
The Patriot (with Mel Gibson)
Dr. Zhivago
Braveheart
The Red Badge of Courage

One that I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the 1955 movie, “Battle Cry” based on Leon Uris’ great novel of the same name. The movie didn’t do justice to the nuance or breadth of the book, but it was still a pretty good flick with a great cast: Van Heflin, Walter Massey, Tab Hunter, James Whitmore, Fess Parker (of Davie Crockett fame), and others. It followed the lives of some young Marines through training and waiting into the horrors of battle in the Pacific.

While not necessarily favorites I have two more that should be included in any consideration for this weekend
1) In Which We Serve
2) Gardens of Stone.

WW II was my childhood.  Every year on my birthday I was taken to see a movie.  The one I remember vividly all these years later is “Fighting Lady” about an aircraft carrier.  Later, I remember seeing “Red Ball Express”. This was probably a “B” movie, but it had to do with a truck convoy fighting it’s way across Italy towards Monte Cassino.  It too has stuck in my memory. I don’t go to war movies now as a rule, because I got enough of them in my childhood.
Dumb Sheep.

Anyone besides me up for “Gallipoli”?
How about “Oh, What a Lovely War” for a different take on WWI?

“The Fighting Lady” was USS Lexington, a fleet carrier.  There were two carriers of the same name….the first was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.  The second carrier was an Essex-class ship which survived the war, only to be expended as a target at Bikini Atoll during the atomic bomb tests.

And the second carrier was the subject of the film.

Das Boot.  But only because my similarities with one of the characters merited a good chuckle from my college roomies. 

Runner-ups include Paradise Road and Flags of our Fathers.

As a boy growing up in Newfoundland, with the history of the Blue Puttees a source of intense local pride, I second Gallipoli, even though it concentrates on the Australian sector of the beachhead, rather than the Newfoundland/UK sector.

Das Boot is incredibly powerful, especially in a darkened basement. Others have mentioned Bridge Too Far, D-Day, Gettysburg and The Battle of Britain.

Two others of my favorites are Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Mediterraneo both of which deal with the relations between the Italians, Germans and locals in semi-isolated and boring postings.

For radio plays, check out CBC’s Afghanada, following a Canadian unit stationed in Afghanistan. Your local library may have a copy of it. Season 2 may be available on podcast as well.

Here’s what I said at Drell’s site:
Yeah, that was great. Donald Sutherland as an anachronistic stoner in WWII was a hoot. I saw it a a drive-in, btw. That was fun back in the day.

Some of the Brit films about WWII were good:

633 Squadron
The Dam Busters
Battle of Britain (”Deadwood” fans…look closely!)
Sink the Bismark

Patton & Saving Private Ryan are two of the better known Hollywood pics I like

They did a pretty good job on For Whom the Bell Tolls, although like any film it loses good layers of the novel. Liked Gary Cooper in that and thought they did a great job with the final scene… the book ends with things hanging and by nudging that just about 2 seconds forward, the movie honors the scene without substantially compromising its impact.

Dear Sarah:
  I’m with you on the horrors of war.  But showing all the glorious combat scenes tends to hide the notion that, under the skin, we and our enemies probably have a good deal in common.  The movie which drives that home to perfection is The Grand Illusion (1937).  I’ve seen it maybe eight times over fifty years; and it wears extremely well.  Add it to your Must See list. 

Dhimmi

I would agree with many listed, but I would add one that probably none here have seen since it had the singular misfortune of being scheduled for release in late September 2001.  It was pulled from distribution and went directly to DVD.

The movie is “To End All Wars” about the real British POWs who built the bridge on the Kwai.  At its heart it is a deeply Christian film.  The central character was Ernest Gordon, who becomes a Christian in the camp.

Find it.  Watch it.

Dhimmi—I agree that in the end our enemies and friends are merely human and so quite similar.

So if you were to modify this statement to read in this way—“But showing all the glorious combat scenes tends to hide the notion that, under the skin, we and our enemies [are all humans made in the image of God]—I could agree.

However—our ideas are not at all “in common”.  The ideas of Communism are utterly opposed to the ideas of the free market and democracy.

And thus the 20th century wars have been fought over those ideas.  Some of those ideas are vilely wicked and cruel, and others much closer to the kingdom of God.

I hope that I will be on the side of those ideas which are about godly virtues and values.  For in war, in one sense, people are not fighting other people but rather other ideas.

That is why, ultimately, one can make decisions about what are and are not just wars.

Dhimmi - you make a wonderful point - exactly the point that gets sacrificed in the movie version of For Whom the Bell Tolls .  In the novel, you actually get to know the Phalangist officer on the “other side” and spoiler alert

You know that both he and/or the protagonist are about to die at the end of the book.  I found it a profoundly anti-war novel, not because it preached that message but because of what you say in your post: you find some of the common humanity that is destroyed by war.  And this from cranky, cynical Hemingway!

Dhimmi, I had forgotten about “The Grand Illusion”, but prompted by your nomination, I second it.  A small point about that movie, but one that I like, as a stickler for authenticity:  each character actually speaks his native tongue—can’t get more authentic than that, with the exception of when the French aristocratic officer, de Boldieu, converses with the German aristocratic officer, played by Erich von Stroheim—and that is authentic, because you would expect that the German brahmin would have known French well enough to use it with the French officer.

I love the part in which de Boldieu condescendingly refers to his non-aristocratic fellow French officers, Marechal (working class) and Rosenthal (Jewish) as “happy presents from the French Revolution.”  (“Marechal et Rosenthal? Des officiers? Peut-etre; Des cadeaux heureuses de la Revolution Francaise!!!)

Bill in Ottawa, your suggestion of Gallipoli is also well-founded, although I find some of the movie’s initial set up in Western Australia to be a little tiring, as well as some of the scenes of training in Egypt. 

In honor of your fellow Canadians, and the Brits as well, I would point out an historic inaccuracy in the movie—which, as you know, involved Australians making depicting Australians, with all the national pride and prejudice that can involve. In one scene, two high officers are discussing the campaign at a strategic level, and are talking about the extensive losses taken by the ANZAC forces.  At one point, the subject comes up of the status of fighting on the British and Canadian beaches, and one officer says that those beaches are quiet; so quiet, in fact, that the British officers were “drinking tea on the beach.” That was, most assuredly, not true, and the action on those parts of the penninsula was just as rough as on the ANZAC beaches.
One thing that was accurate:  during the infantry charges, many men covered more ground vertically before getting shot (climbing out of the trenches) than they covered horizontally (charging toward the Turkish lines). I think the farthest distance any man covered before being shot was something like fifty feet.  No man made it to the Turkish lines, although not all were fatally wounded, by any means.

Battle of the Bulge
Where Eagles Dare
Guns of Navarone
Force 10 From Navarone
Big Red One

“Zulu” was great, but check out “Zulu Dawn” as well (1980 or so) about the battle before the one in “Zulu”.
  Tora Tora Tora was one of the best historically (speaking with people who were there) and “A bridge too far” takes the cake for most authentic military hardware brought to bear on a single movie set.  “Twelve O’clock High” takes home the Oscar for “The film in which the protagonist behaves most like those of us in positions of management would like to”.

“Islands in the Sky” is pretty good as well, though no one is shooting at them.

Sophie Scholl: The Last Days (2006)
in German, with English sub-titles
The story of Sophie Scholl is breath-taking and heart-breaking. In 1943, along with her older brother and four other students at the University of Munich, she was arrested while distributing copies of an anti-Hitler flyer at the University. They called themselves the “White Rose” movement. Sophie had worked as a teacher and a nurse. She had heard first-hand accounts of the euthanasia of handicapped children. Her brother and many of his university friends had served over the summer vacation as medical assistants at military hospitals on the eastern front in Russia. They had seen and heard accounts of some of the atrocities committed by German troops in the German-occupied territories in the east.

Sophie and her brother were interrogated by the Gestapo for several days, then tried and condemned to death by one of the notorious People’s Courts of the Nazi government. They were executed by guillotine the same day their sentences were handed down.

The movie depiction of Sophie and the other members of the White Rose group is based on meticulous research, and is able to re-create what was written and said by them based on documents discovered in Russian and East German archives after the collapse of Communism.

What emerges is a picture of an extraordinarily courageous young woman (she was just 21 when she was executed) who is also a Christian martyr. Sophie’s parents were Lutherans. Her mother especially was a committed Christian. Sophie’s faith, her prayers in prison as she is awaiting interrogation and trial, are neither overlooked nor overemphasized. It is simply an essential part of who she was. When one of her interrogators argues with her that the handicapped and disabled were leading lives not worth living, she responds clearly and emphatically that, “All life is precious.”

The name that the Scholls chose for their group points to Martin Luther. Luther’s symbol or crest, granted him by the Elector of Saxony was the white rose around a red heart, with a cross at the center.

When Sophie is allowed to make brief statements before her sentencing, she looks at the judge and calmly states, “Soon, you will stand where we now stand.” Later that day, at 5:00pm, she was executed.

-RedHatRob

One that has not been mentioned thus far: The General, with Buster Keaton—-a film that shows the Civil War from just one heroic man’s point of view.

That opens up a whole new genre, or course: the great silent war movies: Birth of a Nation, <The Big Parade</i>, etc. Note that an authentic predecessor to Das Boot is “The Log of the U-35”, a filmed record of one submarine’s mission in the Mediterranean in April 1917. (It’s available in a collection from Amazon.)

If a PBS documentary-style film qualifies, I would like to add Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace, which won the Best Film Award at the Monaco TV Film Festival in 2000.  It gave an inside look at the startlingly rapid appropriation of the mainline Lutheran Church by Nazi influences and showed also the Resistance and Confessional movement that led Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his execution for Christ.

#81 Cennydd
The USS Lexington survived to serve in Viet Nam and is now a museum on the bay in Corpus Christi, Tx.
Not sure which one was sunk in Bikini Atoll, but it was not the Lex.
bob+

GeorgeB, your right about Battle Cry. A good movie from a great book. I believe it was Leon Uris’s first book as well.

Much like many that already posted:
In Harm’s Way
The Alamo (both of them)
The Longest Day
The Glenn Miller Story
War and Remembrance
Victory at Sea
Glory
The Green Berets
So Proudly They Hail (It started Coldette Colbert and it was based on a true story in which my relative was one of the nurses (in the true story not the movie)

Zulu
Galipoli
Breaker Morant
Caine Mutiny
Glory
Henry V (Branagh version)
Twelve O’Clock High (movie)

Are ones on my list.

My mistake the Lexington was not in Viet Nam, I must the thinking of another carrier, maybe the Franklin, that was alongside my ship many times. However she is now in Corpus.

I would have to say The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)is one of the best I have seen. It is a story about three vets trying to piece their lives back together after coming back home from World War II. The film won seven Academy Awards.

The cast included Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo and Hoagy Carmichael. It also features the film debut, and only film, of Sgt. Harold Russell, a U.S. Army vet who lost both his hands.  He won the best supporting actor award and later was in charge of the Veterans Administration.
The Eye of the Needle (WW II) and
Glory are two of my other favorites

The Best Years of our Lives
1947 Academy Awards
The film received seven Academy Awards. Despite his touching Oscar-nominated performance, Harold Russell was not a professional actor and the Board of Governors considered him a long shot to win, so he was given an honorary award “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance”. However, he was named Best Supporting Actor to a tumultuous reception, making him the only actor to receive two Academy Awards for the same performance.

Won: Best Picture - Samuel Goldwyn Productions (Samuel Goldwyn, producer)
Won: Best Leading Actor - Fredric March
Won: Best Supporting Actor - Harold Russell
Won: Best Director - William Wyler
Won: Best Editing - Daniel Mandell
Won: Best Original Music Score - Hugo Friedhofer
Won: Best Adapted Screenplay - Robert E. Sherwood
Won: Academy Honorary Award - Harold Russell
Nomination: Best Sound Mixing - Gordon Sawyer

Bob+, the carrier USS Lexington was sunk by the USS Phelps, a destroyer, following heavy damage by Japanese aircraft in the Battle of the Coral Sea.  She was scuttled when the Phelps sent a torpedo into her to finish her off at 2000 hours, 7 May 1942. 

A new USS Lexington, an Essex-class fast fleet carrier, survived the war, and USS Saratoga was expended as a target at Bikini during the nuclear test.

The second Lexington is the subject of the film “The Fighting Lady.”

Another favorite film is “Drums Along the Mohawk,” starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert.  I was born and raised along the Mohawk River, and have visited General Herkimer’s homestead.  Some of his descendants still live in the area of Herkimer, NY.

Cennydd
We maybe treading in off topic waters and might want to continue by email with this talk of the carriers.
I understood all along we were talking about the second Lexington which was under construction when the first one went down and had a name change from the USS Cabot to USS Lexington.

Now I’m going to have to really do some research because there also must have been a second USS Saratoga because a b/f of my cousin was an officer on that ship in the 60’s. It was later decommissioned and I thought sold for scrap. Which may end up being the fate of the ship I served on and was decommissioned in 05 or 06.

You’d think everyone having instant access to the internet we would have answered the question correctly:

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html

The Lexington, the fifth USN vessel to carry the name, is a memorial.  The Saratoga was sunk at Bikini Atoll. 

Thus endeth the fact checking….

I would have to limit my list to 20th century subjects, else the list would be unmanageable. 
Sergeant York
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Longest Day
A Bridge Too Far
Saving Private Ryan
Patton
From Here to Eternity (Frank Sinatra’s comeback)
Casablanca
Saving Private Ryan
Tora, Tora, Tora
In Harm’s Way
Das Boot
Enemy at the Gates
Midway
Stalag 17
To Hell and Back
Battle of Britain
Pork Chop Hill
M*A*S*H
Bridges of Toko-Ri
We Were Soldiers
The Green Beret
Full Metal Jacket
Black Hawk Down
The Three Kings

Mini-series:
Band of Brothers - the absolute best. Read the book, and read Maj. Dick Winters’ Beyond Band of Brothers
Winds of War
War and Remembrance
Gee, my list is kind of WWII heavy…

I must note here that several of the members of my American Legion Post (52, Easley, SC) are WWII vets.  Two served in the same task force in the Pacific - one aboard the USS Ingraham, and the other on the Hornet.  They went through 10 separate battles.

I’m sure there are others I enjoyed, but these I could watch again and again.

I guess it wouldn’t be proper to do this before seeing FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA. I haven’t. My faves are
PATTON
LAURENCE OF ARABIA
WE WERE SOLDIERS
THE BIG RED ONE
HENRY V (1989)
CROSS OF IRON
MAJOR DUNDEE

Most of which have been mentioned.

Midway
The Hunt for Red October(Cold War)

300

I actually like war movies, provided they are well made. (Hey, I’m an 8, whad’ya expect?)

All time best:  The Longest Day
Followed by: Patton

Honorable Mention:
LoTR, The Return of the King
The Best Years of our Lives
Mrs. Miniver
The Diary of Anne Frank
The miniseries:  The Winds of War
The miniseries:  The Holocast
The Great Escape
Stalag 17
Mr. Roberts
Since You Went Away
The Fighting Sullivans
Gone With the Wind
the miniseries about Eisenhower starring Tom Selleck
American Revolution story with Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda
the John Wayne Alamo, only.

With all due respect to others, Saving Private Ryan, is not one of my favs, despite it being very, very well done.  There is a PC undertone that keeps it off my list.  I find that to be the case with most of the war movies that have been made in the last 10-15 years.  And many Texans find the last Alamo movie that was made about 5 years ago to be offensive.
I don’t believe in the glorification of war, but at times it is part of our lives.  Sometimes we are faced with the type of situation that Ransom had to face on Perelandra, we must fight the devil in the guise of a human.

This may be hard to believe, but I have seen every movie mentioned in the last 112 posts.  I hope all of you will take some time this summer to read more about D-Day.  “The Longest Day” (both book and movie) has many histoical inacuricies—though I own it and watch every June 6th.  One person mentioned “Gardens of Stone” which absolutey tore me up the first time I saw it. “Apocalypse Now” has one of the most poignant lines about VN—Martin Sheen gets accidentally involved in a fire fight during a USO show.  After it’s over he asks a private where the commander is.  The private replies “Hey man, I thought you were the commander.”  I love at lot of the movies on these lists, but I never miss Patton, Zulu, 12 O’clock High, Mr. Roberts, The Best Years of Our Life, Lawrence of Arabia (must see to understand the Carter Doctrine and Iraq), Tora Tora Tora Casablanca and Ran.

The Battle of Britain - not least because the aerial sequences were filmed over my parishes in Cambridgeshire and I recognise the hills and fields!

And Saving Private Ryan - I just love how the Yanks win the thing single-handed!

“The Winds of War”,the ABC series written by Herman Wouk in the 1980s, is about 16 hours, but worth every minute and now available on DVD from our public library.

I just finished watching “The Guns of Navarone” on TBS. It’s one of those I can watch over and over again, from the beginning or come in in the middle, and still enjoy.

Tora, Tora, Tora is also one of my favs.  It’s long, but so much better than the recently made “Pearl Harbor”.  My only criticism is white subtitles over white Japanese uniforms.

And I just finished the book M*A*S*H, which was better than I expected, but I, too, like the series better.  (In the book, one interesting thing is the respect with which Fr. Mulcahay is treated, as his religious expression is genuine and from the heart/soul, while the hypocritical religious expression of other ‘sky pilots’ is trod upon and scorned.  I used to think it was just a jab at religion, but after reading the book, see now that it was a jab against hypocracy.)

The Fighting Seabees is another favorite, and one of The Duke’s best war films. Anything with John Wayne is worth watching, though.

Not realistic, but Raiders of the Lost Ark fits in, as Indy fights “Them” and wins—with God’s help.

Jim Elliott

Oh, and of course, Sgt. York, with it’s treatment of genuine religious expression and conviction, and the conflict between religion and civic duty.  Fantastic portrayal by Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan as York’s pastor.

The real Alvin York liked the film, although he said it included a few scenes that never happened, but figured it was ok, since the heart was still in it. (York’s religious conversion was gradual, not attached to a bolt of lightning; The State of Tennessee gave him the land, but he had to build the house, and there was a mortgage attached that he had to pay).  His biography is an interesting read.

JE

Here are some good ones I haven’t seen mentioned: Flying Leathernecks, and Operation Pacific, both with John Wayne; and Destination Tokyo, with Cary Grant. 
On the lighter side, here are my favotite war comedies: Operation Petticoat (Cary Grant and Tony Curtis), I was a Male War Bride (Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan), and Teahouse of the August Moon (Glenn Ford).

John Simmons - LOL about us Yanks.  I think the creative springboard for Saving Private Ryan was a very true American event, the loss on the five Sullivan brothers who went down on the same ship in WWII (led to a policy preventing that kind of sibling deployment).  But, yes, Americans will from time to time gloat about how we saved all the other countries - you hear it in political commentary all the time here.
I appreciated the end of Battle of Britain , when the Allied casualties are listed by nationality - very moving and gracious.

#112: PRIVATE RYAN is PC? Elaborate. I’m running it through in my mind and must be missing something.

When my husband was alive, I watched war movies only to be with HIM.  Those I ENJOYED were:

Patton
Tora Tora Tora
The Dirty Dozen

Since God took him home, I don’t watch war movies.  Would watch all of them if I could do so with him.  Ah well.

Thw Red Badge of Courage and The Young Lions. Also a movie of a Marine (Lee Marvine) and a Japanese soldier alone on a small Pacific Island that I can’t remember the name of, any help?

Europa, Europa.
...and it is a true story (WW II)

I loved the exchange on “8 Simple Rules” where James Garner (playing the grandfather) is arguing with the cousin about a REAL war movie:

Garner: “The Dirty Dozen”? Please! That’s a chick flick. Now, “The Great Escape”—there was a REAL MAN’s war movie!

Or something along those lines.  great dialogue from one of the stars of the “Great Escape”!

JE

I’m surprized no one mentioned War and Peace.

I would add Don’t Cry, It’s Only Thunder as one of my favorites.

And since spoofs are allowed, The Mouse That Roared.

Second “Mrs Miniver” and “Casablanca”

And from the other ANZAC partner (that is, New Zealand) also “Gallipoli” and New Zealand’s own moment in the sun, “Chunuk Bair” about the hill taken by the New Zealand soldiers. I was also very impressed with the Australian production “Changi” about the Australian soldiers in the Japanese POW camp, and their pre-war and later lives. Made me weep. The best war series I’ve seen, bar none.

Boys in Company C
AP+

John Simmons: was your “dig” meant only for the movie “Saving Private Ryan” or rather a broader slap at all of us Yanks? Now, answer honestly. I suspect the latter, but hope I am wrong.

My favorite war movie: Das Boot. It portrayed better than any other movie I have seen the plight of the common man fighting for his “God and Country” and only wanting to come out of it alive. I remember reading a comment by the director [Wolfgang Petersen?] who expressed surprise that a movie about WWII Germans would receive such a favorable reaction in the U.S. I can’t imagine anyone not identifying with the charachters in the movie.

mrs. miniver
gallipoli
thin red line (b&w;, canadian, 1964)
black hawk down
bridges of tiki-ri
guns of navarrone
hope and glory
seven sumarai (?)
ran
twelve o clock high

i guess i’ve viewed mrs. miniver and twelve o’clock high the most. i like war movies. wasn’t sure whether seven sumarai and ran would be classified as war movies.

jeffersonian, ‘where eagles dare’ is a whole family favorite. (probably actually viewed the most along with ‘great escape’)
rmburton. i almost put ‘dr strangelove’ but couldn’t decide whether it was a war movie.

i listed some of mine, then looked over the mentions. i just like war movies. ‘run silent, run deep’ plays a lot at my house. i couldn’t decide whether ‘casablanca’ was exactly a war movie, even though obviously there is a war going on.

This is not a film, but Stand Firm readers may enjoy this 1912 “Mourning Victory” carved by Daniel Chester French: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/modl/hod_15.75.htm

“A figure of Victory, the angel holds out a laurel branch, emerges from darkness into light and mourns the three Melvin brothers who died in the Civil War.”

French is best known for the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.

Five reader have nominated “Mrs. Miniver.” The film is loosely based on a book by Jan Struther.

Struther was also a hymn-writer. She penned “Lord of Hopefulness, Lord of All Joy,” “High O’er the Lonely Hills,” and “When Stephen, Full of Power and Grace.”

”. . . you find some of the common humanity that is destroyed by war.”
“It is a dirty business, and millions of people suffer.”—from another thread here on SF

Good comments.  I would add M.A.S.H. to my earlier list.

I would also comment further on my choice of _Dr. Zhivago_.  Its greatest war scene showed two near-mad, near-comatose old women struggling away from the total destruction of their village.  To members of a new army unit, all they can say to explain their condition is “Soldiers.” “Red soldiers or white soldiers?” “Soldiers.”

#128   Since I was a child I have heard complaints about Hollywood portrayal of some of the events of WWII; one of the most recent and blatent was the ignoring of the breaking of the Enigma code by the Bletchley Park facility.  Then again watch our [British] films and we won the war.

None of that belies the deep gratitude felt for the service and sacrifice of Americans for our freedom and which we join you in remembering today.

Sorry I got in late on this.

“The Longest Day”
I also got to see this in a German theater - there is definitely a different and somber mood with a German audience.

“Gone With the Wind” (I’m originally from Atlanta, too.)

“Wake Island” I rember cheering out loud as a young boy when the American fighter planes came to the rescue.

“Porkchop Hill”
“Saving Private Ryan”

1.<u>Patton</u> - saw this in 1967 when I was but a wee young lad. I saw it again 20 years later and asked why in the heck did my Mom take me to see it? And I do recall being at the cinema seeing the planes buzz General Paton and his proclivities.
2.<u>Saving Private Ryan</u> - I have heard older men speak of this movie and say it was most realistic as what they encountered landing on the beach.
3.<u>Of Gods and Generals</u> - showed me the carnage of war, and at the same time the what conviction meant, even in the face of death.

Pageantmaster: if I could, I would like to share a fantasy of mine. For reasons even I do not understand, I have had this “thing” for seemingly lost causes all my life [perhaps because I am a Southerner]. I have often wished I could have been a Spitfire pilot in the early, seemingly hopeless days of WWII - albeit, one who survivied. I am somewhat a student of 20th Century European history and never tire of reading of accounts of the accomplishments of those brave, young men [and a lot of women who supported them on the ground].

In the U.S., we have the Public Broadcasting System, partially funded from tax revenue. One of the staples is Masterpiece Theatre on Sunday evenings [at least Sunday evenings here in Atlanta]. Many of the productions were originally BBC productions. One of my favorites was titled [as best I recall, it was on a number of years ago] “A Piece of Cake.” It was about a Spitfire squadron in the very early days of WWII - first stationed in northern France and then moved to England after the fall of France. I watched it Sunday after Sunday with the attentiveness that I used to watch Westerns when I was a child. I hope John Simmons also saw it, given his comment about aerial scenes in “The Battle of Britain.”
There was this one magnificant scene of the Spitfires taking off from a grass runway [I seem to recall a castle in the background] while the commander comments about his being able to tell who was piloting each plane simply by observing the respective take-off techniques.

All the World owes you Brits a “tip of the hat” for sticking it out when so many other countries would have folded, given what you were facing. I have never quite forgiven Bill Clinton for observing the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Moscow instead of with our British allies [although I readily acknowledge the sacrifices made by the Russians].

Anyway, cheerio!!!

#136 fastlosinghope   Thanks for that.  I had the privilege of meeting one or two including the father of a friend of mine at school.  They were really terribly young and as you say we owe them, well everything probably.
President Clinton along with President Reagan and the Presidents Bush have been good friends to Britain and we have seen them many times here at other events.

Thank you as well.

PM

‘Hell in the Pacific’  Lee Marvin who was a US Marine in WWII and Toshiro Mifune who served in the Imperial Japanese Air Force are the only two actors in the movie.

Way down at the end of this very long thread, I’d like to add “Master and Commander”, fiction but nevertheless one of the most realistic views of the difficult lives lived by those on His Majesties frigates during the Napoleonic war.

Majesty’s

Haven’t read all 140, but I like:

The General by Buster Keaton
Seven Samurai by Kurosawa

Is somebody tabulating all the votes for the pictures?
Interesting.

I spent the summer of 1949 in Europe. 
I remember the ride up the long valley leading toward Monte Cassino I remember the great loss of life during that long long battle for the monastery.

Two of our group visited the places where
their sons were buried during the Italian
campaigns.

I remember so much damage still to be seen in England.  I rode on a small boat along a river that had taken part in the evacuation of Dunkirk.  It had a picture and their personal story of the evacuation.

E.K.Gann books were a favorite of my husband’s.

I remember him commenting that Gann didn’t really care for the movies made of his books. There must be 15 to 20 of his books for people interested in aviation.

We attended a reunion of the Flying Tigers
several years ago in Dallas.  We were seated with 3 Flying Aces, and a couple from Taiwan and one other man.

The evening of speeches, pictures, visiting.
The women from the Taiwan community were in the most beautiful long silk dresses I have ever seen.  You might want to look at movies or books on the Flying Tigers and Claire Chennault.  I think of our long commitment to the people of Taiwan.

I will end my weekend with a small envelope of pictures that Charles took while he was in the Pacific.

There is a small one he took flying over Hiroshima.  But I don’t have any date as to when it was taken.  But it was after the bomb drop.

I know several wives have written on this movie topic.  I hope personal accounts will add something to your week-end.

I thought THE PIANIST was an excellent movie.

Fastlosinghope:

My dig was just at “Ryan”. Apart from that I love all Yanks. Really. And it is a great film.

A film not yet mentioned - perhaps because it was a precursor to war rather than directly a “war film” is Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl.  It wass an important element in preparing the German population for what came next.  As such, it was an instrument of war.

#146 Leni Riefenstahl was a fantastic film-maker as was DW Griffith mentioned at #95.  I have never seen such an amazing depiction of battle as that in his 1915 ‘Birth of a Nation’.  But it also shows that film-makers have a responsibility for the use to which their films are put. Riefenstahl became so associated with the Nazi cause; her work in her film ‘Olympia’ made for the Olympics of 1936 was innovative and ground-breaking - for example filming athletics from at or below ground-level and tracking them with cameras on rails.  The problem is when film becomes propaganda.

Pageantmaster, I hate to have to tell you this, but many films, particularly war films, are propaganda. Germany did it in World War II. The Russians did it in World War II (some with masterpiece background music by composers such as Prokofiev—e.g., Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible). And the US has done it as well.

“This Is the Army”, while an excellent flick, had a very strong propaganda element.

Additionally, the last musical number was cut at the request of the State Department.  It showed the ensemble, in battle gear, bayonets fixed, marching on a treadmill straight towards the camera, singing “this time it’s not over til WE say it’s over.”  State was afraid the Germans would interpret that as demonstrate genocidal intent, and refuse to surrender (what would be the point?).

I also nominate “Merry Christmas, Mr.Lawrence” with David Bowie (really!).

In no particular order:
Hell in the Pacific Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin, both men who survived the horrors of WWII; for the dehumanizing aspects of war and the overcoming of same.
Band of Brothers: Not precisely a movie, but absolutely great for the bonding between the men in the unit.
300: When people get hit with bullets and other instruments of flying metal, they bleed.  A lot.  Then they die.  Not too many film makers are willing to deal with this yet.  Saving Private Ryan does, but not as well as 300. and the stand at Thermopylae is taught in war colleges to this day.  Not bad for an event that happened over 2,500 years ago.
Henry V: the Kenneth Branagh version.  The slaughter and capture of the wagon train is heart rending, and the mud is real.
A Bridge too Far:  An honest look at Montgomery’s disastrous Operation Market Garden.
We Were Soldiers Once:  The best Viet Nam movie made. 
Johnny Got His Gun:  What happens to the wounded once the guns are silent?

Memphis Belle
Master and Commander
The Longest Day
Saving Private Ryan

As the scope of “war movies” has expanded, it’s hard to leave Cold Mountain out of the list.  It’s one of those rare great novels that was done really well as a movie.

I did not see the movie version of “Cold Mountain,” but I read the book when it came out. Charles Frazier is a brilliant and maddening author. What he does to the reader in the close of the novel was unconscionable!

It is as if you followed Odysseus through his ten years of wanderings to return from Troy and reunite with Penelope - and have him run over by a chariot a block from his house, just BEFORE he reaches his own doorstep again.

I understand that life is often tragic and seems meaningless - but to make that the central message of the novel… and especially a novel that is so hauntingly beautiful?!!??

I threw the book across the room and had cross words with Mr. Frazier in his absence when I got to his ending.

A profoundly moving, disturbing, and ultimately depressing book.

-RedHatRob