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Military movies...
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 9:03 am
by bradfordkay
WW2 has been the subject of many a fine movie - as well as all the schlock we know and love/loathe. My list of great ones:
Battle of Britain
A Bridge Too Far
Das Boot
Cross of Iron
Sink the Bismark
The Tuskegee Airmen
Memphis Belle
Tora, Tora, Tora
The Thin Red Line
Bridge Over the River Quai
Not too many movies about the Pacific make the list...though it has always been the theatre that intrigues me the most.
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 9:33 am
by madflava13
Is no one going to give Saving Private Ryan any credit? Granted it wasn't a historical perspective, but it was the first movie that really started to give me an idea of what D-Day was really like. Those first 10 minutes must be the most intense of any war flick, with the possible exception of the ending battle in Platoon...
For my favorite classics though, I have to go with Midway or The Longest Day.
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 7:43 pm
by LargeSlowTarget
Originally posted by chijohnaok
Snigbert,
I haven't seen that movie (Das Booty) so I don't know how the 'plot' goes. However, the fact that Das Boot was the story of a bunch of guys confined in close quarters at sea for months at a time.....well, I don't want to go on--the idea is giving me the willies.
John
LOL!! Actually there is a "Das Boot"-version (director's cut ?) which contains a scene where one of the sailors is performing a Josephine Baker parody in front of his comrades in the 'Bugraum' (forward torpedo room) as part of the recreational activities during off-duty time - in makeshift 'banana-skirt', with make-up and with two oranges tied around his neck with a string, dangling in front of his chest...
- I'm serious!
Even more serious, Mike Scholl has recommended the German movie "Die Brücke". I can second that, it is one of the best anti-war films I know. It is about a group of 16-year-old Germans called up as last reserves in the dying weeks of WWII in Europe. In an attempt of their commander to keep them out of the war, they are sent to guard an unimportant bridge in their hometown. But they take the task serious and defend it against US troops, suffering heavy casualties. The plot portrays their different motivations to fight in context with their different social backgrounds, their education and the norms and values of the time and reveals how easy it was to instrumentalize the youth as well as the pointlessness of both the military task and the sacrifices. It's an old b/w-movie from the late 1950s directed by Bernhard Wicki - he also directed episodes of "The longest day".
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 8:05 pm
by Ron Saueracker
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 12:54 am
by TIMJOT
Originally posted by Snigbert
It turns out he didnt have the lung surgery until 1979 when he was battling cancer. Now, he completed his football career without missing a game and that injury didnt seem to slow him down in his movies. He would be the only guy in the US to be labelled 4F because he was 34, or because he had children. But he still represented 'The American Fighting Man' to people around the world, for better or worse. Hirohito even requested to meet John Wayne when he travelled to the US. Perhaps to thank him personally for all of the American troops who got themselves killed imitating 'The Duke' when they were on the battlefield. 
Snigbert
I think you should cut the Duke some slack. He applied for the Annapolis out of High school and just missed getting in. His football injury at USC was to his ankle, which I believe was the cause of his famous ambling walk. Hard to see him getting through basic walking sideways. His age and family status did defer him and many others from the draft. Its hard to believe he was a coward when you considered he broke into movies doing stunts that the stunt men refused to do. As for the suggestion that his films caused deaths on the battlefield I can only hope you were kidding for such a silly comment does not merit further comment
If you want to pick on an actor for lack of service. I suggest Errol Flynn. Its hard to believe that the acrobatic star of "Robin Hood" had any phsyical disability to preclude service. Yet he spent the war bedding 15 year olds and partying on his yacht. Hence the genisis of the derisive WWII GI expression "In like Flynn".
Not to mention that Flynns war time propaganda films such as "Dive Bomber" and "Objective Burma" made Wayne's films look like works of art in comparison.
MAGNIFICENTLY FRUSTRAITING...
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 1:02 am
by Mike Scholl
[QUOTE]Originally posted by madflava13
Is no one going to give Saving Private Ryan any credit? Granted it wasn't a historical perspective, but it was the first movie that really started to give me an idea of what D-Day was really like. Those first 10 minutes must be the most intense of any war flick, with the possible exception of the ending battle in Platoon...
Can't deny that Spielberg offered a terrific effort to bring a
feeling of reality to "Pvt. Ryan". Which is why the opening 10
minutes are perhaps the very best and very worst part of the
whole movie. I don't know any movie that even comes close
to capturing the heroic helplessness of the 1st wave on Omaha
when the Germans opened fire. That the survivors struggled
to the beach and eventually up the bluffs and off it makes for
a story of valor unsurpassed.
But why did Spielberg shoot the film from the Western Side
of the Rangers landing? They were the extreme right of the
US assult---the very western most part of the actual Omaha
attack. Had he shot the scene from the Eastern side of their
landing, the fact that there was nothing happening on the
beaches behind them would have been no problem. But he
shot the Ranger Assault from "front right"---leaving the total
absence of the 29th and 1st Divisions beyond them as a
glaring error. It's not a really big thing overall; except that
to have gone to so much trouble to get so much right it's very
frustraiting to see such an easily correctable error left in.
Maybe it's just me..., but the better something is the more
annoying I find it to have an unnecessary flaw show up. When
a "pile of crap" stinks, I don't think much about it---but when a
terrific meal in a great resturant is served with dirty silverware
it really drives me nuts. Does anyone else feel this way?
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 1:27 am
by madflava13
Mike, I agree with you completely... My only guess is that he needed them to be Rangers to explain and justify the tasking of an unusual, behind enemy lines mission, but still wanted to convey the feelings of a landing on one of the beaches (The Rangers scaled cliffs at Point du Hoc unlike what's shown in the movie). So Spielberg had them come ashore on a normal beach. As for not seeing the other units in the distance, I would assume he just didn't have the budget to cast that many extras and just hoped no one would notice...
Just guesses, but its the best I've got.
To madflava13
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 2:02 am
by Mike Scholl
Originally posted by madflava13
Mike, I agree with you completely... My only guess is that he needed them to be Rangers to explain and justify the tasking of an unusual, behind enemy lines mission, but still wanted to convey the feelings of a landing on one of the beaches (The Rangers scaled cliffs at Point du Hoc unlike what's shown in the movie). So Spielberg had them come ashore on a normal beach. As for not seeing the other units in the distance, I would assume he just didn't have the budget to cast that many extras and just hoped no one would notice...
Just guesses, but its the best I've got.
Actually, only one company hit Pont du Hoc---the remainder
of the Ranger Batallion landed on the extreme west of the 29th
on Omaha itself. That's what I mean by "getting SO MUCH right."
They were supposed to link up overland with the guys who
scaled the bluffs. But I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one
"bothered"more by unnecessary flaws in greatness than large
ones in medeocracy.
By the way..., how in the world did you aquire the ID of
"madflava13"? That's so odd there has to be a story with it.
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 3:33 am
by Snigbert
I enjoyed Saving Private Ryan, but I noticed some of those flaws as well. One other thing that bugged me was that you would see the beach covered with men from the American camera perspective, but when they looked down on the beach from the German MG position you would see only a handful of guys running onto an otherwise empty beach. Maybe I missed something but it just seemed disjointed to me.
Also didnt it take something like 12 hours before they broke through the defenses and got off of Omaha beach? Granted, nobody is going to film or watch 12 hours of people being machine gunned and blown up, but they could have given a better sense of the time perspective by maybe showing the sun moving across the sky, or whatever film makers do to show that 12 hours have passed.
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 3:38 am
by madflava13
I also noticed the "empty beach" problem -- seemed like only one or two LCMs were in the screen at any one time...
"Madflava13" - I saw a concert in Towson, MD a couple years ago where the opening act was a hip-hop group featuring "DJ Mad Flava." They had black t shirts that said "MAD FLAVA". They were so bad that it became a joke among my friends and its sort of become an online handle for me. 13 is just the jersey number I used to wear in college and high school...
And I stand corrected about where the Rangers landed.
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 5:08 am
by pasternakski
Originally posted by madflava13
"Madflava13" - I saw a concert in Towson, MD a couple years ago where the opening act was a hip-hop group featuring "DJ Mad Flava." They had black t shirts that said "MAD FLAVA". They were so bad that it became a joke among my friends and its sort of become an online handle for me. 13 is just the jersey number I used to wear in college and high school...
Shoot, man, when you give up the secrets behind your ID, you lose all your mystique. You become human - people start liking you - you start engaging in "conversation" instead of making "banal insults."
I prefer being the hated unknown quantity ... like the guy who delivers the Osama tapes ... like the guy who knows where the nerve gas is stored ... like the guy who cleans up after Bush's ugly little dog ... like ...
THEN AGAIN....
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 6:07 am
by Mike Scholl
...Why should you trust ANY information from a source that's
ashamed to put his own name on it?
It is true that for most of the morning the situation on Omaha
was officially regarded as "in doubt". As late as noon, most of
the German reports reflected a feeling that they had "stopped"
the invasion there. This was occuring at the same time that the
decision was being made by various small groups of Americans
who had worked their way up the bluffs and were starting to
take out the defenses from the rear; a few DD Captains who
ignored standing orders and brought their ships in to shoot it
out with the beach batteries at point blank range; and the continuing arrival of US reinforcements while the German
Reserves went elsewhere.
My impression was that the movie only covered the first few
minutes of the landing and the first attempts to get off the beaches; then jumped to D+One or Two when the order to look
for Ryan came down. I was more curious as to why the "relief force" was sent from Omaha rather than Utah. After all, the
101st was dropped to support VII Corps in the Cotentan, not
the V Corps at Omaha. The two beachheads weren't linked yet,
so the Rangers would have to cross German lines twice to find
most of the 101st.
None of which kept "Pvt. Ryan" from being a good movie---
but it certainly made me wish I could have spent an evening with
Spielberg before filming began to "straighten him out" on a few
things. Maybe he just wanted to show the Omaha Landings.
But the rangers could have grabbed a Higgins Boat to Utah to
begin the search. The Devil is in the details when you're trying to
make the jump from GOOD to GREAT.
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 7:51 pm
by mdiehl
Good WW2 movies:
Bridge on the River Kwai
Das Boot
Cross of Iron
Empire of the Sun (little action but a good movie just the same)
Enemy at the Gates
Great Escape
Longest Day
Memphis Belle
Pistol Packin Mama (which is really a documentary but a good one)
Saving Private Ryan
Tora, Tora, Tora
Tuskegee Airmen
Twelve O' Clock High
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:58 pm
by Blackhorse
Has there ever been a pair of war movies with a bigger drop in quality than that between the outstanding Cross of Iron , and its abysmal sequel Breakthrough?
I NOMINATE...
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:03 am
by Mike Scholl
Originally posted by Blackhorse
Has there ever been a pair of war movies with a bigger drop in quality than that between the outstanding Cross of Iron , and its abysmal sequel Breakthrough?
What about "TORA, TORA, TORA" and it's abyssmal sequel
"MIDWAY"? Fluffing it out with a totally worthless "love interest/
Father-Son struggle was bad enough---but re-using the combat
footage from the first (does anybody believe Midway Island had
Battleship-style spotting tops and masts?) really sucked.
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 3:04 am
by mdiehl
The Midway Island footage from Midway was colorized from John Ford's on-scene shots taken during the battle.
Midway would have been an allright movie without the stupid love-interest 70s PC chic subplot. Everytime Hollywood gets its hands on a PTO plot they mess it up with bs and unbelievable sub-plots.
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:09 pm
by bradfordkay
Like a USAAF fighter pilot flying for the RAF in the Battle of Britain (in direct defiance of the Neutrality Acts - he would have been cashiered)?
Lets not forget the value of propaganda
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2003 11:10 pm
by demonterico
There are many ways to contribute to a war effort. We all know that for every grunt with a rifle there is another ten guys behind the front line in support. Are the efforts of the support units any less important than those of the combat troops, or for that matter are they any less dangerous. Often they are not. It was The Duke's job to make crappy movies that stirred the patriotic fervor and pride of the general American public. He did his job well. I don't think Wayne has ever been accussed of being a great actor, but we loved him as he was, and I for one wouldn't want him any different.
Speaking of movie star heroes everyone is forgetting about Audie Murphy. After all he did win The Medal of Honor. However that didn't help improve the movie Hollywood made about his military exploits. It was at least as bad as Sands. I did like his nice clean uniform and shave though. Patton would have been proud of him.
I do like the German movies; Cross of Iron, Stalingrad, and Das Boot are excellent. Tora, Tora, Tora is another favorite. And I can't even begin to remember how many times I've watched The Longest Day. Other movies I really like outside the PTO are; for Viet Nam, Casualties of War with Sean Penn and Micheal J Fox. I think this movie has an excellent understanding of the American circustance in Viet Nam. And then off in another far away sea is the movie Zulu. I'll never tire of watching it. Hey speaking of Africa, isn't African Queen a war movie. Brings a tear to my eye every time. But after all is said and done, my opinion of movies is questionable since I like to watch the bad ones as well.
I never met Mary Palmer, but I did know Mother Thumb. Although, she only had four daughters.
Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2003 11:40 am
by tangent
FWIW Lee Marvin was actually in the battle for Iwo Jima. If I recall correctly he was wounded there too.
FWIW the footage of battleship tops on Midway Island in the movie Midway is actually footage from the film Tora Tora Tora. Suprisingly the latter film is not an official sequel. They had completely different studios and the Tora Tora Tora footage was licensed for Midway. The director of Tora Tora Tora complained loudly over this on the recent DVD of this movie.
Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2003 11:33 pm
by Snigbert
Are the efforts of the support units any less important than those of the combat troops, or for that matter are they any less dangerous.
Umm, yeah...that's why they're called REMFs.
I wouldnt say the contribution of support troops isn't important, but I wouldnt say it's as important or dangerous as the guy who is pulling the trigger...