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Ricochet Movie Fight Club: Week 15
According to Miffed White Male, the quintessential American movie was The Right Stuff. Enough of you agreed to give him the win, and the right to ask: What’s the most entertaining movie set during WWII?
The Rules:
- Post your answer as a comment. Make it clear that this is your official answer, one per member.
- Defend your answer in the comments and fight it out with other Ricochet member answers for the rest of the week.
- Whoever gets the most likes on their official answer comment (and only that comment) by Friday night wins the fight.
- The winner gets the honor of posting the next question on Saturday.
- In the case of a tie, the member who posted the question will decide the winner.
Notes:
- Only movies will qualify (no TV shows) however films that air on television (BBC films, a stand-alone mini-series) will qualify.
- Your answer can be as off-the-wall or controversial as you’d like. It will be up to you to defend it and win people to your side.
- Fight it out.
The Dirty Dozen, official answer. It has a little bit of everything and it is ceaselessly ENTERTAINING: funny, full of action, great actors who know how to bring their characters to life, and a plot that drives the whole thing without slowing down the pace.
Casablanca. Official answer.
Now, you may be saying, sure, it’s a great movie, but entertaining? Yes, Rick’s relationships with “Frenchie” and Sam are great entertainment. Who can forget Frenchie’s “shock” over finding gambling going on? It has so many memorable moments and is 102 minutes well spent.
Mister Roberts
Official answer.
I may have to give A League Of Their Own it’s due. I’m sure better movies will be offered, but it’s tough to beat entertainment-wise.
Not my final answer….
not yet anyway.Never mind. I got my final answer below.Kelly’s Heroes
official answer
Eastwood, Sutherland, Rickles, Savalas, MacLeod, Margolin, Stanton, O’Connor
Pure gold from start to finish.
Sutherland was in this and MASH the same year!
Dang it. I am voting for you while slapping my forehead for passing it up. I don’t know if you’ll win, but this would have been my answer – I just immediately went to more obvious “war” movies in my head.
My nomination, and therefore inevitably correct and indisputable is………..
Kelly’s Heroes… Mordant humor, with echoes of spaghetti westerns and gunslinger movies. Also introduces some hippy-type characters, unlikely for WW2 but still quite funny. Clint Eastwood as Kelly. What’s not to like?
Captain America the First Avenger Official Answer
So very quotable. One of my favorites (use it nearly every day at work):
I thought the same about yours and @sisyphus‘ entry.
It’s more entertaining than Casablanca, nowhere near as good, but more entertaining.
The great escape. Official answer
Not only a very entertaining movie in its own right, but made even better knowing it’s based on a true story (although extreme liberties were taken)
I see what you did there
😜
A great movie, with some depth to it. William Powell’s (my favorite actor) final movie role.
There are three contenders, two previously mentioned: Kelly’s Heroes and Dirty Dozen. These are worthy and entertaining, but not as worthy or entertaining as The Guns of Navarone (official answer).
An amazing production with great scenery, considerable star power, and thrills.
Fabulous score by Dimitri Tiomkin (Yes, scores matter regarding “entertaining”)
Plus Gia Scala.
And, like others mentioned above, it’s an actual war movie, not some weasely “set during the years of WWII” movie.
I think my final answer is gonna be Patton.
Trump won the Presidency by understanding the rules. It wasn’t the highest popular vote, but the Electoral College that matters. Miffed asked the question as he did. Don’t try to remake it in your own image.
That’s not a remaking of the question. It’s a preemptive strike.
Bogie, Bergman, Henreid, Rains, Veidt, Lorre, Greenstreet, Dooley Wilson in a classic for the ages. This will hinge on how voters define entertaining, and whether WWII is the war or the home front. The script was read by the studio off the stack on December 8th, 1941 and was green lit two weeks later.
Doesn’t have to be a war movie, heck even The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe would qualify.
That one was inadvertent, but thanks for pointing it out. I like Eliot, too.
Kelly’s Heroes (from IMDB Trivia):
The tradition of white communist agitators egging on black militants goes way back.
Top Secret! Final answer.
Now don’t get me wrong. Casablanca is every bit the masterpiece everyone says it is, unlike Citizen Kane, or 2001: A Space Odyssey (that’s right, I said it) but there is that long drawn out Paris sequence that finds me heading to the kitchen to fix a snack, not bothering to hit pause.
In order to be the “most entertaining” I think it needs to hold the attention of most viewers throughout.
Too bad that The Final Countdown was not a better film.
Yes, but the train going into the tunnel…that’s entertainment!
So Kiefer’s long run as an anti-terror officer versus mom sponsoring terror. I’m sure there’s a story in there somewhere.
“Catch-22” was SAC (Strategic Air Command (bombers – post WWII)) de rigor, but my favorite was “Patton.”
It ALMOST is WWII era, but definitely Hitler era – Indiana Jones.
I like the Africa setting during the World Wars. There’s still a romanticism there.