Favourite/least Favourite Movie

From my point of view the worst has to be U571. Not because it's a bad film just for the sheer arrogance of Hollywood rewriting history. I actually had an argument with an American over this who swore blind it ws 'factual' so I told him to have a look at the credits at the end that list the chronological captures of Enigma and ciphers.

'Saving Private Ryan' is quite good (if you can overlook Hollywood dissing the Brits again (Tom Hank's and Ted Danson's conversation about Caen and about Montgomery being over-rated etc).

'The Longest Day' was a damned good attempt to give a balanced picture. Pity they didn't have the technology and budgets available today.

Memphis Belle has to be amongst the best efforts too.

What about the best WW2 Film they haven't made yet? As an Ulsterman I'd suggest 'Colonel Paddy' - an action- bio flick about Blair-Mayne (DSO an 3 bars etc etc) who took over the SAS after Stirling was captured. Then again being from Ulster I'm a bit biased towards him anyway!

 

I voted the "dont care for ww2 films", films like Bridge on the river kwai, the odd great one like Band of Brothers I can sit through.

Generally though I tend to sit through a film going "that never happened", "He was not there at that time" or "hold on until I check that post on ww2talk to see if that correct!"

Factual documentary preferably about the holocaust, ghettos, and so on... thats where my preference lies.

Lee

 

I know Major John Gorman - he said that the assault across the river at Nijmegen (a la BTF) was not that far from reality. John Gorman won an MC for 'ramming' a Tiger, was immortalised in front of the 'Victor' and later became head of a public housing agency here.
A gent .. looked a but like Santa without the beard. Hard as nails.
Irish Guards Armoured.
Des
Best WW2 film? 'The Wooden Horse' is wlays worth an afternoon on the sofa with cuppa and good B&W movie on.

 

Originally posted by BrianP@Apr 14 2005, 10:16 AM


Guilty Pleasures

- 1941 - Inaccurate and all, but pretty funny


1941 has one point of accuracy: the panic state in Los Angeles right after Pearl Harbor and Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell being in command and being calm. The panic was immense. One congressman hysterically called up the White House, saying the Pacific Coast was indefensible, and demanded battle lines be established in the Rockie. Stilwell was in command at the time, before being sent back to China, and his diaries reveal his rage at both the low state of preparedness and the high panic. "What a wild, farcical, bundle of crap G-2 has put out," he wrote at one point. The panic reached its nadir in February 1942, when AA guns defending Los Angeles opened fire on what were thought to be enemy planes. They filled the sky with noise and lead, which set off more AA batteries opening fire, but no Japanese planes raided America that evening. A Japanese submarine did shell Santa Barbara, blasting a fuel pump, and my web page describes another hare-brained scheme to have Lt. Nobuo Fujtia fly a seaplane (from a submarine) over Oregon and drop bombs on forests to start a massive forest fire. This stunt failed, and nobody was hurt. But the panic state remained in California, and ultimately helped fuel the internment of the Nisei.

 

My votes: Patton, Longest Day, Battle of Britain, Das Boot and The Cruel Sea. The Cruel Sea provides a fascinating counterpoint to Das Boot. Das Boot even has a scene which echoes (perhaps deliberately) the terrible moment when Jack Hawkins depth-charges the sailors in the water because there may be a U-Boat underneath.
I don't like Bridge On The River Kwai, primarily because it presents a story which is not a patch on the real one which inspired it, that of Colonel Toosey, who acquired a moral ascendancy over his captors such that one converted to Christianity after the war and wrote to him for forgiveness. It's an amazing tale which is well told in a Timewatch documentary which is sometimes repeated on UK TV History etc. Also the elite commando group spend much of their time moving through the hills on the skyline, as my old dad, a Burma veteran never tired of pointing out.

 

The best war films were, with a few exceptions, those made in the 1950s: Ice Cold in Alex, Sea of Sand, Dambusters, The Cruel Sea, Battle of the River Plate, Wooden Horse et al. Exceptions include Longest Day, Battle of Britain (the aircraft are the stars) and Tora, Tora, Tora. Can't think of anything after Tora that was really worth watching.
Regards,
David

 

The "Best" film hasn't been made, I hope. I say that because I'm still hoping somebody is going to make a really first rate film. With all it's faults SPR is probably as close as it has really come. I've spoken to a lot of vets, both of WWII and more current wars, who say it is the one that comes closest to showing what war can really be like.

Others bests films are:

The Great Escape
Patton, also flawed but very good.
Das Boot
The Longest Day
Battleground
The Cruel Sea
Twelve O'Clock High
Battle of Britain

Guilty pleasures. (I like who thought of this, it's a good category)

Kelly's Heroes, see my signature line
Operation Petticoat. More based on fact than many people give it credit for. For instance the bit about sinking the truck kind of happened.
The Dirty Dozen
1941. also based very much on fact, see Kiwiwriters post. Plus the M3 Lee is one of my favorite tanks.


NO redeeming social value at all.

Pearl Harbor
U-571
Escape. That's the POW soccer game one. Michael Caine should be ashamed of himself for being in that POS.
The Thin Red Line. One of the very few war movies I've never been able to sit all the way through.

 

Great subject.....Many great personal opinions show the diversity of preference just among this group.

The best for me was/is:


Real Life:

The "World at War" Docmentary

On Land:

The Desert Rats (Richard Burton)
Hell to Eternity (Jeffrey Hunter)

On Sea:

Cruel Sea
San Demetrio, London (Mervyn Johns & a young Gordon Jackson)
The Enemy Below (Robert Mitchum / Curt Jurgens)

Intrigue/Covert:

Where Eagles Dare
The Man Who Never Was.

In The Air:

Tora Tora Tora
Dambusters


Geoff

 

Please check my comments/review of the film Hope and Glory in the Uk Home Front section.

 

Originally posted by halfyank@May 24 2005, 10:23 PM


Operation Petticoat. More based on fact than many people give it credit for. For instance the bit about sinking the truck kind of happened.

[post=34772]Quoted post[/post]
The USS Bowfin was one of a number of submarins that "sank" a land vehicle. It torpedoed a pier with a crane and a bus sitting on it and smashed all three. Her victory total includes the crane, pier, and bus. I believe USS Wahoo also fired a torpedo in the Philippines that shot up on land and blasted open a truck, which was the cause of this incident. The actual "Petticoat" evacuation took place in the Solomon Islands, and involved USS Nautilus.

 

Originally posted by Kiwiwriter+Jun 3 2005, 08:40 AM-->(Kiwiwriter @ Jun 3 2005, 08:40 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-halfyank@May 24 2005, 10:23 PM


Operation Petticoat. More based on fact than many people give it credit for. For instance the bit about sinking the truck kind of happened.

[post=34772]Quoted post[/post]
The USS Bowfin was one of a number of submarins that "sank" a land vehicle. It torpedoed a pier with a crane and a bus sitting on it and smashed all three. Her victory total includes the crane, pier, and bus. I believe USS Wahoo also fired a torpedo in the Philippines that shot up on land and blasted open a truck, which was the cause of this incident. The actual "Petticoat" evacuation took place in the Solomon Islands, and involved USS Nautilus.
[post=34989]Quoted post[/post]
[/b]

Yes, I can't think of the name of the boat that was sunk at Cavite, raised, quickly repaired, and sailed to Australia. The letter Cary Grant wrote about the toilet paper was nearly word for word from an actual letter a sub skipper wrote. The "pink" paint was the same. Basically most everything happened to real subs, Hollywood just put it all together in one fictional boat.

 

Originally posted by halfyank+Jun 3 2005, 01:42 PM-->(halfyank @ Jun 3 2005, 01:42 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'>Originally posted by Kiwiwriter@Jun 3 2005, 08:40 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-halfyank@May 24 2005, 10:23 PM


Operation Petticoat. More based on fact than many people give it credit for. For instance the bit about sinking the truck kind of happened.

[post=34772]Quoted post[/post]
The USS Bowfin was one of a number of submarins that "sank" a land vehicle. It torpedoed a pier with a crane and a bus sitting on it and smashed all three. Her victory total includes the crane, pier, and bus. I believe USS Wahoo also fired a torpedo in the Philippines that shot up on land and blasted open a truck, which was the cause of this incident. The actual "Petticoat" evacuation took place in the Solomon Islands, and involved USS Nautilus.
[post=34989]Quoted post[/post]


Yes, I can't think of the name of the boat that was sunk at Cavite, raised, quickly repaired, and sailed to Australia. The letter Cary Grant wrote about the toilet paper was nearly word for word from an actual letter a sub skipper wrote. The "pink" paint was the same. Basically most everything happened to real subs, Hollywood just put it all together in one fictional boat.
[post=34991]Quoted post[/post]
[/b]Sealion or Seadragon was the sub sunk at Cavite and raised. The toilet paper story appears in Capt. Ned Beach's "Submarine," which is a compilation of his Reader's Digest articles of submarine memoirs and warfare.

 

Canadians are shown once, mentioned twice.

They are shown parachuting into the garden behind the house occupied by the German captain who puts his boots on wrong, and escaping from him.

They are mentioned by Robert Ryan as Jim Gavin briefing the 82nd Airborne.

They are also mentioned by the British officer and American officer in Portsmouth as "advancing steadily."

The punchline is this: the German officer with the boots on wrong is seen pursuing the Canadians. We know geography, so we know that took place on the east bank of the Orne.

The German is seen in the next-to-last scene (originally the last one), lying dead, having been shot by the crippled (and shot-down) Richard Burton (not true, the real German survived to tell the tale). Richard Beymer shows up as Private Dutch Schultz of the 82nd Airborne, having not fired his gun all day. (True) Burton tells Schultz he had his split-open leg tied up by an American medic with safety pins, as the medic lost his kit that morning (true, but the patient was not an RAF pilot). The scene is symbolic of the post-war nations: Germany dead, Britain crippled, America lost and awash in her new role as great power in the world.

However, the medic did his bit on Omaha Beach, Schultz landed behind Utah, and the German was seen being awaked east of the Orne. So those guys did a LOT of traveling to get together by sunset of D-Day. Schultz walked all the way from St. Mere-Eglise to Omaha, and the German captain all the way from Merville to Omaha. Some trips.

 

I too have wondered about the geography of the 'wrong-booted' German in 'Longest Day'. I've finally accepted it as dramatic licence , but can anyone answer my other longstanding query about LD. What on earth are groups of American soldiers doing carrying big inflatable dinghies up Omaha Beach? Are they planning to use them as mobile cover or are they heading for the Dives Estuary? They've got a long run if they are!

 

Maybe they're loaded with ammunition and supplies.

 

Well the swamps were flooded. Maybe they didn't want to get their feet wet again!


Geoff