Favorite Military Movies

The Washington Times ^ | Oct. 10, 2003 | John McCaslin, Inside the Beltway

[SBprone]

"How about: "A Bridge Too Far," "Platoon," "Zulu," "The Great Escape," "Paths of Glory," "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Das Boot," "Gallipoli." "

Liked all of those except for Oliver Stone's "Platoon."

Zulu is one cornball movie that I still love. I thought all those Welsh sappers singing as they built their breastworks was b.s. until I read Joe Galloway's book about Ia Drang. He described Rick Rescorla leading his boys singing "Men of Harlech" while waiting for the NVA to arrive.

One of the very best if you haven't seen it yet is a no-budget film "54 Charlie Mopic." It's an ant's eye-view of Vietnam-style long range hit an run. A small thriller.

[SBprone]

It took 25 posts to find another fan of "BREAKER MORANT"

"Shoot straight you bastards! Don't make a mess of it!"

[archy]

Here is a picture of the football game ... And a picture from the Potsdam conference. ... .

This guy's name is Wolfgang and I believe he is the former mayor of Potsdam. He was an amateur photographer and did all of my Father's film processing.

This is Fritz and Ingrid, two kids Daddy fed. The boy was responsible for my Father having a Luger pistol. Daddy simply asked him one day if he could get him a Luger. The kid took off and returned a couple of hours later with a bag containing a DWM 1917 Luger complete with holster and spare mag.

Slices of history, but with the stories not quite completely told.

Any idea where Fritz and Ingrid might be nowadays or how they're doing? There's likely a couple of very interesting stories there....

-archy-/-

[tortoise]

I hope you've seen Nick Nolte's Farewell to the King.

That movie is somewhat obscure, but I quite liked it. I don't think many people have seen it. It was an odd slant on the Pacific theater during WWII.

[archy]

I hope you've seen Nick Nolte's Farewell to the King.

That movie is somewhat obscure, but I quite liked it. I don't think many people have seen it. It was an odd slant on the Pacific theater during WWII.

Life, English!

-archy-/-

[archy]

It took 25 posts to find another fan of "BREAKER MORANT"

"Shoot straight you bastards! Don't make a mess of it!"

Y'all DO know the more recent *tethered goat* recollection...?

-archy-/-

[archy]

That movie has one of my favorite lines on how WWIII may have started.

An alternate view of such a possibility was offered in the sometimes-comedy The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.

Is emerghenzy! Everyone is to be getting from streets!

-archy-/-

[archy]

I'd like to see a thread listing the most realistic war movies. Ones that capture what it's really like to be in a battle. I wonder if there are any Freepers who've been in particularly nasty battles.

Depends on how you define *battles*. I'm very happy to have missed out on massed troop movement actions of WWII like mass parachute drops and beachhead landings, but I've been involved in a couple of small unit actions that were not all that small, and a few combined forces operations involving infantry, a 5-tank platoon, MPs and various support troops.

Realistic? Everybody has different reactions and different viewpoints to the things that get to them in particular. But in general:

Use of a handgun when all about you have something better: see A Bridge Too Far or The Devil's Brigade when they take the hilltop German artillery positions.

Tank fight: Kelly's Heroes, with 3 Sherman tanks coming out of a railroad tunnel. And some of the interior scenes in Tobruk with George Peppard and Rock Hudson weren't too far off, either.

Vietnam: the pic that struck me as being the most realistic of those I've seen in my little time and place there was The Odd Angry Shot, actually about the Australians operating about as far south of Saigon as we were north. What I wish it had been more like: Go tell the Spartans, with Burt Lancaster. Closest they've ever come to getting the look and *feel* of Vietnam right IMHO: Full Metal Jacket [though that show was about Marines.

About the closest 5 minutes worth of *what it's like*: the WWII Movie Anzio with Robert Mitchum as an Ernie Pyle-like war correspondent. Their slight difficulty in dealing with a sniper was about right, though Farewell to the King had a reasonably accurate portrayal of what it's like when an ambush goes as it should be planned. So too did Merill's Marauders. From the other point of view, defense against the other people assaulting, The Eagle Has Landed has it's moments.

And though I've never tried their sort of war, Das Boot reminded me well enough of some hard times in tanks. I don't think they'd care to try our way of doing that sort of thing any more than I'd have cared for theirs.

Operation Dumbo Drop was far from what my own glimpses at war were like, though that's another where the scenery and look of the place was reasonably well done [need to crank the heat in the theater up to 100º+ and dump a bunch of garbage in the aisles, though!] and had some parachuting scenes that were about the best I've seen. Remind me not to hang aropund any elephants that need to take their medicine.

-archy-/-

[yarddog]

I don't know much more about Fritz and Ingrid. Daddy had five kids of his own and naturally was taken by them. I do know it was not a one sided relationship.

Daddy would go through the chow line two or more times and give the food to the kids who would take it home. He eventually began making them eat first then take the rest home. They would wash his mess kit then began washing his clothes. As I said, Fritz got him a luger. Daddy also brought home a P-38, and an Austro-Hungarian .32 pistol, probably a Frommer.

I took German in college and tried a few words on Daddy and much to my surprise, he spoke German, which I never knew. It turned out that Ingrid spoke English and taught Daddy to speak German. He once told me that Ingrid would constantly get frustrated with him during the German lessons and say "nein, nein, nein".

This is an actual photograph of Hitler, although probably mass produced, it was made from a negative.

This is two Russian WACS. One of them btw is holding a flower.

[Bad Dog2]

You got it! I was just scanning to see if anyone else had put it up yet.

The one, the only, Gary Cooper as Sergent (Alvin) York