Top WWII Movies

[flintlock]

Sophie Scholl The Final Days

I just recently had an opportunity to see this fantastic movie. It's one of the best films I've seen yet on the subject.

[jon_j_rambo]

Far as my comments about SPR. Of course the movie is good. Of course the action fighting is incredible (spinoff Band of Brothers from it). There wasn't enough one-liners. The acting was okay. I've watched it twice, just not something I'd watch again, except for the sniper & the opening landing.

I hate seeing the whimp guy not help his fellow soldier. I hate seeing the sniper quoting verses getting waxed. Kind of like the ending of DeerHunter, I'll never watch that part again.

The fighting scenes at the end aren't that realistic. Buntas just keeping walking into enemy position? 12 guys holding off hundreds?

Anyhow, it's good, just not the greatest...thus getting the title "overrated".

[flintlock]

Posted by Blashy:

...battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan

When this movie was originally released, I went to the cinema to see it with a GF. Within a few minutes of watching the beach landings and subsequent chaos, she asked if we could leave.

Women.

[Timskorn]

I didn't like The Thin Red Line when I first saw it in theaters. I was expecting something similar to SPR, and the two couldn't be more different. I remember asking, "Can we get any more shots of birds and leaves?"

It's now become one of my favorite war movies, but not because of "action" scenes, but of the toll it takes on the psychological and moral aspects of a man. Not to mention that it's pretty cool how Malick contrasts the natural world with the destruction caused by a man-made war.

I enjoyed A Midnight Clear. It's not the greatest film but it's one I'd definitely watch again. Another film I liked was When Trumpets Fade (I think that's the name), which was an HBO made movie I believe set around the battle of the Hurtgen Forest. Only seen it once but looking to catch it again.

Got Stalingrad on my Netflix queue.

[Moonslayer]

My top 5:

1) The long and the short and the tall

2) The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel

3) Bridge over the river kwai

4) Tobruk

5) The Dambusters

I could go on but am going to stick with five as the original post asked for.

As regards more recent movies I did like SPR and Pearl Harbour... however in the usual Hollywood style I find the main actors and actresses all to similar in appearance and have trouble identifying who is who (Not really a fault of the film I suppose... more like my ignorance of who these actors are). Film stars these days seem to lack any real 'character' and are all 'beautiful people'... lets have some ugly (Read: normal looking) guys/gals up on the screen again, so muppets like me can tell them apart! ;p

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by flintlock:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> A Bridge Too Far

...it doesn't seem to rate very highly with other people.

Not sure why, it's a wonderful movie! After playing a round or two of Battlefront's Market Garden scenario, I had the urge to watch it again. I seem to enjoy it more each time I watch it. </font>

[Iron Ranger]

Lots of good movies, I like a few made by the eastern nations (USSR mainly I assume) on the list.

For me

1) SPR

2) The Cruel Sea

3) Das Boot (uncut)

4) Patton

5) Kellys Heros

Honable mention to Casablanca, a clasic but just too stiff for pure enjoyment.

[The K Man]

JerseyJohn: Thats funny about Pearl Harbor at the movies. Yeah, the wife really likes the movie (it would be #2 on her list.)

Guess I'm with the majority on A bridge too far. (Not crazy about it)

Flintlock: wow thats tough. Hope you got to see SPR eventually. (Should have waited for Pearl Harbor like JJ.)

JJR: Yeah have to disagree on SPR also. (Same reasons stated.) But I will agree on the point of the wimp guy. Tough to watch him not stand up, then when he finally does shot "the german" he lets a bunch of others run away (oh, here we go again.) Isn't that what got him in the first predictament to begin with. On Das Boot, doesn't it have the english voice overs, so you can skip the sub titles?

I see Tigerland in the $5 bins. (Never seen the movie.) Is it any good?

[jon_j_rambo]

Yes, I did like Bridge Too Far, bought it on DVD years ago. Nice cast, solid action, got some history...liked the accents of the Brits & Buntas. Even had Gene Hackman as a Polish paratroop leader.

I liked Battle of the Bulge, but never bought it, nor would watch it again. Gotta love that Sgt. Guffy,"Come I'm waiting for you. Give off my tank! He can still fight! We'll ram it!". Col. Hessler played by Robert Shaw. US commanders Robert Ryan & Henry Fonda. Charles Bronson,"Here's an idea, lets blow up every bridge, and leave them a few buffalo, and let the Buntas start over like us"... CLASSIC line.

I also like "Operation Burma", with the Legend, Errol Flynn! Fighting those monkeys!

[realdeal]

Anzio,Guns of Navarone and The big red one were also good movies.

[jon_j_rambo]

Das Boat must be a Bunta thing. I have trouble with movies about the enemy. My Uncle was on a destroyer sunk by those bastards, so really not my cup of tea.

[Lars]

Das Boot is probably the best naval flick out there Rambo.

But try reading the book, it's waaaay better.

[Lars]

Originally posted by flintlock:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Posted by Blashy:

...battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan

When this movie was originally released, I went to the cinema to see it with a GF. Within a few minutes of watching the beach landings and subsequent chaos, she asked if we could leave.

Women. </font>

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by The K Man:

JerseyJohn: Thats funny about Pearl Harbor at the movies. Yeah, the wife really likes the movie (it would be #2 on her list.)

Guess I'm with the majority on A bridge too far. (Not crazy about it)

...

The great part was that theater seemed to be all middle-aged married couples and from the middle of the movie on it became a sort of James Thurber (The War Between Men and Women) scene with all the husbands laughing and all the wives crying. When it got to Doolittle's Raid one of the guys said, "Wake me up when they're in Nam." The lights came on and all the women were teary eyed and all the husbands were looking at one another, still laughing and joking about the movie. It really was the most fun night I've ever had watching a film.

With A Bridge Too Far, I didn't care very much for it the first time I saw the movie on cable. Later I bought the movie on DVD in a clearance bin and was surprised when I found myself really enjoying it. I think they did a great job in representing all the different nationalities of both sides. The scene where the Dutch boy is killed by a stray bullet and his father carries the corpse home really packs a wallup.

The Bridge at Remagan is a very similar movie to me but not as effective. In both movies the Germans are shown in a very sympathetic light but not overly so. The ending with the German major, very well played by Robert Vaughn, being shot by an SS firing squad because he failed to blow up the bridge, was a very good scene. There were many good scenes in the movie but somehow it doesn't quite make its way to the top ten or twenty. Only my opinion, of course, but we don't see it mentioned much in lists like this one.

[n0kn0k]

Saving Private Ryan was actually playing upside down for us

We got asked to leave and got our money back.

[JerseyJohn]

That's strange. I used to manage a movie theater in the early 70s, back when the projecting machine used a stick that lit very brightly and being a projectionist was a well paying but unhealthy job -- all the ones I knew developed cancer by the time they were sixty or so. I understand that since then the whole operation has changed and now they use a very bright bulb, wonder if they still use the old fashioned reels or if the films are shown on some sort of casette? If that's the case, and it were set wrong, I can see how they'd be unable to make it right in the theater.

-- There was an incident at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials where the concentration camp film was running upside down and Goering turned it into a joke. It was straightened out and run the right way. When it ended he wasn't joking, he was wiping his forehead with a handkerchief and looking at the floor, his face pale and the other defendants looking pretty much the same way. I'm sure they all knew about the death camps but that was probably the first time any of them had a glimpse of what was going on inside of them. I'd like to think their tears were from shock, but more likely it was because the film brought home the gravity of the crimes they were being charged with, and also that they really were looking at the gallows.

[jon_j_rambo]

Hey, another great movie! "Nuremberg". Wilhiem Kempler (Col. Klink of Hogan's Heroes was in it

And of course, the great Burt Lancaster.

[JerseyJohn]

Nice call, I forgot all about that one. A great flick! :cool:

[flintlock]

Yeah, I too enjoyed Judgment at Nuremberg.

Fairly recently I watched Soderbergh's The Good German (Clooney, Blanchett). It's not a film about the Nuremberg trials, though it was filmed in black and white and used older techniques and equipment to try and capture the look of older films. While I appreciate the concept behind the directors approach in attempting to capture the feel of WWII films from a bygone era, the film itself was terrible.

[JerseyJohn]

A lot of WWII films that could have been filmed in color were filmed in B&W to incorporate newsreel footage without having the viewer being jolted back and forth.

[flintlock]

That makes sense. Especially in light of some earlier films not having the budget or computer technology available to today's directors for special effects and other technological wizardry.

[JerseyJohn]

And it's always good seeing that old stock footage. :cool:

I get a kick out of documentaries that do things like showing the famous footage of King Tigers being reviewed by Peiper prior to the Ardennes Offensive 1944, but the narration is about the invasion of Poland, 1939! :confused:

[The K Man]

Speaking of footage and the king tigers in the Ardennes, does it bother you when these movies are made, and they use tanks from the Vietnam, Korean wars, etc.

For example, The Battle of the Bulge, if I remember correctly, those are not King Tigers in the movie. Some movies, you see Germans using the UK machine guns. Its kinda an annoyance of mine. The series combat was the same way. (I do still like watching them though.)

It would kill me, because then I watch a movie like Kellys Hero's which is basicly a comedy, and they were able to get the vehicles (tigers, shermans) and equipment right.

[JerseyJohn]

It always drives me up a wall.

Most of the worst offenders were made during the sixties and, as in the Battle of the Bulge (filmed in Spain, without real snow ) they'd do something like use one kind of US tank for the Americans and a heavier model US tank for the Germans. Yeah, right, really convincing. In Patton the American and German tanks are the same models with different markings. In Kelly's Heroes they were probably only able to pull that off because they only needed a few of them, two tigers and one Sherman. I remember reading in 1970 that the movie Catch 22 was using all the B-25s that were still capable of flying.

I guess it isn't much of an issue now with computer special effects and also there are specialty companies that make great replicas out of lighter materials, I guess plastic and aluminum.

There was a Kurt Vonnegutt TV interview when Slaughterhouse Five first came out and he said he loved it because everything was authentic. It was filmed in Romania, I believe, and they'd just kept all the hardware, weapons and uniforms that the Germans left behind, more than enough to fill a screen with the real tanks and artillery pieces depicted in the movie. -- Now there's a flick nobody ever mentions; then again, it doesn't seem like a legitimate war movie.

In documentaries I can understand slight inacurracies in things like tanks and aircraft, but gross mistakes are a real turnoff. The most common type is showing Tiger I's and Panthers as they're talking about the early days of Barbarossa and Stalingrad. I've even read a few novels that were very good otherwise but place panthers and tigers in action long before they entered service.

-- Also, there was one novel where I actually wrote to the author. It wasn't a bad story but he kept talking about the Graf Spee's 16" main guns. :eek: Sorry, they were only 11", like the Scharnhorst and Gneisnau, and even the Bismarck and Tirpitz only had 15" main guns. He wrote back, a very pleasant thank you note saying his wife had let him down in the proof reading.

[jon_j_rambo]

Ah, the actual fake tanks & snow doesn't bother me. What bothers me is reshowing the same explosion. Thing I noticed that in Patton.