Don’t be too hard on the Downfall rant titlers. The “Grammer Nazi” one convinced me that I really had to see this film. Sorry, I can’t get all worked up about insane, evil, murderous dickheads being made into objects of fun.
An update. While there apparently has never been an American movie made about this battle, there was a 1968 Filipino movie - Manila, Open City.
Has there been a Dieppe Raid film? I don’t recall having ever seen or heard of one.
You’d think a Canadian studio would make one, considering the horrific Canadian casualties.
Dieppe
I’ve often heard how the Falaise Pocket was the decisive battle that kicked the Germans out of Normandy but I haven’t seen much about it movie-wise.
Also, Caen and Peleliu
Personally, I think some of them are hilarious and well done, but it bothers me as a historian that they’ve overshadowed the film - which is on a very serious subject.
I don’t recall ever hearing about a movie covering the Harlem Hellfighters.
Huh… didn’t know about that movie!
Typically, the way that the Western Front gets simplified for mass-consumption (Hollywood, high school history teachers*) is as follows:
N. Africa- there was fighting, Rommel gets booted out by Montgomery & Patton.
Italy- we invade Sicily, then Italy, and more or less get bogged down in fierce fighting for the rest of the war. Monte Cassino is usually mentioned in passing.
D-Day… then Market Garden (only the failure part), Battle of the Bulge, and then the capture of the Rhine bridge at Remagen, and then the war’s over. Berchtesgarden and the National Redoubt usually get mentioned in passing.
Battles like Caen and Falaise usually get rolled into the D-Day coverage- Caen as being something like the anvil, and the US breakout to the west and the subsequent encirclement of the Falaise pocket as the hammer that let the Allies break out of the beachhead and quickly advance toward Paris.
An entire episode of “The Pacific” centered on Peleliu, as did several old documentaries, but I don’t recall any other cinematic treatments.