What is the last WW2 Film or Series you saw?

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by Ivan1, Apr 9, 2007.

  1. Nick Beale

    Nick Beale Member

    They also have Went the Day Well​

    I hope you enjoy "Went the Day Well" as much as I do, not least for the way it shows ordinary British folk roused to savage violence by the threat of invasion — no pretence of "fair play". And for anyone who assciates Thora Hird with the stairlift adverts of yesteryear, it's strange to see her with a rifle, picking off German soldiers.
     
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  2. JimHerriot

    JimHerriot Ready for Anything

    Maybe one just for Stolpi and I (but at least a chance to brush up on your French!)



    Kind regards, always,

    Jim.
     
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  3. Trackfrower

    Trackfrower Member

    Danger UXB
    Good effort, rotten haircuts
     
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  4. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    A Bridge Too Far.
     
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  5. Staffsyeoman

    Staffsyeoman Member

    Appointment With Venus (on Talking Pictures TV). A (sort of) Commando raid is launched on the fictional Channel Island of Armorel (actually Sark) to steal a valuable cow (the Venus of the title) from under the noses of the Germans and prevent her from being shipped back to Germany, Stars David Niven, Glynis Johns, George Colouris and Kenneth More as well as other British stars. A gentle comedy...
     
  6. 14/264

    14/264 Active Member

    'The Foreman Went To France' on TPTV, a very workmanlike film, based on a true story. It would be interesting to know how much was true and how much created. I do have a soft spot for Tommy Trinder, and it was interesting to see Robert Morley as a French Fifth Columnist. Also a useful reminder that Dunkirk did not end the fighting in France, there were still British troops there.
     
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  7. brithm

    brithm Senior Member

    Danger Within (1959) was on Talking Pictures TV last night starring Richard Todd, Richard Attenborough, Bernard Lee & Dennis Price; Michael Caine had a bit part too! Action was good as well as decent script written by Bryan Forbes based on Michael Gilbert's book Death in Captivity (1952).
    Gilbert was in 12 PHA taken prisoner in North Africa and was in an Italian Prison camp but managed to escape, received a mention in despatches.
    Can catch it on Amazon or buy it on DVD from Network
    This IMDB review gives it justice
     
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  8. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Battle of Britain

    Still one of my favorites. They really don't make them like that any more.
    Trevor Howard's physical decline from Von Ryan's Express only four years earlier is rough to see.
    He was only 55 but looked an unhealthy 75.

    Noticed Goering had a Horch. Nice.


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  9. Wobbler

    Wobbler Well-Known Member

    Watched this again yesterday on TV, for the zillionth time :D

    Never tire of it or the wonderful score.
     
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  10. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    I'm halfway through the second series of Secret Army, having finished watching the first last week.

    It's fantastic, up there with the very best BBC content (mostly of yesteryear): Civilisation and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy come to mind.

    'Good' characters die--and not always in satisfyingly heroic ways; 'bad' characters are plausibly rounded enough to be far more than two-dimensional villains, and even those on 'our side' make mistakes and cold-blooded calculations than end in death and/or torture: in the interest of fairness everybody's motivations get a fair airing.

    The thing that has surprised me is not that 'Allo 'Allo parodied it--I knew that already--but that in parodying it they had done so so closely: hairstyles, wallpapers etc in addition to the characters, roles and sets.

    What kind of person watches something as dark as that and declares: got it--parody!

    A genius or a psychopath.
     
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  11. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Watched the first episode and enjoyed it very much. Only problem was that Dailymotion showed the same two 30 second Subaru commercials back to back every 5 minutes with no way to skip. And not their good ones with the dogs either. :(
     
  12. kopite

    kopite Member

    Recently watched Greyhound starring Tom Hanks. It’s about a merchant ship convoy sailing from the US to Liverpool with supplies in 1942 . Once out of aircraft coverage they are attacked by U-boats over a period of five days. Some realistic battle scenes which I thought were well done and I enjoyed the movie.
     
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  13. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    I recently saw The Guns of Navarone again for the first time in many years, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was better and less silly than I remembered it. Knowing more about the war now than I did the last time I saw the film I was able to enjoy some of the small details. David Niven, for example, wears a DLI badge on his beret. He's supposed to be a chemistry don, so is it too much to suppose that he's from Durham University and previously served with 50th Division? Then, too, there were the weapons, like the Sten Mark I*, which was the least common major variant and is seldom seen in films. As for the big guns themselves, I am still trying to cipher them out. They don't look quite like any WWII German guns I've looked up so far, but maybe I just haven't looked at enough of them. The actors and actresses are all good and some are excellent. Niven, usually a light comedian, handles a serious role quite well. Anthony Quinn gives one of his best performances; he is much more subdued here than usual, which obviously helps. I love Irene Pappas, and the byplay between her and Quinn is wonderful and believable. There are some hokey elements, of course, among them some prize examples of Nazi Sentry Syndrome and some badly staged gun battles near the end. The story line verges on fantasy, but then again so does Leigh-Fermor's snatching of General Kreipe. The most annoying thing in the film, I felt, was the silly-clever philosophizing about the horrors of war, blah, blah. And there is a stronger element of realism in this film than most viewers remember. The team suffers fifty percent casualties and the Germans come down hard on the civilian population, both of which are just the kinds of things which happened in missions like this.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2021
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  14. JohnH

    JohnH Active Member

    I have recently started watching series 1 of the BBC TV series Secret Army on Talking Pictures UK SKY channel 328 on Sunday night at 9.00pm. I would thoroughly recommend it, even after 2 episodes.

    The series follows the members of a Belgian secret group 'Lifeline', dedicated to enabling Allied airmen to escape to Britain, usually after they had been shot down by the Luftwaffe. Following the timeline of the Second World War, the series shows its impact on the people of Belgium, but also features the attempts of the German Nazi occupiers of Belgium to capture the airmen and to expose and exact retribution on those helping them. It ran for three series from 7 September 1977 until 15 December 1979.
     
  15. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    One of the best. Force 10 From Navarone was just as good, in my opinion.

    I think the force was told that the guns were 9" but found out they were 12" when they got there.
    What ever guns or props they used in the movie looked great to me but I have no clue what they are. Hope your research turns up something.
     
  16. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    I'm nearing the end of the second series and have done some further digging.

    The following book is well reviewed and features and episode-by-episode discussion and production guide as well as behind the scenes information:

    https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Secret-Army-Unofficial-Unauthorised/dp/0956100007

    From the author's website--and possibly of more interest to readers here--I discover that the series' technical advisor, Bill Randle, penned both a memoir and a novel based on his own evasion experience:

    BLUE SKIES AND DARK NIGHTS
    by Bill Randle, Independent Books, 2002.

    KONDOR
    by Bill Randle, Independent Books, 1999.
    The story of 'Operation Kondor', a German attempt to infiltrate a resistance evasion line.

    Also, the site lists three contemporary publications that shed more light on the setting and plots:

    SECRET ARMY
    by John Brason, BBC Books, 1977.
    A prequel to the first series which introduces all the major characters.

    SECRET ARMY DOSSIER
    by John Brason, BBC Books, 1978.
    Adaptations of some of his first and second series scripts (includes: Good Friday, Be the First Kid in Your Block to Rule the World, Russian Roulette and Day of Wrath) and some new material (Pastures New and Phoenix).

    SECRET ARMY: THE END OF THE LINE
    by John Brason, Star Books, 1981
    Adaptations of his third series scripts.

    Source:
    Le Candide - Secret Army Books
     
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  17. Wobbler

    Wobbler Well-Known Member

    For some reason I never fancied this back in the 70s but I think I may have shot myself in the foot back then.

    However, I see it’s starting from the very first episode again today on TPTV at 2pm, so I reckon it’s time to give this a look, especially given how much I very much enjoyed their recent reruns of Enemy At The Door.

    I believe I did watch a series called Manhunt back in the 70’s but am not sure whether TPTV have also shown this series at any point. I have a vague recollection of Beethoven’s 5th grabbing my young attention in this one. My happy memories of this series have, of course, nothing at all to do with the presence of a certain Cyd Hayman ;)
     
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  18. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    I got through the first three episodes but I can't take the tension and suspense anymore. I guess that speaks to how good it is.

    I know, I know. I'll have to turn in my man card.
     
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  19. Andsco

    Andsco Well-Known Member

    Just finished watching on iplayer the BBC 3 part documentary "Berlin 1945". The following review by James Brown of the Strife blog & Journal describes it better than I could.

    "Berlin 1945 has an enticingly simple format: voice actors read diary entries from civilians and soldiers written in the year 1945 while their photographs and archive footage features on screen. The narrative focuses on the city of Berlin during the Second World War’s twilight period but includes voices from the allied side as well. The choice of the single city of Berlin gives the documentary a positionality that captures not only the creeping encirclement of Germany, but also how the military struggles enacted from the Berghof, Washington D.C., Moscow, and London were converging at a single point after years of bloodshed across far-flung corners of the world.

    Those whose diaries are read out, and at whose lives we are allowed to look at their bleakest and most human, include conscripted 16-year old soldiers, a Jewish woman in hiding, worried mothers, fathers, and children. We also encounter enforced labourers from France and Eastern Europe, exhausted Soviet ground troops, and allied pilots conducting massive bombing raids over Berlin. Their stories tell of the desperation faced by Berliners and the intensity of WWII’s final days.

    It is a Kafkaesque tale of daily struggles not just to survive, but also of the attempts to preserve remnants of normality as the Red Army exacts extreme military and sexual violence on Berlin’s civilian population, especially the women. People continue to watch light entertainment films at the cinema and return to finish them even after the viewing is interrupted by air raids. Family and friends still gather for schnapps before they listen to Hitler’s latest morale-boosting radio broadcast. Teenage air-craft gunners try to shoot down Allied bombers, intermittently referring to each other as comrades and classmates. And all the while inane Nazi propaganda continues to bleat promises of future victory even as the Third Reich’s armed forces melt away before the people’s eyes."

    For me it brought home the brutality & horror that war brings and the pain & suffering that goes with it.
     
  20. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Very funny episode with all the main characters playing multiple roles

     

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