Well, I tell ya, cheese, with humor like that, don't expect warm regards from those Tar Heels when you get down Carolina way...
Posted on 02/08/2006 7:32:44 PM PST by Bender2
Channel 4 brings you the results of the 100 Greatest War Films of all time, as voted for you.
1. Saving Private Ryan, 1998 The first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan is a visual assault, acclaimed as one of cinema's most accurate realisations of warfare. Capt John Miller (Tom Hanks) is among the US troops storming Omaha Beach on D-Day. Thereafter, you follow this everyman soldier on a humanitarian military mission to rescue the surviving brother of three soldiers killed in the same week. Spielberg crafts a shocking and moving illustration of the Second World War.
2. Apocalypse Now, 1979 Francis Ford Coppola's epic hallucination of the Vietnam War, in which Martin Sheen journeys through Vietnam and Cambodia to terminate a flipped-out renegade US colonel played by Marlon Brando. The shoot was notoriously troubled, but the result is a war movie unlike any other: a spectacular opera, a straightforward plot blown up by rampant imagination, and a deft comment on America's Vietnam folly.
(Excerpt) Read more at channel4.com ...
Repeating my post 157:
"First, do you mean SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Main Security Office, and Reich governor of Bohemia and Moravia? BTW his genetic (and suspected Jewish) grandfather was named Reinhold Heydrich? Yes, The Night of the Generals (1967) was a good film, but I believe they used SS Oberst Jochen Peiper as the model for O'Toole's general. He was referred to by his men as "Blowtorch Peiper" for his unforgiving. no mercy assaults in Russia, Italy and the Bulge.
"Peiper was also the 'hard as the steel of our tanks' role model for Robert Shaw's Col. Martin Hessler in Battle of the Bulge (1965)."
Source Paul Dehn (Screenwriter 'Generals') and Bernard Gordon (front Philip Yordan: One of the writers on 'Bulge') in a screenwriters seminar in Hollywood circa 1971... I was in the audience and seem to recall both citing Peiper as their bastard model.
BTW Jochen Peiper was charged in the Boves POW Massacre during the Bulge, but was never prosecuted. I believe he later moved to France and tried to live out of sight, but former Communist French Underground members outed him. I seem to remember he was killed under mysterious circumstance and his house burned to the ground in 1976...
"It has NOTHING to do with Vietnam"
Actually, you are wrong in this regard. Modern day (at the time the movie was being developed) was reflected in the movie in that our military was fighting with one hand behind our backs, and one hand tied in DC. Col. Kurtz reflected what behavior was required to succeed in Vietnam but the US was too weak, or weary, to accomplish it. "If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral...and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling."
But instead in Vietnam, we had the exchange between Willard and the soldier in the trench: "Hey soldier, do you know whose in command here?" Soldier: "Aint you?"
Great lines throughout. My navy buddies and eye used to watch the movie over a few beers, and recite the lines.
I saw a double-feature with "Hell is for Heroes" and "Paratroop Command" when these movies first came out. Must have been around 1961 or so. I remember something about a Nazi on a motorcycle and a burning haystack. I think the dead Nazi's back was on fire too. Something like that. Steve McQueen.
From Reinhard Heydrich since I don't have my books handy:
"Since Heydrich's death, historical evidence has come to light that Heydrich may very well have had a Jewish grandparent and that this fact was known to high Nazi leaders including Hitler and Himmler. Under the Nuremberg Laws, Heydrich would have been classified as "a person of mixed Jewish blood in the second degree", meaning he had one pure German and one half Jewish parent. Heydrich would not have been subject to anti-Semitic laws, but would have been expelled from the SS as being non-Aryan.
"The most compelling evidence of Heydrich's Jewish ancestry is the testimony of Walter Schellenberg who stated, in the 1950s, that Heinrich Himmler had held a private meeting with Heydrich in 1935, after learning that one of Heydrich's relatives had held the surname of "Süss", a common Jewish name. According to Schellenberg, Heydrich admitted that one of his grandparents was Jewish and Himmler had reportedly informed Hitler. Hitler, however, stated Heydrich was a special case since "his Aryan blood far suppressed his Jewish heritage". Shortly thereafter, Gestapo personnel were dispatched to Halle, where Heydrich had been born, to erase certain records of Heydrich's past. Rumours arose that this included the destruction of tombstones, but this is unconfirmed.
"It was not long before other Nazis had heard insinuations that Heydrich might have had a Jewish relative in his background. Dr. Achim Gercke, the Nazi Party's leading genealogist, was commissioned by Gregor Strasser after a Nazi official, Rudolf Jordan, revealed the grandfather to Party Headquarters in 1932. Gercke claimed research that not only was the Süss in question, a locksmith, not even a Jew, but that he wasn't even Heydrich's genetic grandfather, whose name was Reinhold Heydrich. Also of note is that the investigation was concluded in the summer of 1932, rather than 1935.
"The accuracy of both Schellenberg's and Gercke's testimonies are today still debated among historians. Some works on Heydrich have thus far dispelled the story as a rumour. The assertion is also routinely denied by neo-Nazis. However, it is widely accepted that Heydrich did believe the claims at least enough to try and make up for it by even greater devotion to the Nazi cause."
Well, old Reinhard's remains have been run and rerun through so many worms that the truth is hard to find...
Interestingly, to me, the only top Nazi who may well have been half Jewish [under Nazi theory], and who is never accused of it, is Hermann Goering. Goering's mother was the mistress for many years, before and after Hermann's birth , of Ritter Hermann von Epenstein, a doctor who was half Jewish. He grew up in a castle von Epenstein owned, and where his cuckolded father lived aliong with his mother, her lover and Hermann and his siblings.
Well, I tell ya, cheese, with humor like that, don't expect warm regards from those Tar Heels when you get down Carolina way...
It makes Mel Brooks' The Producers & To Be or Not to Be all the more sweet revenge!
Springtime for who? 
Say, Tulsa, you must have been with that Navy unit over in Picksley... Didn't they get busted for eating corn without removing the husks?
Why are you damning the Fuzzywuzzies? They are delicious with some favor beans and a nice ciante!
Aren't they!
Heyworth? Put down the Fuzzywuzzies and step away from the counter!
***Excellent catch on "Threads", tcrlaf! ***
I'm surprised more folks here haven't seen it? It sells for over $100 bucks on Amazon!
"The Day After" is the TONED-DOWN VERSION of this movie, because it was felt American Audiences could not handle the reality of it all. If that was considered "Too Harsh" then, imagine the furor if you tried to make it today??
I FIRMLY believe Americans should see the REALITY of things, most especially 9/11. The film of screaming AMERICANS going splat on the sidewalk should be shown every hour, of every day, on every station, to remind folks of why we are fighting the bad guys.......
BTW Audie Murphy did not want to star in To Hell and Back. He thought the public wouldn't buy him in the role and felt Tony Curtis would be better. As much as I like Tony Curtis (And envy his sleeping with Janet Leigh! The lucky bum!) there is no way anyone could have done better than Audie did!
Knowing Hollywood's current MO, we may see Brad Pitt in a new version called To Hell and Brokeback!
Tony always seemed so feminine to me. he wouldn't have done Audey proud. No pun intended. ANd ditto on Janet Leigh.
Bump
;)
You have good taste in movies too :)
LOL. Maybe I should have been more clear. I meant "The Eye."
Actually,
Mel has had a few runs at military movies:
The Sullivans (tv)
Gallipoli
Braveheart
The Patriot
We were Soldiers
Drats! Nailed again!
Yes, Sink the Bismarck! (1960) more than deserved to be on my list... So....
Everybody sing!
In May of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun
The Germans had the biggest ship that had the biggest guns
The Bismark was the fastest ship that ever sailed the seas
On her deck were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees
Out of the cold and foggy night came the British ship the Hood
And evry British seaman, he knew and understood
They had to sink the Bismark, the terror of the sea
Stop those guns as big as steers and those shells as big as trees
We'll find that German battleship thats makin' such a fuss
We gotta sink the Bismark 'cause the world depends on us
Hit the decks a-runnin' boys and spin those guns around
When we find the Bismark we gotta cut her down
The Hood found the Bismark and on that fatal day
The Bismark started firin' fifteen miles away
We gotta sink the Bismark was the battle sound
But when the smoke had cleared away
The mighty Hood went down
For six long days and weary nights they tried to find her trail
Churchill told the people "Put ev'ry ship a-sail"
'Cause somewhere on that ocean I know she's gotta be
We gotta sink the Bismark to the bottom of the sea
We'll find that German battleship thats makin' such a fuss
We gotta sink the Bismark 'cause the world depends on us
Hit the decks a-runnin' boys and spin those guns around
When we find the Bismark we gotta cut her down
The fog was gone on the seventh day and they saw the mornin' sun
Ten hours away from homeland the Bismark made its' run
The admiral of the British fleet said "Turn those bows around"
We found that German battleship and we're gonna cut her down
The British guns were aimed and the shells were comin' fast
The first shell hit the Bismark, they knew she couldn't last
That mighty German battleship is just a memory
"Sink the Bismark" was the battle cry that shook the seven seas
We found that German battleship was makin' such a fuss
We had to sink the Bismark 'cause the world depends on us
We hit the decks a-runnin' and we spun those guns around
Yeah, we found the mighty Bismark and then we cut her down
Okay, dismissed! Smoke 'em if you got 'em...
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