War Movies

[Toujours Pret]

There is a picture of filming in progress on this page in which the webmaster asks if anyone can identify individuals in the photo: http://www.armypictorialcenter.com/the_big_picture.htm
Perhaps your father is in the picture?

Those movies of the 40's, 50's and 60's bring back great memories. Some of those actors were friends of mine and some were friends of my dad. My dad was a carrier Army Major who produced "The Big Picture" in Astoria N.Y. next to Manhatten. He was nominated for an Academy Award for a documenmtary of 'The New England Flood'. Oddly, he was beat out of it by our family friend Walt Disney. A great guy. However, I didn't go to any Disney pictures for two years. I was lucky during the Korean War, we lived in Tokoyo Japan, and my dad commuted to the war. Left home Monday morning and returned home Friday evening. My dad was the man who ran the film crew for the Exchange of prisoners at the beginning of the truce. We never have had that war actually end. We are still at war only just in a truce with North Korea. That's real history folks.

 

[dlbleak]

one of my favorites is thirty seconds over tokyo
force ten from navarone
gung ho
and for giggles-father goose

 

[O4L]

A lot of good ones mentioned so far.

How about "Lawrence of Arabia".

 

[cjjtulsa]

I'm sure this was a different guy. He was out of Florida, sold mugs at gun shows, and he and his wife ran Sharkhunter Tours. They would take groups to Germany and tour some famous war related areas, giving folks a little better insight on the situation over there during the war. He was captured on the U-505 that is now on display in Chicago. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago. His wife continued the tours for awhile, but I think someone else has taken that over.

Holy crap would I ever love to do that!

Bridge at Remagen is another decent film from the late 60s.

 

[stuannette]

The Boys in company C
The wild Geese
The Lost batallion

 

[AKguy1985]

Straight into darkness. a kinda of weird WWII B movie.

 

[SoonerP226]

Speaking of great war movies, Stalag 17 is available for pre-order on Blu-Ray at Amazon. I think the release date is October 8th. (And yes, I've already pre-ordered.)

"If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before."

 

[SoonerCowboy]

Here are my favorites not in order:
Saving Private Ryan
Apocalypse Now
Pork Chop Hill
Deer Hunter
Enemy at the Gates
Brest Fortress

 

[SoonerP226]

I just watched an outstanding war movie, one without a single battle scene, that begins and ends with a retirement ceremony: The Gallant Hours, about Fleet Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey at Guadalcanal. It starred James Cagney as Halsey, and was directed by Robert Montgomery, himself a veteran of PT boats in WWII. Montgomery was also one of the movie's two narrators; he did narration when the Americans were on screen (even telling what was about to happen to some of them), and another narrator covered the Japanese side. (The Japanese scenes were filmed in Japanese with no subtitles.)

I don't know about the detailed interpersonal interactions between the figures, but the events appear to dovetail nicely with Hornfischer's Neptune's Inferno, although timeframes are obviously compressed and some details are omitted. It is obvious that Montgomery cared very much about the subject of the film.

An interesting side note is that this move, although it looks like any other commercial disc, is, when ordered from Amazon, burned on demand onto a DVD-R.

 

[AKguy1985]

If you want to get mosinitis watch enemy at the gates.