We seemed to have flogged this “favorite <insert movie genre>” idea within an inch of its life, but we’ve failed to discuss a staple - the war flick. I’ve been seeing previews for “Pearl Harbor” and that looks like it may be a winner (but only along the same lines as “From Here to Eternity” - WWII plays a secondary role to Deborah K. and Burt Lancaster’s wave-side clutch). So, how 'bout it, if you want to see men killing each other in the defense of whatever needs defending, what do you watch?
My personal favorites:
Apocalypse Now is almost too difficult for me to watch. War is Hell. You better believe it. One of my favorite lines from it is when the captain of the boat gets skewered - he’s survived all the modern horrors of war only to be killed in one of the most primitive ways. He looks down at the shaft sticking out of his chest and simply says “A spear.” “Terminate with extreme prejudice.” “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like…victory.” “You are an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.” Like I said, almost too distrubing.
Saraha - Humphrey Bogart as a tank commander trying to hold off a group of Germans in the middle of the Sahara. Pure good guys vs. bad guys.
Stalag 17 - Where were you when Pearl Harbor was hit? I was just sitting down to dinner, what of it? Hmmmm…
Where Eagles Dare - Richard Burton chews on the scenery so badly its a wonder his teeth aren’t chipped, but its still worth a look.
Platoon - Like AN, almost too difficult to watch. My father-in-law, a C130 pilot during the Vietnam War, and who had to learn to accept body bags and remains as merely cargo, couldn’t take this one. Broke down about halfway through and we had to leave the theater.
There are so many but here are few off the top of my head.
Gallipoli
Directed by Peter Weir (Witness/Truman Show) and stars a young Mel Gibson. Shows WWI trench warfare.
Platoon and Full Metal Jacket are my fav Viet Nam movies.
A Midnight Clear is great little seen WWII movie.
Finally Wings is a WWI fighter pilot movie. It is the only silent film to win the academy award for best picture. (it’s also the first to win best picture) The flight scenes are just as exciting as Top Gun but with characters that I care about.
I’m sure there are lots more but give me time to think.
Well, I think Saving Private Ryan should be set aside in a class of its own, but beyond that, I suppose my top ten list might include, in no particular order:
*Bridge on the River Kwai
All Quiet on the Western Front *(the original)
*Full Metal Jacket
Ran *(if you choose to count it as a war picture) Cross of Iron
A Bridge Too Far
The Longest Day
Tora! Tora! Tora!
Paths of Glory
Good Night, Vietnam (Ron Jeremy’s performance in that film was typically excellent.)
Well, maybe I’d squeeze one of the above for Lawrence, but which one?
Force 10 from Navarone - I must give this movie its props, if nobody else will Zulu Patton Glory The Thin Red Line Apocalypse Now - still the best after all these years
Also-rans:
The Green Berets Masada (my "technically not a - " nomination) We Dive At Dawn The Desert Fox Memphis Belle
I suspect Pearl Harbor will be the Armageddon of the genre (or whatever that other asteroid movie was called), though it’s trying to be a cross between Saving Private Ryan and Titanic.
It’s an interesting study in leadership and group dynamics. I’m not sure I agree with it, but it has made me think for years about how and why I manage people the way I do.
And there’s really cool B-17’s! Vroooooom!!! Bang!!! Wheeeeeeee!!!
“Saving Private Ryan” is terrific, of course. As in TERRIFYING! I wasn’t quite right for about a week after I saw it.
“Failsafe” was one of the great Cold War flicks, and there was another of a really intense destroyer/sub duel that I can’t remember the title of.
“12 O’Clock High” may be the single best study of leadership and command in movie form. It was part of the curriculum when I was at NCO Academy in October. So many great scenes, great lines, and fuckin’ GREAT performances…
I loved “Zulu” and “Kelly’s Heroes”, and “A Bridge Too Far” was great.
I was spellbound by “Glory”. I read two fantastic books (“One Gallant Rush” and “A Brave Black Regiment”) about Col. Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts, and (miracle of miracles) Hollywood got the history right. Also, it cracked me up to read a review that said Matthew Broderick was miscast: he “looked too young” to be a colonel.
HA!
“Braveheart” made me think: no one is ever going to know what 10,000+ men look and sound like as they crash together in hand-to-hand combat. But I’ve read a bit about it, and it was like somebody hit the “Play” button in my head. As far as I know, that must be the closest we’ll ever come to it.
“Das Boot” scared the crap out of me. At the end, the stat is given that 80 percent of U-boat crews were killed. Pair that up with the knowledge of HOW they died, and just imagine yourself as a young Herrenvolk volunteering for that duty.
So many other good ones. But I just depressed myself out of wanting to write anymore.
Hmm…I haven’t given this much thought, mind. But when I saw the title of this thread I immediately thought of “Patton” (great score - great everything!) and “Stalag 17”. So I’ll stick with those for now…
Any entirely, or even mainly, serious war movie gives me the creeping horrors. Organized violence disturbs me. My limit is usually reading about fictional wars.
That said, I’ll go with Bluesman and Maera on “Kelly’s Heroes”.
Gettysburg
Guadalcanal Diary
Run Silent, Run Deep
The Enemy Below
The Dam Busters
Sands of Iwo Jima
Action in the North Atlantic
Battle of Britain (love the score, love the Polish pilots reepeet, plize)
Sink the Bismark
Pork Chop Hill
Guns of Navarone
The Beast
Battle of the Bulge (the perfect war movie for how NOT to make a war movie)
For Whom the Bells Tolls
K. Kelly’s Heroes just for Donald Sutherland’s timeless hippy. The Dirty Dozen for Donald Sutherland’s timeless goof.
And MASH* for perhaps Donald Sutherland’s most intelligent performance ever.
I don’t even particularly like Donald Sutherland…
And a little black and white flick I caught in the afternoon on telly once, Hell is for Heroes. Starred Steve McQueen as the archetypal bloke-who-knows-he-isn’t-going-home-so-may-as-well-die-a-hero. It also featured Bob Newhart for some reason, as a comic-relief jeep driver who crashes nearby. Das Boot remains a classic. And TV-wise, suprisingly, those of us who followed the Blackadder fortunes so willingly for four series were suitably touched by their decision to use the final episode to speak out on war. The laughs slowly disappeared until at the end you were just left with the death.
Airforce
The Dam Busters
Destination Tokyo
The Enemy Below
The Fighting 69th
The Four Feathers
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing
Pride of the Marines
Run Silent, Run Deep
A Walk in the Sun
Most of my faves have been named, but here’s my list anyway:
12 O’clock High
Apocalypse Now
Bridge on the River Kwai
Cross of Iron
Das Boot
Full Metal Jacket
MASH
Paths of Glory
The Bridge at Remagen
The Train
Three Kings
Zulu*
Kelly’s Heroes is a sentimental fave, but a bit reprehensible as a war movie.
Kudos to the poster that mentioned the Beast, as that one seems to have disappeared without a trace. I saw it only once (and dubbed into French at that!) but it knocked me out.
Bluesman, could this be The Bedford Incident, with Richard Widmark?
Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocolypse Now all blew me away in the theater. As did Patton and Green Berets, but I was much younger.
A couple that didn’t get mentioned yet: Aces High Malcolm McDowell as a boozed up WW1 fighter pilot, and The Blue Max with George Peppard as a sober WW1 fighter pilot. The Odd Angry Shot featured a little fire team of Australians in Vietnam. 84 Charlie MoPic had an interesting gimmick to portray the horrors of close combat, and cliche-ridden as it was remains one of the more emotional of the war films I have ever seen. Thin Red Line left me spellbound as well.