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 ...
Found this: Willi Heinrich CRACK OF DOOM. NY: Farrar Straus, 1958. Novel of Germans fighting Czech partisans. 313 pp.
and: Willi Heinrich is the author of a number of books, including Crack of Doom; The Cross of Iron; and, The Lonely Conqueror.
Under Cross of Iron's writing credits it lists "Willi Heinrich novel The Willing Flesh"
I must say I am not familiar with Crack of Doom but it seems to be one to read if you can find a copy.
I'm guessing you have already been zapped for this, but how can you not have "We Were Soldiers" On that list?!?
I would have to add " Master and Commander".
OHH!!!!!! I FORGOT THAT ONE!!! EXCELLENT!
Being a navy guy, that one was spot on, albeit british.
Well... I found that lost Operations Manual and I've knocked back a few martinis reading it. It says the first thing to do is compliment what you know about the Motleygirl70...So, I went to your FR Homepage and...
I like... 
Your lashes... 
Your cat... 
And your Nun suit...
The Manual says to wait for your reaction...
I'd bunk in for a long wait, if I were you, #2...
Great minds run alike, eh? Pull up a chair. Bender, get the Colonel a martini and a cigar?
May need to watch that one tonight. I've got it on DVD.
***I really liked the Alamo scenes in "Davy Crockett" as played by Fess Parker. Remember Georgie Russell and "busted luck"?****
I saw it at the theater in 1955. I remember two scenes that have been cut out of the film today.
When Davy meets Thimblerig, he is talked into playing the thimbles. When Davy chooses the middle thimble with the pea, he quickly grabs the two outside thimbles and turns them over showing there are no peas under them.
When Jim Bowie is moved into a more secure room one of the Mexican defenders there points to a statue of the Madonna and says she will protect Jim.
Well, my main intent was to list war films made before 1970 for our younger FReepers.
Yes, they've mentioned We Were Soldiers saveral times plus other he missed! They've beat #2's skin till it won't hold shucks!
And I've enjoyed ever minute of it!
Click here.
That's the one I was referring too. I was pretty sure that Kirst wrote Cross of Iron too and now you have confirmed it.
This is certainly one of the most interesting (and amusing) threads I've participated in for quite a while.
Well, you may be only 58 and I'm 54 (even though my wife thinks I'm 85) and I figgered you must have had something to do with WWII history and films based on the details you provided.
I read a lot of history and watch a lot of films (older, good quality films) but you've probably forgotten more than I ever knew about these things. This is what makes FR interesting!
I remember those scenes myself. Didn't know they had been removed from later releases.
Remember "busted luck", the indian? He never spoke a word and they used sign language to talk to him. I think Davy's buddy Georgie Russell did the signing. Been a long time.
His fight with Chuck Heston is one of the best on film...
I'm sure Chuck pulled his punches cause we all know Heston would break Peck's liberal worthless hide in two!
Sorta makes me feel a little guilty to enjoy Ted Turner's old movies so much. But when I compare most of them to Hollywood today, I don't feel quite so bad.
What I hope is forgotten is that time the cute little blonde coed dropped her...
Well, there are things better left to the imagination and thanks for saying I "may be only 58" as I feel much younger. Especially when the coeds are...
Aww Hummmmm... Back to the films, boys. Move along!
Interesting tidbit. But it still has plenty of lefty undertones to it. Coincidence or otherwise.
Agreed, it does highlight the "dark side" of man, but I also view it through the eyes of someone looking at it from the more "exceptional" side of human darkness instead of the far more common side of human darkness, namely blatant everyday variety evil.
I.e., it seems to me that its view is one of "evil" necessarily going hand-in-hand with insanity for example. Clearly that's not necessarily the case. Yet that's Martin Sheen's quest throughout the entire movie, what the Colonel's motivation (or whatever) was. He comes to a conclusion, IMO, that essentially falls far short of any basis in the evil that exists throughout humanity as a result of sin.
I take my hat off to you, sir! I remember seeing the film on the Disney TV show circa 1955 when I was seven, but where I can recall the bolt of cloth, you can remember the weave and texture!
I applaud you, sir. George! Give Senior de Bivar a salute!
With my compliments, sir! 
Knock it off, Bender! That's going too far! 
An Interview with John Milius is worth the long read if you want...
Any war movie made before 1955 is better than any of these new ones.
MILIUS: They don't learn. They can't – all they're learning ... their job is to keep their job. It has nothing to do with making good movies. See, we hopefully, filmmakers who are dedicated – the real filmmakers – I think are willing to die to make a good film, what they think is a good film. Once they've made that decision that this is the film, this is the way this film should be, they're willing to die out there. They're willing to put their life, risk everything – and a great example of that is Francis Coppola. He said, "I'll stay here, in the Philippines, I'll do whatever it takes. I'll go mad, I'll do anything, because this is my job and life is to make this film. This is what I'm supposed to do. It doesn't matter – if I die out here, then John will come and replace me. If he dies, then George will come and replace him. If George dies, we'll get Ken Russell."
That's very interesting! On a tangent, schools today aren't set up to teach people to "learn." They're taught to acquire knowledge, not learn to reason, think, and work things out. For the most part.
Is there a particular part of that interview that is pertinent? It is a loooooong read and they do that thing with the pages to maximize the "page views" for revenue purposes. I don't care for that. Anyway, if there's a spot that you think relates, I'd love to read it.
Ted Turner just owns them physically, the liberal old smuck had not one thing to do with their production...
And I thank the Sweet Lord for that!
BTW to give the devil his dues, old Ted did bankroll Gettysburg (1993) and Gods and Generals (2003) so maybe those two efforts will shave a few months off his forthcoming thousand year term in purgatory...
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