WWII Films

[KY Gentleman]

"Tora, Tora, Tora" and "Heaven Knows Mr Allison". Both great flicks.
I wanted to suggest "Memphis Belle" but I got beat to the point.
Given a choice, I'd watch that one.....

 

[Spitfire]

Forgot one:
Empire of the Sun.

I never forget the scene where Jim (played by a very young Christian Bale) stands on the roof yelling:
"P-51 - Cadillac of the Sky!!!!" While the prisoncamp is being bombed.
It's 100% emotional! Gets me everytime!!

 

[Smithy]

Forgot one:
Empire of the Sun.

I never forget the scene where Jim (played by a very young Christian Bale) stands on the roof yelling:
"P-51 - Cadillac of the Sky!!!!" While the prisoncamp is being bombed.
It's 100% emotional! Gets me everytime!!

Bit fftopic: but...

...Ray and Mark Hanna were flying the Mustangs. Even Mark afterwards said the footage was "remarkable". The aviation scene is a less colourful place without them.

 

[Spitfire]

Totally fftopic:
You can say that again. They are both missed.
Great aviators both of them - and some very nice, down to earth personallities too.
(no joke intended)

 

[freebird]

To the Shores of Tripoli with Randolph Scott, it was alsoHenry Morgan's (MASH) first film appearance.
and some of my favorites are the b-movies with William Tracy and Joe Sawyer:
Tanks A-Million, Yanks Ahoy, Fall In,etc

and a pre-ww2 movie that has to be considered due to it's historical significance: Here Comes the Navy, with James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, which was filmed in 1932 , on the USS Arizona. It also featured the ill fated USS Macon which was lost the next year.

 

[Antje]

I'm not really into ww2 movies but I loved blackbook.
and my brother really likes soldaat van oranje, I think the enlish title might be soldier of orange but I'm not sure, both are dutch movies

 

[freebird]

another that I forgot, Charlie Chaplins The Great Dictator. This is one you have to see, it is a classic.

 

[Jedburgh OSS]

this weekend at Circuit City

Empire of the Sun is one of 60 titles they're having on sale for $3.99 through Monday. In case you don't have this in your DVD library now's the time to get it.

 

[Marlin Fan]

Above and Beyond (1952), its the story of Col. Paul Tibbetts, the man who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in World War 2. William Holden plays Tibbetts. This movie is not available on DVD. It does show up TCM or AMC. Here's a link for it http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044324/.

 

[Story]

From Russia, A Cinematic Double Take On WWII Era
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 31, 2008; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/30/AR2008053003125.html?hpid=topnews

VOISKOVITSY, Russia -- In the 1994 Russian film "Burnt by the Sun," the idyllic life of a family at their country home outside Moscow is smashed on a single day by Stalinism. Fans of the movie, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, are likely to be startled by a coming sequel. And not only because director Nikita Mikhalkov has reanimated characters who appeared to die in the original.

The first film, an intimate drama that shimmered with dread, played out almost entirely on a small set. The new movie, part of which is being filmed at this rural railway junction about 30 miles south of St. Petersburg, is a panoramic blockbuster with battle scenes straight out of Hollywood. With a budget of $55 million, it is the most expensive movie in Russian history.

In the sequel, the four main characters from the first movie, three of whom were thought to be dead, hurtle unawares toward each other in the furnace of World War II. And Joseph Stalin, hovering unseen like a malign spirit in the first film, steps onto this stage as a speaking character.

And what a stage. Mikhalkov, 62, is not making one movie but two full-length films, "Burnt by the Sun 2," Parts 1 and 2, plus a 12-part television series that will track and expand on the material in the two movies. Mikhalkov plans to release the first part of the film version May 9, 2010, the 65th anniversary of victory in World War II. The movie's second part is to be released several months later, with the television version following in 2011 or 2012.

 

[Story]

Fedor Bondarchuk‘s $30 million Stalingrad.
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/ne...-blows-up-everything-to-find-love-in-wwii.php

 

[Two Types]

The Soviets made some good ones: 'Cranes Are Flying' and 'Ballad of a Soldier' come to mind.

 

[Metatron]

The cranes are flying is a great film and one fascinating aspect of it is that Stalin isn't mentioned once in it. It's pretty obvious that once his reign was over the whole country breathed a sigh of relief.

 

[Story]

The Real Inglorious Bastards recounts the thrilling story of Operation Greenup, the most successful intelligence-gathering OSS operation of World War II. Two young Jewish-American refugees team up with a conscientious deserter, parachuting one perilous night into the Austrian Alps. Through vivid first-person accounts, re-enactment, CGI, archive and historian commentary, the film reveals how their efforts disrupt a vital supply route between Germany and the Italian front and bring about the surrender of Innsbruck to Allied Forces

http://www.realinglorious.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIxBGfxsD_Y

 

[Two Types]

Metatron: There is an interesting crossover here to your thread on 'working class heroes' and theirpersonal struggles etc:
The 1944 film 'The Way Ahead' is a wonderful film and is interesting in the way it handles the reticence of new recruits to military service. It is about men from a wide range of backgrounds and follows them as they grow, change and realise things about themselves. It also shows how they discover the necessity of working together.
On the surface, it could have become a crass propaganda film but it is so much more than that. It is one film about army life that veterans have often quoted as being accurate.
It is interesting to contrast this film with 'Overlord', a 1970s British film about a raw recruit. In that film it is all about the individual rather than the group.

 

[lolly_loisides]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned "Went the day well?"
[video=youtube;oJ9Xm9st4Sg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ9Xm9st4Sg[/video]

 

[Aristaeus]

"The Flying Tigers" 1942, Republic Pictures' with John Wayne and John Carroll.


"The Fighting Seabeas" 1944, Republic Pictures, with John Wayne and Susan Hayward.


"Battle of the Bulge" 1965, Warner Brothers, with Henry Fonda and Robert Shaw.

 

[Two Types]

RE: 'Went the Day Well'. For me, whilst it is a WW2 film, it is about events that never happened. Most popular war films are based around a genuine setting, thus a British village under attack by Nazi infiltrators doesn't have that obvious connection. Where the film is effective is as a depiction of the feelings/thoughts of the British in WW2. But it doesn't jump out at me as an obvious WW2 film (just as 'bedknobs & broomsticks' doesn't immediately spring to mind as a war film even though it concludes with a German invasion attempt).

That said, just to undermine my own argument, I consider 'A Matter of Life & Death' to be one of the greatest WW2 films - despite the fantasy elements. I always argue that it shouldn't be seen as a fantasy since the fantastical elements are within Peter Carter's mind as a result of his injuries.

 

[DNO]

Just read through this thread and thought I'd add a few titles that no one has mentioned:

Fires on the Plain (1959)

Devil’s Brigade (1968)

Cockleshell Heroes (1955)

In Which We Serve (1942)

Corvette K-225 (1943)

One of our Aircraft is Missing (1942)

and I don't think I noticed Stalag 17 (1953)

 

[SHOWSOMECLASS]

Agree w/ many of the movies previously listed by posters. I believe "The Thin Red Line" 1998 should also be considered.

Theme: Tells a fictionalized version of the Battle of Mount Austen in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It portrays soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division.


An all star cast: Adrien Brody, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, and John Travolta. Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran five hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_(1998_film)

This movie explores the politics, emotions and strange paradoxes of war. In some cases american military personnel are not portrayed in a positive light. Imho because of this The Thin Red Line is a movie of this genre that is not popular w/ war buffs who like a clean simple story where the good guys and bad guys are clearly packaged.