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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.
Which one? Raiders, and Last Crusade qualify IMO since the pre-1939 actions of Italy, Germany, and Japan were precursors to the invasion of Poland.
Okay, this is also a great choice I wish I’d made. Man, I love this movie so much. We quote it all the time around here.
It also has one of those “trap” scenes, where you can’t wait to show your kids a movie you absolutely loved, and you know they’ll love, and it’s rated PG-so-what-could-go-wrong, but you forgot about the obscene and embarrassing 2-minute segment that you would never, ever choose to watch with your children in the room. My son is now an adult and probably still hasn’t recovered from the trauma of one particular scene involving a, shall we say, exaggerated bedroom appliance. It’s not all cows with boots and underwater brawls, as you may remember it.
Darn, that got taken. I’ll go with Where Eagles Dare as my official answer. I always get a rise when Clint Eastwood steps out with a machine gun in each hand mowing down Nazis. My wife gets a rise when Clint Eastwood is on the screen, not to mention Richard Burton . . .
12 O’Clock High with Gregory Peck. It’s a wonderful WWII movie (and I know more about this than I should, because war movies are my chick flicks, they are the genre I inevitable turn to when I’m sad or ill), that combines entertainment and emotion. In particular, the relationship between the commanding officers of the 918th Bomb Group, which sparkles with a range of feelings, from humor and affection to tension and resentment, keeps you glued to the screen. The comic relief is perfectly timed, and only heightens the intense pathos that the film conveys instead of devolving into corniness, and the deepening relationships between the soldiers makes the movie intensely watchable. Major Harvey Stovall (played by Dean Jagger), in particular gives a grounded humanity to the picture, expressing very comprehensible loyalties and affections, but also possessing a special talent for reading others’ motives and intentions and shamelessly mothering both his commanders and subordinates. It’s the kind of movie that’s so well written, with such human and deeply felt interactions, that you leave wanting more. And the best part is that the movie is all based on the screen writers’ real experiences, and friends, fighting the war.
Official Answer
I saw that movie for the first time this year (I’m 20, so a little late), and enjoyed it more than I expected, although Indie is a bit improbably talented as an academic. (We have the same glasses, so I could forgive). The only big issue with the film for me is that the main Nazi chasing him in the film sounds exactly like, and looks very similar to, my German lecturer on medieval and early modern banking and finance. He’s a sweater vest loving sweetheart who gets ecstatically excited about Carolingian coinage and 15th century bullion famines, so it added an element of the ridiculous to the character for me and made it a bit more amusing than it should have been when he would go off on a tangent about how extraordinary Germany was in some field of banking or credit. Especially because the more excited he is, the less comprehensible his English gets. Most sentences always end with “Ja?“
It’s not a WWII movie, but I always thought Richard Burton was quite good in The Wild Geese, which seems like a relatively little known one his pictures, especially considering all of the big names in the cast. It’s interesting to see the different portrayals of war, going from the WWII films where it is a noble pursuit of stamping out the enemies of free society, to the ’60s and ’70s flicks where it becomes an expression of colonial greed or a financial pursuit. The Wild Geese kind of bridges the gap, with the soldiers for hire beginning their fight for the money and continuing it in the name of idealism (especially compelling because the soldiers in questions are of the age to have fought in WWII). I probably also have an intense memory of that movie because I watched it on a random Friday night during high school, and my parents happened to come in (and subsequently ask what in the hell was I watching), when the campishly gay doctor started making really inappropriate jokes during a training scene. Didn’t exactly have a great excuse for my parents as to why I was watching that movie to begin with, with my younger sister no less. (Also, Mrs. Stad has great taste).
Is it set during World War II? I remember the parody of the Great Escape motorcycle jump, Nazi uniforms, and French Resistance, but I thought it was set in East Germany. I felt Nick (My father cut himself shaving) was a parody of Elvis and the movie took place during the 1950s or 1960s.
Oh yeah – you’re right, it was after the war. There was even a parody of the E German women’s Olympic team.
Future contest: Best movie of the Cold War (or about the Cold War).
One of my favorites is actually a made-for-TV movie, The Scarlet and the Black, with Gregory Peck and Christopher Plummer.
If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about real life priest, Hugh O’Flaherty and his nemesis, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Kappler, Head of the Gestapo in Rome. Monsignor O’Flaherty rescued over 6,500 people, including servicemen, right under Kappler’s nose. The Vatican was considered neutral and the Germans ever drew a border around it to make their point! I highly recommend it!
Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, Hannes Messemer, David McCallum, Gordon Jackson, and more.
Dragged back to the POW camp, McQueen asks the Kommandant (himself now bound for the Russian Front) about the retaken prisoners: “How many were wounded?”
The Kommandant: “. . . none . . .”
Great question as there are so many to choose from. My favorites by service are:
Army: Patton (very good despite Gen. Bradley, who apparently did not get along well with Patton, being a technical advisor)
To Hell and Back (true story of Audie Murphy, starring Audie Murphy)
Sahara (American tank crew fighting the Afrika Korps with a scratch unit of British, Sengalese, etc., soldiers. Stars Humphrey Bogart)
Navy: The Caine Mutiny (superb cast with a compelling story with a loose basis in history. Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, and Jose Ferrer star. Points off for the requisite & distracting love subplot).
Das Boot (Not OUR Navy, but probably best WW II sub movie)
Air Force: 12 O’Clock High (exceptional study in leadership, exciting from start to finish despite not a lot of combat sequences. The scene in which Dean Jagger visits his old airfield after the war that serves as a transition to the main story is absolutely spell binding.)
USMC: The Sands of Iwo Jima (Great combat scenes without all the modern CGI. Real life Marine Corps leaders, as well as the surviving flag raisers, served as technical advisors and had minor roles. Contains the line which has served as a guiding principle in my life – “Life is tough, but it’s tougher if you’re stupid.”)
Civilian: Casablanca (classic movie with some of the best lines in Hollywood history. Humphrey Bogart again)
My vote? It comes down to The Caine Mutiny and 12 O’Clock High as both are riveting studies in leadership. But, The Caine Mutiny lost points for Willie and May’s love story.
So, 12 O’Clock High is my choice. Final answer.
Biloxi Blues – official answer
I never read the play but I think the movie does a good job nailing a feel for time, place, and personality. Matthew Broderick is great as are most of the rest of the cast.
Not everyone is Eastwood’s Lt Kelly or a Steve McQueen with his unbreakable American spirit. I imagine a lot of guys were like Matthew Briderick’s Private Eugene Morrus Jerome. Maybe he’s not heroic, but he did his duty just the same, and it’s entertaining all the way through.
I think my favorite scene in 12 O’Clock High is when the unit returns from one of their first missions under Savage’s command, and it turns out that Harvey (Jagger), Doc Kaiser (Paul Stewart), and Father Twombley (Lawrence Dobkin) have all stowed away on various planes to participate. It’s a funny moment, but also sweet and emotional, in Savage’s (and the young pilots’) concern for the three men, and the reminder that, although they don’t engage in active combat or at least weren’t supposed to, they are just as courageous as all of the others.
Raiders would be my official answer.
Hey…wait a minute, @vinceguerra – that picture is from Strategic Air Command, which is post WWII. Still a good movie, though. I’m a two time SAC alumnus, 321 SMW and 1 CEVG.
Kelly’s Heroes is awful. Just terrible and dated and cringeworthy. I saw it a while back on TCM and it was embarrassing. Negative waves?? Hey, what if WWII were fought by hippies? Yuck.
My top 3 answers are already taken so I’ll go with Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. It fits my bill of entertaining because I am all about Tarantino’s over-the-top style.
Special mention: The Dam Busters
Here’s one I like, a French movie about a sculptor: The Artist and the Model.
It has the best explanation of a sketch by Rembrandt that you’ll ever see in a movie, and lots of scenes of a girl posing naked. Also a great performance by Jean Rochefort, an actor well known in France by who I knew only from Mr. Bean’s Holiday.
I’m glad I’m mot the only one who thinks this. I couldn’t get through it.
I knew someone would point this out. I try to always post a graphic that’s related (B-29’s, Jimmy Stewart) but won’t itself influence an answer.
Again with the negative vibes!!!
**throws flag**
Sorry, @kirkianwanderer already chose that with comment #34.
FWIW Clint Eastwood was very disappointed in the final cut of Kelly’s Heroes. He said that it could have been the greatest war movie ever made, but that it was edited so poorly cutting out many vital scenes that it ruined the movie.
Enemy at the Gates. Soviets and Nazis killing each other, a win-win!
That’s a joke.
The Longest Day. An all-star cast, superb cinematography, historically sound, and it has one of the best single-take arial shots of the era:
Can’t believe this one made it through 56 comments.
Hi @kirkianwanderer
That is truly a great film.
Some years ago I read a book (The Bomber War, by Robin Neilands).
It recounted in painful detail the struggle of the RAF to build and then maintain an effective strategic bombing force to try, first to eliminate the need for a second land war in Europe, or failing that, to shorten the war.
I say painful also in a personal sense because one of my uncles was killed whilst flying a hopelessly outmatched RAF Hurricane against Japanese Zeros in the Burma theater, and also because Mum, who served in the WAAF, towards the end of of her life started to tell her story.
“12 O’CLOCK.HIGH” resonates with me. I’m told by my best friend’s dad (Royal Canadian Air Force, 1943-45) that it captures the fear, the fatigue, the utter exhaustion of Allied air crews. The two truly shocking truths in Neiland’s book for me were:
1) How cruelly airmen who refused to fly again were treated. What we now understand as PTSD and utter exhaustion was then branded as “lack of moral fiber”. In other words, cowardice.
2) How cruelly Sir Arthur Harris (head of Bomber Command) was treated after the Dresden raid. A raid requested by the Soviets and sanctioned by Churchill.
So, sobering and gut wrenching yes. Entertaining not so much.
Always enjoy your posts.
War movies aren’t my jam, but I’ll nominate Bridge on the River Kwai since it’s still available. Gorgeous to look at, riveting from start to finish (even clocking in at 161 minutes!), plenty of moments of humor, drama, and excitement. Final answer.