How about “Battleground” with James Whitmore.I just love the ending when James Whitmore-Kinnie’s squad is getting relieved all beat from battle,and they see the fresh green troops coming they straighten up march and start singing.Also James Whitmore was a Marine in the Pacific driving a Amphibious tracked vehicle.
Shindlers’ List, The Pianist, Ice Cold in Alex (Can’t beat a cold beer), Cross of iron and Tora Tora Tora were all good, could also add the block busters we all know about bar the newer Perl harbor movie.
There is a Finnish movie, Assault i think is the english name. Not a bad made for tv movie.
Didn’t see it all but i enjoyed what i saw of How far my feet will carry me.
Local video store is having a clearout sale so might see what i can get, Das Boot is on the list.
One of my favorites. I think it would be a great candidate for a remake…
Agreed – an excellent film, much the best war film up to that time. By my personal opinion, of all films dealing with the foot soldiers it has still been surpassed only by Lewis Milestone’s “All Quiet on the Western Front”. However, “Battleground” is without any doubt one of the artistic landmarks of the 50’s.
And how about “The Eagle Has Landed”, directed by John Sturgess, honorable ladies and gentlemen? An unpretentious, exciting WW2 thriller with some touching moments and a truly great cast, as well as with a superb leading role of Mr. Michael Caine.
Available preview is located here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYO_y6wnQQ
I hope that you will enjoy the Old School of war movies. 
Agreed…although not a WW2 film “All Quiet On The Western Front” is definately one of my favourites.
Usually when I hear the word ‘propaganda,’ Josef Goebbels springs to mind—he had it down to a science and I don’t doubt that many current-day politicians study his speeches.
But he wasn’t the only practitioner of the art. I picked up a seven-tape set of Why We Fight, put out by the U.S. War Department (1943), mainly for American servicemen’s viewing. Very well done. I can’t verify it, but it sounds like the distinguished actor Walter Huston’s voice doing the narrating.
There’s a lot of footage I hadn’t seen before and am enjoying viewing it. I consider the tapes a bargain for $4.00 at the church rummage sale. With benefit of hindsight, I can sort through a lot of the manipulations. I try to get into the mind of wartime America.
Since Stalin was an ‘ally’ at the time, Why We Fight glosses over the Hitler-Stalin pact and the Soviet takeover of half of Poland.
The series is propaganda, but there are certain aspects of stark reality presented. I don’t know which one it is, but one of the interesting things I’ve heard is that the series features images of bodies of US GIs being sewn up into burial shrouds as a means of showing the unpleasant realities of sacrifice and loss. Something rather interesting as the Bush Administration continued to ban any photos of US caskets returning from the Iraq and Afghan warzones. The blatant contrast is that Americans were once asked to give up intangibles in the name of war and “freedom” whereas more recently, politicians have sought to detach day-to-day American life from their soldiers being killed abroad…
If an 18-year-old’s asked to give up his liberty and possibly his life, it’s incumbent on the government to let him know why he’s being asked to do it. I think Why We Fight makes a good case. Without getting into a discussion/disagreement concerning later administrations, LBJ never made a convincing argument, so far as I was concerned, why we gave up so much–futiley–in Vietnam. The present administration’s not doing any better. I’m surprised our troops’ morale isn’t way down.
The troops, some of them at least, are fighting where the 9/11 attacks took place. And the current president inherited a listless, rudderless War he didn’t start, and is playing the Nixon to Bush’s LBJ…
Excuse me for my interference, my dear Mr. Gary D, but that highly interesting sentence of yours about propaganda actually inspired me for this tiny post. More precisely, this one:
Since Stalin was an ‘ally’ at the time, Why We Fight glosses over the Hitler-Stalin pact and the Soviet takeover of half of Poland.
You see, during the war American film industry – as every other film industry on this planet – constantly worked under certain instructions issued from the Bureau of Motion Pictures in the Office of War Information.
For example, chiefs of studios were directly instructed that “At every opportunity, naturally and inconspicuously, show people making small sacrifices for victory – making them voluntarily, cheerfully and because of the people’s own sense of responsibility, not because of any laws. For example, show people bringing their own sugar when invited to dinner, carrying their own parcels when shopping, traveling on planes or trains with light luggage, uncomplainingly giving up seats for servicemen or others traveling on war priorities show persons accepting dimout restrictions, tire and gas rationing cheerfully, show well-dressed persons, obviously car owners, riding in crowded buses and streetcars.”
It is completely understandable, because the war effort actually required propagation of a certain worldview, telling that as war raged some minor, basically completely irrelevant problems of ordinary people “don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world” (Humphrey Bogart’s famous line in legendary Casablanca). That wide-ranging general message was perfectly blameless.
It is certainly not easy for one, however, to perceive that audiences in those times were absolutely not accustomed to films which actually manipulated their feelings and worked on their political emotions on a completely fashionable, throw-away category of the political identity. Certain examples of Hollywood wartime production were absolutely brilliant in exemplifying this. Take for example this magnificent couple of currently almost completely forgotten, or even quietly covered up Hollywood war films:
Mission to Moscow (Michael Curtiz), 1943
Song Of Russia, (Gregory Ratoff), 1944
Reportedly, even Uncle Joe was totally shocked when he observed that legendary scene when the US ambassador’s wife visited Mrs. Molotov’s private perfume factory in besieged Moscow! :shock:
The cutting, the dovetailing of sequences, but above all the ideas implanted in those films, all of these things and more have had tremendous, but actually officially desired political impact on a film audience which had no inkling of the power of the film for suggesting completely unfounded reflections. It was, and in to certain extent still is kind of a political dynamite.
One can only imagine the effect those unswervingly propagandistic films (previously mentioned couple, as well as numerous others, like Richard Wallace’s Bombardier, Edward Buzzell’s Keep your powder dry, Nick Grinde’s Hitler, Dead or Alive, etc.) have had in those times.
Fortunately, epoch of completely free milking of the audience’s emotions is far away from us now.
Librarian - Thanks for bringing up Mission to Moscow. During the Joseph McCarthy era, this film came back to haunt Hollywood. I’ve never seen this film, and Walter Huston was one of my favorite actors (he was great in Abraham Lincoln (1930), an early ‘talkie,’ which is hard to understand because of the quality of the sound on the tape I have). As much as I detest Stalin, the fact is that if Russia had caved under to the Nazis, Hitler could have thrown all his forces against the West, along with the vast resources of a conquered Russia.
I usually mangle quotations, either from Shakespeare or the Bible, but I think the great Winston Churchill said something to the effect, that if Hitler invaded Hell, he, Churchill, would rise in Parliament to say something good about the Devil. One of my favorite quotations, whoever said it, is ‘He who sups with the Devil should use a long spoon.’
Oh, I’m glad if you liked those motion pictures, my dear Mr. Gary D! You know, it’s depressing how many important old films have already been marginalized in memory (if not completely forgotten!) nowadays.
And yes, I always held Walter Houston in very high esteem as well, although for me his best performance ever was in that absolutely phenomenal film about sometimes hidden, but constantly present voracious nature of man and the built-in human lust for greed - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Brilliant film, indeed!
I don’t suppose that my next offer was ever considered as a praiseworthy achievement in this category, but it surely is one of the best within the small group of WW 2 thrillers. Billy Wilder’s Five Graves to Cairo (1943), however, offered a very fine and multifaceted dramatic performance of “the man you love to hate” to the majority of moviegoers – Erich von Stroheim.
“Five Graves to Cairo”, Billy Wilder (1943)
Although never a great actor, he was often a very good one, especially in this film as a luxuriously malevolent German villain – field Marschal Erwin Rommel! By my personal opinion, the insidious and highly potent persuasiveness of film which accentuated a war-mood in those days surely deserves more of our attention.
In the meantime, as always - all the best!
Von Stroheim was both a great actor and a great director. As far as his directing went, however, he was so profligate that he could bankrupt a studio (a trait which he shared with Orson Welles). He was excellent in Sunset Boulevard playing Gloria Swanson’s butler and ex-husband.
I am sure I’ve seen Five Graves to Cairo, which came out about the same time as Sahara–a tape which I just picked up and am looking forward to seeing. Stars Humphrey Bogart and great character actors Dan Duryea and Bruce Cabot. I usually confuse it with The Iron Lady, however, about a group of Americans (later on, long after the war) who come upon a buried Panzer tank in the Sahara and manage to get it running.
I am not sure what von Stroheim’s politics were–he came to Hollywood long before Hitler took power. Other great actors did a fine job of portraying Nazis–particularly Conrad Veidt, who had it written into his contract that he would play a Nazi, but never in a good light. Therefore, we have his excellent role in Casablanca. Surprisingly, many of them were Jewish, although I don’t know why this is surprising. Luther Adler’s Hitler in The Desert Fox was amazing. He caught the German leader to a tee in Hitler’s last years, when the effects of Dr. Morel’s injections of bull’s texticles and other lethal connoctions were driving him over the edge.
Gary
This guy looks so much like Bruce Willis in his younger days!
[QUOTE=Librarian; * * *
I don’t suppose that my next offer was ever considered as a praiseworthy achievement in this category, but it surely is one of the best within the small group of WW 2 thrillers. Billy Wilder’s Five Graves to Cairo (1943), however, offered a very fine and multifaceted dramatic performance of “the man you love to hate” to the majority of moviegoers – Erich von Stroheim.
Although never a great actor, he was often a very good one, especially in this film as a luxuriously malevolent German villain – field Marschal Erwin Rommel! * * * :)[/QUOTE]
How did von Stroheim depict Rommel in this movie? Probably the complete opposite of the near-hero of James Mason’s 1951 The Desert Fox. Rommel wasn’t political and The Desert Fox has Lucie Rommel (played by Jessica Tandy) as an ‘innocent.’ I’ve read that she was a fervent Nazi. Is this true?
Well, from the very beginning, the Austrian émigré turned actor proved to be a difficult customer to handle. Even as an actor he was an egotist with an unusually individual talent. Often he was right, but he alienated a great meny people in proving it. Stroheim was not a man of patience or biding his time, nor was he a man of compromise. His insistence on the ultimate in realism was legendary. When he, for example, wanted scenes of home life in a San Francisco apartment, he moved his cameras and crew into a San Francisco apartment! Even the murder scene in his cause-célébre among film, “Greed”, was staged in a building where a similar murder had taken place! And the climactic sequences in Death Valley were literally sweated out – slowly and painfully under a blazing sun, with no shade or comfort. Most of the crew were taken quite ill at one time or another – poor Jean Hersholt spent months recuperating in a hospital from a particularly unpleasant eruption of blisters that grew under the skin. Stroheim drove everybody mercilessly, and whether it was from loyalty, admiration or sheer hatred and a determination to show him that they could not be licked, he drew performances from his players and work from his camera operators that they never equaled under any other director. The actors played as though hypnotized into believing that they were really the characters they were portraying. 
Of course, MGM executives were not happy with the film, which didn’t fit in with their policy at that time, and through the years tended to exaggerate the figures involved in its cost. But that film remains not only a movie milestone, but Stroheim’s own lasting monument. It has to be mentioned that he had also a pretty weird and in the same time wonderful fascination for the old Austro-Hungarian empire, with elegance, luxury and royal society, but real life in 30s, and early 40s, alas, wasn’t all champagne bubbles…
On the other hand, concerning other great actors which were portraying Germans during the war, perhaps the last truly original villain hero was nowadays sorrowfully and almost completely forgotten Helmut Dantine.
Helmut Dantine, “Edge of Darkness” (1943)
As captain König in Lewis Milestone’s “Edge of Darkness” he was the foremost proponent of a gallant, to a certain extent sportsmanlike negative hero, to whome that gallantry did little good. Incredibly suggestive with his deep-set eyes and fine, well-modulated voice, he somehow always stood aside, like concealing his own, true feelings for. His directors usually exploited his face by giving him rather more close-ups than usually.
Another forgotten villain of a more rough-and–tumble nature, was Raymond Hart Massey, one of several sons of the owner of Toronto’s Massey-Harris farm equipment and tractor company, who played a neat and egotistic Nazi officer in 1943’s “Desperate Journey” directed by Raoul Walsh.
Raymond Hart Massey, “Desperate Journey” (1942)
Free of temperament, kind, always ready to take advice, he managed to get himself well established as an actor in United States, where he represented almost a role model of a quiet, but dependable fellow. However, for the most part director Raoul Walsh in this film was more concerned with putting on the biggest and most exciting show possible, with an all-successful traditional hectic clearing up - a good punch right-into-the-kisser! After all, a sturdy inner lining of parody was often surprisingly perceptive in those times…
How did von Stroheim depict Rommel in this movie? Probably the complete opposite of the near-hero of James Mason’s 1951 The Desert Fox.
Well… I think that you are on the right track, my dear Mr. Gary D. But I really don’t want to spoil anything regarding the story of the film. The best parts are some excellent close-ups, with that ruthless and bombastic attitude vigorously emphasized.
BTW: Those legendary male hormones, which were actually applied only once by that truly badly informed Dr Morell to combat Hitler’s fatigue via those Orchikrin pills, actually were completely out of harm’s way, my dear Mr. Gary D. Much more damage actually was induced by those even today highly popular herbal-based remedies, widely used as alternative treatments for a number of ailments. You see, recent biochemical studies actually revealed the fact that intensive intake of a highly intriguing class of biochemicals, generally know as phytohormones, by means of multiple herbal constituents like that seemingly absolutely harmless Euflat is inversely associated with the risk of numerous and dangerous cardiovascular diseases.
It is also very interesting, and in the very same time highly disturbing that numerous scientist have completely neglected the fact that estrogenic, androgenic and progestogenic activities of the known phytoestrogens, and structurally related herbal flavonoids like genistein, kumestrol, formononetin, ligustilide or, God forbid, 8-prenylnaringenin are capable to effect so called endothelial barrier dysfunction and to inhibite leukocyte-endothelium interaction, thereby modulating vascular inflammation, a major event in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis as well as numerous highly interesting occurrences in human body.
As far as I remember, that benign Euflat – used to combat those digestive disturbances and meteorism, contained certain ammounts of a highly intriguing herb called Radix angelica…also known as Angelica Sinensis. You see, my dear Mr. Gary D., I am eager to learn what were the exact amounts of 3-Butylidene-4,5-dihydro-1(3H)-isobenzofuranone in that… natural… bio-enhancer of no matter what. :rolleyes:
And why? Well, once upon a time even those good old-timers in the North Central Plains knew that grazing on alfalfa is capable to cause reduced fertility in sheep…
In the meantime, as always - all the best! 
Librarian –
I liked Helmut Dantine, even though he never made it that big. But everyone doesn’t have to be a ‘big’ star. Even the great Walter Huston was generally considered a competent character actor. Raymond Massey, for that matter. All were very good in their parts. I remember Dantine’s young German pilot’s character taking refuge in Greer Garson’s kitchen in Mrs. Minniver.
Raymond Massey was so versatile that I never categorize him. He was good as Abraham Lincoln (possibly as good as Walter Huston); the scheming illegitimate pretender to the throne in Prisoner of Zenda, John Brown (I think in an Erroll Flynn movie—can’t recall the name); and as James Dean’s puritanical father in East of Eden. Speaking of which, Massey detested Dean and didn’t approve of his approach to acting. Massey’s rage was real when Dean leaned over and whispered an obscenity into the distinguished older actor’s ear. If I could read lips, perhaps I’d know what Dean said.
You’re very knowledgeable about the cinéma as well as history and medicine. I can pretend some knowledge of the first two, but am pretty much ignorant as to the third. I picked up most of what I know of Dr. Morrell, the Führer’s quack doctor, from the excellent The Secretary Martin Bormann: The Man Who Manipulated Hitler. I often use this well-thumbed book as a ‘bible’ when I write of the Third Reich era. Morrell’s concoctions might have ‘cured’ Hitler of his first complaint, but I wonder how much they led to his mental deterioration, which led to all the blunders he made later on in the war.
As you doubtless know, Bormann was thought for years to be living it up in South America. Then two skeletons were unearthed in late post-war Berlin, one of which undoubtedly was Martin Bormann’s. A photograph of the skull, juxtaposed against a profile of Bormann in life matched up perfectly.
I look forward to seeing Five Graves to Cairo—it will undoubtedly turn up in one of my thrift-store ventures, where I purchased Sahara, which, by the way, is an excellent movie. I wonder where it was filmed? Certainly not in North Africa in 1943. Perhaps in that area of California and Arizona (I live in Arizona, by the way), where so many ‘Saharan’ flicks were made, such as The Garden of Allah with Charles Boyer and Marlene Dietrich.
Thanks for your continued input. I would still like to have your thoughts on Lucie Rommel—fervent Nazi or just loyal wife?
Gary
Thank you for your truly kind words, my dear Mr. Gary D. You know, I have always adored those old movies, and as a kid, I watched them with my parents every week, so I completely do share your views about those great films and those glittering personalities of filmdom’s heroic epoch.
Honestly, I don’t know what those leading personalities of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s had, but I think that quite a lot “stars” of later decades yearned they had it. I prefer to call it darned good showmanship. In those times the public loved their stars, and the stars reacted accordingly. Today we still have movie idols, of course, but that dedication, warmth and love emanating from both the audience and the stars has gone. Fame is more transient thing now, the accolades are louder, and more hysterical, but they are less sincerely felt, and they burn out quickly - as soon as another idol comes along. In those days if a star was going to give a performance it would be a performance all the way! And when you were watching them, you knew damned well who they were – in capital letters. No poking around in the mind, no turning over of a half dozen names before remembering who they were:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxPgplMujzQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YMPNNWnU7g
Yes, they were able to do anything and to do it with such a perfection and appearance of ease and grace attained through dedication and hard work, that even today they are symbolizing a glamorous age of the movies now departed – an age that will never be forgotten.
And although I do know that James Dean sometimes almost childishly enjoyed being naughty, I think that he newer behaved so badly as one of my personal heroes, Mr. James Cagney, who while being suddenly inspired, snatched up a half-grapefruit, and screwed it into the face of poor Mae Clarke in that well-known masterpiece of the silver screen - “The Public Enemy”. An excellent reminder that you newer know what a man can imagine at a dinner table.
Your homeland, Arizona, is very close to my heart as well, because certain members of my truly wide-dispersed family actually lived in the vicinity of Scottsdale. And in many a western movie, the Hollywood cavalry has raced down the slope and splashed picturesquely through the Red Rock Crossing in Oak Creek Canyon. Hollywood sheiks and their dark-eyed temptresses have enacted many a romantic scene amid the shifting sand dunes west of Yuma. Arizona, with its red and caramel cliffs, its lofty mountains, purling streams, and forests of Ponderosa pine was, and I hope that still is every bit as beautiful in reality as it was on the screen.
You are asking me about Lucy Rommel… well, I think that she was just a loyal wife. She had dignity, poise and some sort of regal features, being the patrician lady and virtuous women threatened by sundry fates worse than death. 
Finally, allow me just a very brief elucidation of that tiny “hormonal” quandary. You see, man is a unique animal in that he searches for order in the world he lives in. Looking through the chaos of seemingly unrelated events, he tries to perceive their inherent patterns of order. There are many ways in which man attempts to understand the organization of the universe, the world and himself, and science is factual knowledge gained systematically and logically. It is said that there is a scientific method, a strict procedure followed by men as they pursue knowledge. Scientific truths are result of independent substantiation of things perceived – they are results of testability, a confirmation by direct and unquestionably existing evidence.
And the only direct evidence we have in this issue, my dear Mr. Gary D. is located here:
Everything else is only a depiction of new conclusions from a set of assumptions.
Today, my dear Mr. Gary D, we know that an organism’s behavior is the result of the behavior of its cells. Cells are made of molecules, and the function of the cells is ultimately the result of the behavior of those molecules. Human history therefore is but a product of molecular influences on a macro-system called human being. Therefore, I really do hope that some day someone sufficiently dedicated will be able to note down a definite, absolutely undeniable and completely testable historical treatise “Operation Barbarossa as a neurosecretory induced distraction of the Nash equilibrium: terminal macro-social effects of colchicine suppression to (PGF2 alpha)-induced synthesis of oxytocin in Hitler’s paraventricular nucleus”.
After all - biology interacts with history in many complex ways that make us who we are.
In the meantime, as always – al the best!
I guess we’re a bit off the track, but, insofar as ‘modern actors’ go, I have little interest in most of them. When I check out at the grocery store, I sometimes peruse the magazines while waiting for the next customer to move on. 'So and So is having a baby!’ As if I knew who 'So and So’ was.
There are famous people, on either side of the Atlantic, who still have integrity, although I’m hard put to name any in Hollywood–certainly not the likes of the great Irene Dunne or Jimmy Stewart. Do you know that when he went into the service and piloted a plane on missions, he never lost a man? And he was completely loyal to his men–to his wife–and to his stepsons. Frankly, he’s what I look for in an American president–and we’ll never see his likes again.
My former employer was, in the 1940s, the attorney representing most of the film industry in Arizona. One day I brought up that one of my favorite movies was [i]Lust for Gold /i, and Mr. Cox kept me interested for thirty minutes telling me about his experiences when they made most of the movie in the Valley of the Sun. The producer had called him early one morning asking him to drive over to Apache Junction to remove a modern sign (the movie was supposedly about Jacob Walz, and the never-located (if ever existed) Lost Dutchman Mine, in the 1870s or '80s.
I’m going to check out Lucie (or Lucy?) Rommel to see what her real politics were. As you know, anything on the Internet has to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. I’ve run up against sites that deify Hitler, actually terming him ‘St. Adolf.’ I guess there are also ‘Flat Earth’ sites as well.
Nice to hear your input.
Gary
Oh, I completely do agree with you, my dear Mr. Gary D. Indeed, not all inventions positively change our lives - some of them are making us scratch our heads as well! For example, our modern electronic miracles, like our dearly beloved Internet, are more than capable to effortlessly disseminate half-truths, lies, and sheer stupidity with the same ease as they do the same for true values. Look no further – here is a beautiful illustration for the previously mentioned claim:
http://www.ourhollowearth.com/
What can I say? Perhaps only that good old Schiller already emphasized in his tragedy “The Maid of Orleans”, written in 1801 in Leipzig, the fact that “… Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.” :roll:
Fortunately, the laws of evidence provide that deliberately avoiding knowledge does not rank as pure ignorance, but rather as willful blindness. Theoretically, that is completely sufficient for the preservation of the integrity of science.
And yes – I was told about those excellent results of major James Stuart by The New York Times, which appeared in print on March 1, 1944.
On the other hand, history of the US Presidency clearly indicates that dynamic and positive leadership always arouses somehow spontaneously in the time of need. No one could have guessed in the black days before March 4, 1933, for example, that Franklin D. Roosevelt would set his mark on the age as have few Chief Executives. Furthermore, once upon a time even Alice Roosevelt Longworth remarked that Calvin Coolidge had been weaned on a dill pickle, although he had a clear-cut conservative philosophy based upon his Vermont boyhood-exhortations to thrift, hard work and respect for learning and virtue. Therefore don’t worry, my dear Mr. Gary D. – comforting moral leadership will be awakened somehow.
And now – back to our main theme in this thread.
Although every society has certain stereotypes concerning members of other societies, ethnic or racial groups and categories, the dominating Hollywood typecast during the WW 2 actually openly demonized Japanese soldiers as strange, vicious and sinister men of mystery, as bunch of half–sadists taking obvious enjoyment in seeing the white hero chained or tortured. Unlike Germans, who possessed certain levels of moral integrity in those wartime film incarnations, Japanese soldiers were almost constantly portrayed as entirely different people, without any trace of inclination toward understanding capable to transcend opposing cultures, religions and states.
Richard Loo, The Purple Heart (1944)
Mr. Richard Loo was one of the most successful Chinese American actors of the wartime Hollywood era, who constantly played high-ranking Japanese officers or spies educated in the United States, consequently capable to spoke fluent English.
Numerous questions, such as what were the business concerns, or perhaps official constraints that contributed to the aforementioned practice of unswervingly negative representation of Japanese soldiers in wartime Hollywood films, have not been fully explored.
In the meantime, as always – all the best!