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.”

This week’s pick goes behind the lines of World War II France with the 1967 release of Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen. The film stars the legendary Lee Marvin as Major John Reisman, an American OSS (pre C.I.A.) operative chosen by Allied command to recruit, train, and drop twelve convicted American military prisoners into France before the Normandy invasion to wipe out a chateau full of German brass. Aldrich adapts E.M. Nathanson’s novel to bring one of the 1960s most successful war movies to the screen.

The cast is a who’s who of some of Hollywood’s best talent. Ernest Borgnine (Maj. Gen. Worden), Charles Bronson (Joseph Wladislaw), Jim Brown (Robert T. Jefferson), John Cassavetes (Victor R. Franko), Richard Jaeckel (Sgt. Clyde Bowren), George Kennedy (Maj. Max Armbruster), Ralph Meeker (Capt. Stuart Kinder), Robert Ryan (Col. Everett Dasher Breed), Telly Savalas (Archer J. Maggott), Donald Sutherland (Vernon L. Pinkley), Clint Walker (Samson Posey), and Robert Webber (Brig. Gen. Denton).

Major Reisman is selected for this mission due to his illustrious reputation for behind the lines action, but he is also well known for exceeding his orders and showing borderline insubordination for his superiors. Both General Worden and Denton tell Reisman that the twelve men have a temporary stay of their sentences for the mission.

Reisman knows fully well that it’s a suicide mission and asks the Generals to reconsider and that the only way for these men to go along with such a deal, is to pardon them for their crimes and that they be returned to active duty at their former ranks. It’s a tough sell, but Gen. Worden agrees and Reisman has just a few short months to train these convicts and turn them into an elite commando unit.

Most of the twelve men are serving long prison sentences, but five (Franko, Jefferson, Maggott, Posey and Wladislaw) are to be hung for murder. Reisman sells the promise of amnesty to these five, because they are the ones with the most to lose. Reisman tells them all that they are dependent of one another and that if any try to escape, fail to add up, or quit, they will all be sent back to prison.

In celebration of the Normandy D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, this week’s review is the 1962 “Grandaddy of all war movies” The Longest Day. Legendary producer Darryl F. Zanuck and directors Ken Annakin (British scenes), Andrew Marton (American scenes), Bernhard Wicki (German scenes) and an uncredited John Wayne bring Cornelius Ryan’s 1959 best selling novel to the big screen.

The Longest Day stars over forty two (at that time) of the most acclaimed international actors including Eddie Albert (Colonel Thompson, 29th U.S. Infantry Div.), Paul Anka (U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion), Richard Beymer (Pvt Arthur “Dutch” Schultz, 82nd Airborne Div.), Red Buttons, (Pvt. John Steele, 82nd Airborne Div.), Mel Ferrer (Major General Robert Haines) and Henry Fonda (Brig. General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Deputy Commander 4th U.S. Infantry Div.).

It also featured Jeffery Hunter (Sgt. (later Lt.) John Fuller), Roddy McDowall (Pvt. Morris, 4th U.S. Div.), Robert Mitchum (Brig. General Norman Cota, Asst. Commander 29th U.S. Infantry Div.), Robert Ryan (Brig. General James M. Gavin, Asst. Commander 82nd Airborne Div.), and the Duke himself, John Wayne as Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort, Commander 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Reg.

Battle of the Bulge (1965) was an Anglo-American production directed by Ken Annakin (The Longest Day).  The film debuted at the Cinerama Dome Theater in Hollywood on December 16, 1965, which was the twenty first anniversary of when the battle began. Filmed in ultra Panavision 70mm, the film also boasts a cast which includes Dana Andrews (Col. Pritchard), Charles Bronson (Major Wolinski), Henry Fonda (Lt. col. Kiley), Robert Ryan (Gen. Grey), Telly Savalas (Sgt. Guffy), and Robert Shaw (Col. Hessler).

Even though the film was made with an expensive budget and tried to convey the essence of the battle and its effects on the beginning of the end of the war in Europe, the film failed to bring realism to the screen. Battle of the Bulge for me is a guilty pleasure film because it has a great cast, great battle sequences, and a great score, but the film does make me laugh at certain aspects for instance, trying to pass off the Spanish desert as the the snow covered wilderness of northern Europe, or passing off American Patton tanks painted grey like German Tiger Tanks. These were major gripes from veterans who were astounded that the filmmakers could overlook such important details.

That would be like trying to recreate George Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware River to capture the Hessian garrison while doing so on landing craft. In those days, it was hard to film on actual battlefield locations, or try to acquire many armaments, so the production designers had to do whatever was necessary. In my opinion, they should have tried a little harder for realistic landscapes and suitable German tanks.

Director Anthony Mann helmed this somewhat forgotten Korean War film which pits a small platoon of American soldiers against unseen North Korean snipers and combatants as U.N. forces are pushed further back across the 38th Parallel in September, 1950. The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 as communist insurgents attempted to overthrow the democratic government of the south. The Korean peninsula became divided by the victors after the end of World War II.

The North embraced Chinese communism, while the south became democratic. The U.S. was the first major power to send in an expeditionary force to help its South Korean allies stem the communist invasion. Within a few short months, the U.N. forces were fighting with their backs against the sea and it looked like the war was about to be lost.

‘Men in War‘ (1957) was originally conceived as a World War II story set during the D-Day invasion. Screenwriter Philip Yordan adapted Van Van Praag’s novel “Day Without End” to be set during Korea instead. Robert Ryan (Lt. Benson), Aldo Ray (Sgt. Montana), Robert Keith (The Colonel), Nehemiah Persoff (SSgt. Lewis), Vic Morrow (Cpl. Zwickley), James Edwards (Sgt Killian), L.Q. Jones (Sgt Davis) are among the Hollywood greats who comprise the cast of ‘Men in War‘.

When I grow up, I want to be Claudia Cardinale.

There are plenty of beautiful women in movies, but few goddesses. Cardinale is a goddess. Even when she’s sunburned and running around in a rag, as she is in The Professionals, she has more charisma, beauty, and sex appeal than most actresses working today. I hesitate to call her “sexy” because that word seems so Maxim Magazine these days — but Cardinale is sexy in such a powerful and womanly way that it’s not threatening, but inspiring.

She also had great hair. What demon do I have to bargain with to end up with a perfect bouffant every day? Hers looks good even in the desert. It’s unfair.

Watching old movies can be a bittersweet experience. They don’t make them like Cardinale anymore, and you’d be hard pressed to find a Lee Marvin or a Burt Lancaster on the big screen these days. I cherish retro crushes on both (especially Lancaster — what a grin he had!) and The Professionals is so chock full of old time machismo that turning it off may actually cause you to experience symptoms of withdrawal.

Which is, oddly, what The Professionals is kind of about.   It’s the kind of movie I love in any genre — the adventure story that’s sandwiched in between the heroes’ misspent youth and their retirement.   These are men with pasts.  They’ve had near misses, they’ve experienced terrible tragedies, and they’ve woken up in their union suits with nothing but a pounding headache to remind them of the night before.   They’re men who die with their boots on out of a sense of nobility and because they have nothing else to do.