This week’s pick is Clint Eastwood’s World War II masterpiece Flags of Our Fathers that depicts the famous flag raising on Mt. Suribachi on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. The film stars Ryan Phillippe (Navy Corpman 2^nd class John “Doc” Bradley), Jesse Bradford (Corporal Rene Gagnon), Paul Walker (Sgt. Hank Hansen), and Robert Patrick (Col. Chandler Johnson).

The film is told through a series of flash-forwards and flashbacks, through the three remaining men who were responsible for the flag raising which helped to raise America’s morale as the Pacific war raged on with no foreseeable end in sight. The seven Marines that are the focal point of the film begin their training at Camp Tarawa in Hawaii with mountain climbing and other P.T. drills.

As they set sail towards their destination, it is revealed that the target in question is the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima, which sits just seven hundred miles away from the Japanese mainland.

During a debriefing, the company commander, Captain Severance (McDonough) tells the men that they will meet stiff enemy resistance than ever before because Iwo is Japanese soil and its defenders will fight to the last man in order to prevent the Americans from gaining a closer foothold toward Japan.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is Hiroshima (1995), which was a made for T.V. mini series on Showtime Network, and was directed by both Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode . The film is about the events that led up to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan during the tail end of World War II. The film is told through the eyes of both American and Japanese militarists, and civilians who were responsible, and were greatly affected by the decision to use the bombs.

The film stars Kenneth Welsh (president Harry S. Truman), Ken Jenkins (Secretary of State James F. Byrnes), Wesley Addy (Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson), Richard Masur (Maj. General Leslie Groves), Colin Fox (Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal), George R. Robertson (Admiral William D. Leahy), Saul Rubinek (Professor Leo Szilard), Cedric Smith (Gen. Curtis Lemay), Bernard Behrens (Asst. Secretary of War John J. McCloy), Jeffrey DeMunn (J. Robert Oppenheimer), Tim West (Prime Minister Winston Churchill), Naohiko Umewaka (Emperor Hirohito), Kazuo Kato (Prince Fumimaro Konoe), Ken Maeda (Minister of War Korechika Anami), and Hisashi Igawa (Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo).

Hiroshima sets the tone of the film almost immediately with the death of president Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. His reluctant successor Harry S. Truman assumes the presidency and quickly learns of the secret government project that has devised a “gadget” which will help end the war first in Europe. Welsh, who is the spitting image of Truman, plays him to perfection. Other actors play the their historical counterparts the same.

Other notable standouts are Masur as General Groves who was the military mind behind the Manhattan Project that created both bombs at the Los Alamos, New Mexico laboratories. One of my favorite characters in the film is played by Wesley Addy who plays Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War. Stimson pleaded with Truman that the use of such a weapon could create a new arms race for atomic weapons in the near future. One scene in the film that has been debated by historians for decades is the meeting between Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard (Rubinek) and James Byrnes (Jenkins) at Byrne’s home in South Carolina.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is Lewis Milestone’s classic A Walk in the Sun (1945) that tells the story of a hardened platoon that hits the beaches of Salerno, Italy in World War II. The film stars Dana Andrews (Sgt. Bill Tyne), Richard Conte (Pvt. Rivera), John Ireland (PFC. Windy Craven), George Tyne (Pvt. Jake Friedman), Lloyd Bridges (SSgt. Ward)  and Richard Benedict (Pvt. Tranella).

A Walk in the Sun was one of the first post war films that showed the audience the myriad complexities of combat and its effects on the morale of soldiers that had already been fighting under the harsh conditions of North Africa, and the Sicilian campaign. Issues like “combat fatigue” or what was called “shell shock” in the first war were not widely known, or were not considered a major issue like it is today with returning veterans.

The focal point of the film is on the fifty-three men of Lee Platoon of the Texas Division, which is made up of men from all walks of American life. Sgt Tyne (Andrews) is a native of Rhode Island, privates Friedman and Rivera (Tyne and Conte) are New York natives who can only talk about getting home to the Big Apple, and Sgt. Ward (Bridges) is a Midwest farmer who wants nothing more than to return home and resume his previous occupation before the war.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is the classic Blake Edwards 1966 comedy What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? which stars legendary comedian Dick Shawn of The Producers (Captain Lionel Cash), James Coburn Cross of Iron (Lt. Christian), Aldo Ray Men in War (Sgt. Rizzo), Sergio Fantoni Von Ryan’s Express (Captain Oppo), Harry Morgan T.V.s M*A*S*H* (Maj. Pott), Giovanna Ralli (Gina Romano), Jay Novello (Mayor Romano), Leon Askin Hogan’s Heroes (Col. Kastorp) and Carroll O’ Connor Kelly’s Heroes (Gen. Bolt). The film was written by William Peter Blatty The Exorcist.

The film is set in 1943 when the Americans and Allies launched Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily to drive out the entrenched German army which had retreated from North Africa a few months prior as a result of Allied victory. Captain Lionel Cash (Shawn) is placed in command of Charlie Company, a band of misfits in need of R&R and are none too thrilled to be given another mission. General Bolt (O’ Connor) believes that there is some enemy resistance in the little village of Valerno.

The all too eager to prove himself Captain Cash, excepts the mission and plans to attack the village immediately. Cash introduces himself to the new company and its commander Lt. Christian (Coburn) whose insubordination and carefree attitude are the polar opposite of Cash and his “90 day wonder” mentality. Cash rounds up his company and they head off towards their objective.

When Cash and his men arrive at the sleepy village of Valerno, they find the town to be completely empty. Cash and his men find the townspeople and a garrison of Italian soldiers holding a soccer match which is interrupted when the ball lands on the bayonet of an American soldier in disbelief of such an impressive kick.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick comes to us from the Italian front, a rigorous and often overlooked campaign of ETO during World War II. Robert Mitchum stars as a war correspondent (Dick Ennis) (loosely based on famed correspondent Ernie Pyle) in the 1968 production of Anzio, produced by the legendary Dino De Laurentiis and directed by both Edward Dmytryk and Duilio Coletti. The film also stars Peter Falk (Cpl. Jack Rabinoff), Earl Holliman (Sgt. Abe Stimmler), Arthur Kennedy (Maj Gen. Jack Lesley), and Wolfgang Preiss (Field Marshal Albert Kesselring)..

Anzio tells the story about Operation Shingle, a bold plan devised by Winston Churchill to drop an Allied force behind the famed Monte Cassino Line in central Italy and to liberate Rome in January 1944. The Italian campaign proved to be a stalemate for the Allies who were making very little headway due to the geographical advantages the Germans and their Italian allies had over the invading forces. The film is a dramatization of the operation and the effects its aftermath had with the Allies who underestimated the enemy’s strength and exact location.

Dick Ennis (Mitchum) is a war correspondent who has seen too much war and is tired of its effects on humanity. Ennis joins the American expeditionary force assigned for the invasion. During a press conference with Generals Lesley (Kennedy) and General Carson, (based on Gen. Mark Clark) (Robert Ryan), Ennis shouts out the destination of where they’re heading. An angered Gen. Carson asks Ennis where he comes by his information. Ennis simply replies “from the streets of Napoli general.”

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is the World War II submarine action thriller The Enemy Below (1957) directed by Dick Powell and stars Robert Mitchum (Cpt. Murrell) Kurt Jurgens (Cpt. von Stolberg), Theodore Bikel (‘Heinie’ Schwaffer), Russell Collins (Doc), and Al Hedison, (Lt. Ware, XO of the U.S.S. Haynes).

The Enemy Below is one of the greatest cat & mouse submarine films where a U.S. destroyer faces off against a German U-boat in the south Atlantic during World War II. Robert Mitchum stars as Cpt. Murrell, a former merchant marine captain who enlists in the U.S. Navy reserve in order to see some combat. Shortly after being torpedoed and adrift for several weeks, he takes command of  the Haynes which is on patrol in search of enemy vessels. Most of the Haynes crew refer to him as a ‘feather merchant’ a derogatory name for a civilian captain who is unfamiliar with naval combat tactics.

The crew of the Haynes are going about routine when radar picks up an echo believed to be the conning tower of a U-boat. The captain is summoned as he makes his way through a number of curious crew members who have massed at the radar operator’s station. The captain instructs the radar operator to inform him if the contact deviates from its present course and the crew quickly becomes amazed at the captain’s issue and execution of orders. The captain informs the crew that they will follow the contact and go to general quarters at dawn in preparation of an attack against the possible enemy blip.

Continue Reading →

Happy belated 4th of July to all you War Movie Mondays fans. In celebration of our nation’s 235th anniversary, this week’s pick salutes American submariners of World War II with U-571 (2000) directed by Jonathan Mostow.

The film stars Matthew McConaughey (Lt. Andrew Tyler) Bill Paxton (Capt. Mike Dahlgren), Harvey Keitel (Chief Gunner’s Mate Henry Klough), Jon Bon Jovi (Lt. Peter Emmet), and David Keith (Maj. Matthew Coonan).

U-571 is a fictional account about a U.S. Navy submarine crew which boards, and captures a German U-boat in the Spring of 1942 in order to seize the German’s secret cipher machine code named: Enigma. The device allowed the German high command to transmit radio messages to their U-boat fleet which were destroying the vital convoy lines from America to Britain. The code was unique and made it impossible for the allies to determine the German’s plans in the early stages of the war.

The film is superbly acted and won an Academy Award for Best Sound, but the film was not very well received in both England and Germany. The film was bashed in Britain due to the fact that the British were the first to ever capture an Enigma coding device in the war courtesy of the HMS Bulldog and HMS Aubretia of the 3rd Escort Group in the North Atlantic on May 9th 1941, seven months before the U.S. entered the war. Critics in Germany were none to thrilled of the way U-boat crewmen were portrayed.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 masterpiece Das Boot (The Boat) which tells the story of a German U-boat crew and their amazing two month ordeal while on patrol in the North Atlantic in the fall of 1941. The film was based on the real life account of author Lothar-Gunther Buchheim who served with the U-boat service in World War II. The film stars Jurgen Prochnow (Capt. “Der Alte”), Herbert Gronemeyer (Lt. Werner), Klaus Wennemann (The Chief of the boat), Hubertus Bengsch (1st Watch Officer), and Erwin Leder (Johann, Chief Mechanic of the U-96).

Das Boot is one of the greatest and most successful war films ever produced. Petersen wastes no time and gives the audience a fantastic first hand look at what life was like aboard a U-boat during the early days of World War II. The film begins with its narrator Lt. Werner (Gronemeyer) being driven along the French coast by the U-96′s Captain (Prochnow). Werner is assigned to the U-96 as a war correspondent in order to show the German people the heroes of the U-boat fleet.

Werner and the Captain are on their way to a French nightclub in celebration of another officer’s new promotion. Petersen also shows key members of the crew who are vital to the execution of the story. The officer who is the guest of honor, Thomsen (Otto Sander) gives a drunken speech and openly mocks both Winston Churchill and the U-boat tactics of Adolf Hitler. The rest of the evening allows the men to blow of some steam before their long patrol in a sector of the North Atlantic.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is another salute to our WW II flyboys in Michael Caton-Jones’s Memphis Belle (1990).  The film stars Matthew Modine (Captain Dennis Dearborn, Pilot), Tate Donovan (1st Lt. Luke Sinclair, Co-Pilot), D.B. Sweeney, (Lt. Phil Lowenthal, Navigator), Billy Zane (Lt. Val Kozlowski, Bombardier), Top Turret Gunner), Eric Stoltz (Sgt. Danny “Danny Boy” Daly, Radio Operator), Sean Astin (Sgt. Richard “Rascal” Moore, and John Lithgow (Lt. Col. Bruce Derringer, an Army publicist writing a story on the crew of the Memphis Belle).

The film is set in the spring of 1943 where American B-17 heavy bombers of the 8th USAAF have been practicing daylight strategic bombing for almost a year against targets within Hitler’s Fortress Europe. The crew of one bomber the Memphis Belle, are the first ever crew to successfully complete their twenty-fifth and final bombing mission before they are allowed to rotate home for R&R.

The film opens where the crew of the Belle are grounded due to their plane under repairs after their last severe mission. As the twenty or so planes from the group arrive back, personnel on the ground can see the battle damage inflicted on the bombers due to enemy guns and shrapnel from air bursts over the target. The last returning bomber’s landing gear is damaged and the plane crash lands on the field. They can hear the men on board screaming as they are trying to get out and then the plane explodes. The men look on as fire and ambulance crews respond to the fiery wreak.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick salutes the valiant fliers of United States Army Air Corp in the 1949 release of director Henry King’s 12 O’Clock High. The film stars Gregory Peck (Brig. Gen. Frank Savage), Hugh Marlowe (Lt. Col. Ben Gately), Gary Merrill (Col. Keith Davenport), Millard Mitchell ( Maj. Gen. Pritchard), Dean Jagger (Maj. Harvey Stovall), and John Kellogg (Maj. Cobb).

12 O’Clock High was one of the first post World War II studio projects that was made on a grand scale and depicts the hardships of America’s earliest campaigns of daylight precision bombing against German held targets in Europe. The film opens in London in 1949 where Maj. Stovall (Jagger) discovers a toby jug in the window of a London antiques shop. He asks the shop keeper the price and demands that he must have it.

Stovall then proceeds by train and by bicycle to the fictional town of Archbury, England where the 918th Heavy Bombardment Group’s base of operations was. The camera pans off and the scene flashes back to the fall of 1942 when the USAAF first came to England to assist the British in bombing campaigns.

The 918th HBG has suffered major casualties as they begin to meet heavy German opposition over Fortress Europe. The group commander, Col. Keith Davenport (Merrill) has become too emotionally attached to his men and is affected by the losses the group has suffered. Maj. Gen. Patrick Pritchard (Mitchell) believes that Col. Davenport should be relieved of his command and that a new CO take his place and turn the 918th into an effective fighting force. Gen. Pritchard believes that Gen. Savage is the man for the job.

Continue Reading →

This week’s pick is the 1980 release of William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration which is a Gothic, thriller, comedic, war picture.  The film stars Stacy Keach (Col. Hudson Kane), Scott Wilson (Capt. Billy Cutshaw), Jason Miller (Lt. Frankie Reno), Ed Flanders (Col. Richard Fell), Neville Brand (Maj. Marvin Groper), George DiCenzo (Capt. Fairbanks), Moses Gunn (Maj. Nammack), Robert Loggia (Capt. Bennish), Joe Spinell (Lt. Spinell), Tom Atkins (Sgt. Krebs), Steve Sandor (Stanley), and veteran actor Richard Lynch (Richard).

The Ninth Configuration is a film unlike any other.  It’s a film which blends many different genres together and delivers a truly comedic and frightening film at times.  The film’s protagonist is that of Capt. Cutshaw (Wilson), an astronaut who aborted his space launch out of fear of dying.  Cutshaw is remanded to a secret government facility housed in an old castle in the Pacific northwest region of the United States during the tail end of the Vietnam War.  The purpose of the facility was to see if certain individuals were faking psychosis in order to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

The arrival of a new commanding officer is played by Stacy Keach (Col. Hudson Kane).  Maj. Groper (Brand) assembles the group of patient misfits to greet the new shrink and welcome him to the facility.  The inmates amuse themselves by reciting famous lines from famous movies like Victor McLaglen in The Informer or one of the bandits from Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Col. Kane is greeted by one man who refers to himself as Dr. Frome  (Blatty) and is grateful for any help a psychologist can bring.  Groper sounds off a role call and asks where Frome is.

Two Marine guards escort Frome back inside and the real doctor, Col. Fell (Flanders) introduces himself.  Kane looks at Fell with curiosity and believes that the two have met someplace before.  Fell says that he has no recollection of ever meeting Col. Kane before.

Continue Reading →

Happy Memorial Day to all those currently serving in the U.S. armed forces, and to you vets of America’s foreign wars.  This week’s pick is Oliver Stone’s 1986 Academy Award winner for Best Picture Platoon, which depicts the horrors and struggles of infantrymen figthing not only the enemy, but themselves during one of the most difficult periods of the Vietnam conflict.

The film stars Charlie Sheen (Chris Taylor), Tom Berenger (SSgt. Bob Barnes), Willem Dafoe (Sgt. Elias), Forest Whitaker (Big Harold), Francesco Quinn (Rhah), John C. McGinley (Sgt. O’Neill), Kevin Dillon (Bunny), Reggie Johnson (Junior), Keith David (King), Johnny Depp (Lerner), Mark Moses (Lt. Wolfe), Chris Pedersen (Crawford), Corey Glover (Francis), and veteran Marine and the film’s technical advisor Dale Dye (Captain Harris).

The film is an autobiographical account of Stone’s own experiences during 1967-68 as told by a fresh-faced new recruit Chris Taylor (Sheen) who dropped out of college and volunteers for combat duty in Vietnam.  The film opens with Taylor’s arrival in country as he and others deplane from an Air Force transport.  Taylor and fellow recruit Gardner (Bob Orwig) see body bags which are being loaded onto their plane.

Continue Reading →