criterionforum.org

THE WAR LIST
LISTS ARE DUE DECEMBER 30TH, 2014


War! Unh! Good God, y'all, just what is it?
"War" as a genre consists of films dealing with an organized and/or armed poltically-motivated struggle between two or more opposing forces. In addition to films directly dealing with combat, consider too films that deal with the lives of soldiers during or after their time in battle, the aftermath of such battles, and films dealing with covert or conceptual frontlines such as espionage thrillers and Red Scare flicks. Stretching your definition of "War" to include the drug war, gang wars, culture wars, the cola wars, and/or Warren G Harding is willfully missing the point of the compiling exercise, and while as ever the "Vote For It" rule applies, it is better to approach this list in the spirit intended. This is not a contest in which you try to vote for films you like regardless of whether they fit the stated criteria by any sane metric.

Feature length films, animated and live-action shorts, works of filmed fiction and documentary, period footage, TV specials, TV miniseries, and individual episodes of anthology TV programs are eligible. Longform TV series, in whole or by episode, are not eligible. So, you can vote for M*A*S*H the film, but not the show. You can vote for that episode of Amazing Stories where Kevin Costner draws wheels onto his damaged plane, but you can't tuna fish. And so on. If you have a question on a film's eligibility, ask.

A list of 50 war films, ranked in order of preference, should be PMed to me, domino harvey, by the date at the top of the post.


A Friendly Reminder
And now a few words about films produced during wartime by any country: Some heated discussions concerning a given film's value as propaganda or the strength of its depictions both negative and positive is to be expected, but try to find a civil tongue from which to express your arguments for or against a film's worth based on these attributes. Keep in mind the political and morale factors under which a film was produced and exhibited and avoid reductionist dismissals of films as racist or lacking nuance without placing these attitudes towards "the enemy" into a proper cultural context. No one wants to read empty and knee-jerk vitriolic reductionist dismissals or praise of any film. Remember that while this forum is ostensibly devoted to an American-based home media company, ours is a global community, and there's a real possibility that your ancestors fought someone else on the board's ancestors in some capacity. Honor the memories of everyone's family lines by being respectful and considerate but also remain true to yourself. Free hugs available on request.


SPOTLIGHTS
These are films our members desperately want you to make time for. I would like to issue a challenge this round for all participating members: Make the unkindest cut of all and choose only one film for your official spotlight. This will enable more users to make time for your special film, and it will make it easier for you to hold up your end of the bargain. Many of us have access to back channels, but your greatest success is going to come from a widely available title, so options with commercial DVD or Blu-ray releases will fare better for this exchange. Feel free to recommend hundreds of movies throughout the course of the project, of course, but settle on one ultimate film that needs the extra attention of this section.

the Beast (Kevin Reynolds 1988) (Mr Sausage) R1 Sony (OOP)
Destination Tokyo (Delmer Daves 1943) (domino harvey) R1 Warners
Devils on the Doorstep (Wen Jiang 2000) (Shrew) R1 hVe (OOP)
Krakatit (Otakar Vávra 1949) (swo17) R2 (2-Film version)
Next of Kin (Thorold Dickinson 1942) (Dr Amicus) R2 Imperial War Museum/Simply Media (OOP)
Pride of the Marines (Delmer Daves 1945) (knives) R1 Warner Archives
Red Angel (Yasuzô Masumura 1966) (zedz) R1 Fantoma
the Third Part of the Night (Andrzej Zulawski 1971) (bamwc2) R2 Second Run
La Ciociara / Two Women (Vitorrio de Sica 1960) (Lemmy Caution) R1 PD


PRINT RESOURCES
the British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939-1945 James Chapman
the Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War Two George Roeder Jr
the Fifties David Halberstam
Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War Mark Harris
Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped WWII Movies Clayton R Koppes
the World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre Jeanine Basinger


IN-THREAD RESOURCES
Some of our users have compiled bulk viewing suggestions in flagrant disregard of opinion rationing. Browse the following stockpiles at your own risk:

Bam Bam Bamwc2
Dominant Domino Harvey
Kill 'Em Colinr0380
Savage Swo17
Zero Hour Zedz


FORUM RESOURCES
Apocalypse Now
Childhood During WWII
Eclipse Series 34: Jean Gremillion During the Occupation
536 the Thin Red Line
James Cagney Signature Collection
Judaism in Films
Vietnam: Combat and Homefront Films

(Feel free to PM me helpful links to past discussions/threads)

(Feel free to scroll past this post)

When I was compiling possibilities for my list, it occurred to me it might be helpful to divide them by arena for my own ease of reference. Since other users have in the past asked for straight-up call-outs and recommendations without necessarily being accompanied by extensive writeups, I'm posting my initial culling of films I deem list-worthy. This is not a list of all the war movies I've seen, just the best. Note that the list contains over ninety films, so this isn't me just posting my Top 50 at the outset, many of these won't make my final cut, but I think they're all worth giving a look and I've provided home media info where available. I'm of course happy to engage anyone in discussion of any of these titles!

CIVIL WAR (NON-WESTERN)
the Birth of a Nation (DW Griffith 1915) R1/A Kino
the Civil War (Ken Burns 1990) R1 PBS
Friendly Persuasion (William Wyler 1956) R1 Warners
Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming 1939) R1/A Warners
the Red Badge of Courage (John Huston 1951) R1 Warners (OOP)

WWI
All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone 1930) R1/A Universal
the Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (Otto Preminger 1955) R1/A Olive
the Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger 1943) R1/A Criterion
the Razor's Edge (Edmund Goulding 1946) R1 Fox
Sgt York (Howard Hawks 1941) R1 Warners
the Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (HC Potter 1939) R1 Warners
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz 1942) R1 Warners

WWII -- EUROPE
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (Douglas Sirk 1958) R2/B Masters of Cinema
the Americanization of Emily (Arthur Hiller 1964) R1/A Warners
the Big Red One (Samuel Fuller 1980) R1 Warners
Come and See (Elem Klimov 1985) R1 Kino
Decision Before Dawn (Anatole Litvak 1951) R1 Fox
5 Fingers (Joseph L Mankiewicz 1952) R2 Optimum
the Glenn Miller Story (Anthony Mann 1954) R1 Universal
God on Trial (Andy de Emmony 2008) R1 PBS
the Good German (Steven Soderbergh 2006) R1 Warners
Kanal (Andrzej Wajda 1956) R1 Criterion
Lifeboat (Alfred Hitchcock 1944) R1 Fox / RB Masters of Cinema
the Longest Day (Ken Annakin / Andrew Marton / Bernhard Wicki / Gerd Oswald 1962) R1/A Fox
Mrs Miniver (William Wyler 1942) R1/A Warners
the Pied Piper (Irving Pichel 1942) No commercial release
Romeo, Juliet, and the Darkness (Jiří Weiss 1960) R2 Second Run
Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder 1953) R1/A Paramount
36 Hours (George Seaton 1965) R1 Warners
To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch 1942) R1/A Criterion
Yellow (Robert Zemeckis 1991) R1 Warners (Part of Tales From the Crypt Season Three)

WWII -- PACIFIC
Above and Beyond (Melvin Frank and Norman Panama 1952) R1 Warner Archives
Air Force (Howard Hawks 1943) R1 Warners
Bataan (Tay Garnett 1943) R1 Warners
Destination Tokyo (Delmer Daves 1943) R1 Warners
Flying Tigers (David Miller 1942) R1/A Olive
Halls of Montezuma (Lewis Milestone 1951) R1 Fox
the Inn of the Sixth Happiness (Mark Robson 1958) R1/A Fox
Merrill's Marauders (Samuel Fuller 1962) R1 Warners
the Purple Heart (Lewis Milestone 1944) R1 Fox
So Proudly We Hail! (Mark Sandrich 1943) R1 Universal
They Were Expendable (John Ford 1945) R1 Warners
Wake Island (John Farrow 1942) R1 Universal

WWII -- AFRICA
Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray 1957) R1 Sony (OOP)
Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder 1943) R1 TCM Vault (MOD)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg 1981) R1/A Paramount
Sahara (Zoltan Korda 1943) R1 Sony

WWII -- HOMEFRONT / SOLDIERS
A Soldier's Story (Norman Jewison 1984) RA Image
Hail the Conquering Hero (Preston Sturges 1944) R1 Universal
Hit the Deck (Roy Rowland 1955) R1 Warners
the Human Comedy (Clarence Brown 1943) R1 Warner Archives
Kiss Them For Me (Stanley Donen 1957) R1 Fox
the More the Merrier (George Stevens 1943) R1 Sony
On the Town (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen 1949) R1 Warners
Since You Went Away (John Cromwell 1944) R1 MGM (OOP)
Thousands Cheer (George Sidney 1943) R1 Warner Archives

WWII -- POST-WAR BLUES
the Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler 1946) R1/A MGM
Bright Victory (Mark Robson 1951) No commercial release
Exodus (Otto Preminger 1960) R1 MGM (OOP)
Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini 1948) R1 Criterion
I Was a Male War Bride (Howard Hawks 1949) R1 Fox
the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (Nunnally Johnson 1956) R1 Fox
No Down Payment (Martin Ritt 1957) No commercial release
the Teahouse of the August Moon (Daniel Mann 1956) R1 Warners
Verboten! (Samuel Fuller 1959) R1 Warner Archives / R2 Warner France (different aspect ratios)

KOREA
the Bridges at Toko-Ri (Mark Robson 1954) R1 Paramount
Fixed Bayonets! (Samuel Fuller 1951) R1 Fox
I Want You (Mark Robson 1951) No commercial release
M*A*S*H (Robert Altman 1970) R1/A Fox
Men in War (Anthony Mann 1957) R1 Genoa (Olive release forthcoming)
the Steel Helmet (Samuel Fuller 1951) R1 Criterion

RUSSIA / COMMUNISM / COLD WAR
Doctor Zhivago (David Lean 1965) R1/A Warners
Hell and High Water (Samuel Fuller 1954) R1 Fox
the Iron Curtain (William A Wellman 1948) No commercial release
Jet Pilot (Josef von Sternberg 1957) R1 Universal
Love and Death (Woody Allen 1975) R1 MGM
Matinee (Joe Dante 1991) R1 Universal
Never Let Me Go (Delmer Daves 1953) No commercial release
Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch 1939) R1 Warners
the Red Menace (RG Springsteen 1949) R1/A Olive
Silk Stockings (Rouben Mamoulian 1957) R1 Warners
Trial (Mark Robson 1955) No commercial release

VIETNAM
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola 1979) R1/A Paramount
Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone 1989) R1/A Universal
the Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino 1978) R1/A Universal
FTA (Francine Parker 1972) R1 Docurama
Hearts and Minds (Peter Davis 1974) R1 Criterion
the Killing Fields (Roland Joffe 1984) RA Warners

OTHER
the Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo 1966) R1/A Criterion
Gandhi (Richard Attenborough 1982) R1/A Sony
La Guerre est finie (Alain Resnais 1966) R1 Image (OOP)
Land of Plenty (Wim Wenders 2004) R1 IFC
Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard 1963) R1 Fox Lorber
Shame (Ingmar Bergman 1968) R1 MGM
Viva Zapata! (Elia Kazan 1952) R1/A Fox
We Were Strangers (John Huston 1949) R1 Sony (OOP)

…and obviously the Revolutionary and Iraq Wars would be good prominent categories too, but I don't like any of the films I've seen covering that period enough to list (I mean, Allegheny Uprising is about the 30th best John Wayne movie, but that's about it). Civil War films that are convenitonally perceived as Westerns are of course eligible, I am just drawing a line for my personal list.

This is a really intriguing list project for me because I don't really know which film will end up in the number one slot. Strong possibilities for the top slot include Air Force, the Best Years of Our Lives, Destination Tokyo, Hail the Conquering Hero, or Mrs Miniver, but like any challenging battle it's anyone's victory!

Loads of great stuff to go through there. But no Love and Death?

Good catch! I've been adding to this list for the past couple weeks and just today thought of half a dozen to add, so I'm sure I've missed some other good examples, but it'll do

Lots of Russian, Japanese and European war films to consider as well.

I guess something like The Paper Will Be Blue qualifies. A Romanian fog-of-war film during the overthrow of Ceausescu.

To link back to the last genre project, was wondering what the top war documentaries are.
The Battle of Chile; Sorrow and the Pity and I'm kind of blanking on others at the moment.

The World at War (DVD version since the Blu-ray's cropped) is informative, though a bit dry to really be in contention for my list-- pretty invaluable for getting into the assorted factors in play during the WWII era, though

Quick question on eligibility for some titles. What do you think about The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,The General,Taxi Driver, and The Searchers?

The General and the Adventures of Baron Munchausen are pretty easy yeses, the Searchers is in a slightly grayer area (like most Westerns), but I wouldn't blink if I saw it on one or every list. I think Taxi Driver's probably pushing it, but to be clear, you can vote for it and any film under the "Vote For it" rule so long as it follows the general guidelines in the first post (ie is a film)

My viewings from the past couple weeks:

Bataan (Tay Garnett 1943) Hollywood war films made during wartime have one interesting attribute: they manage to outdo noir on fatalism and violence! Indeed, it's shocking to marathon some of these movies and realize just how much the Code loosened the reins during the period. And Bataan in particular is shockingly violent, even by today's standards. It is the most violent studio era film I have ever seen. Blood galore, decapitation, shots to the head, suicides, and one of the most unforgettable images in any war film: Robert Taylor, surrounded by dozens of Japanese corpses, revolves around in a circle firing hundreds of rounds into the lifeless bodies. Incredible! This is another of the Wake Island-school of no one's coming home war flicks, and this is even before the true nature of the horrors of Bataan were declassified. Good work from one of the many ragtag groups of men that populate these films, with special consideration given to the always reliable Lloyd Nolan as a man with a peculiar past with Taylor, and Robert Walker as the hapless young Navy sailor who somehow finds himself involved in jungle warfare.

Between Heaven and Hell (Richard Fleischer 1956) Well, it starts off promisingly: Robert Wagner finds himself sent to hardass loose cannon Broderick Crawford's platoon wherein the misery of wartime is doubled thanks to Crawford's tyranny. This could be the start of an intense Philippines-set war flick, but then Wagner gets misty-eyed and thinks back to his time as a supervisor of sharecroppers and swimmin' with Terry Moore and some unnecessary wartime flashbacks to take us back to the present and by the time Crawford finally shows up again, most of the movie's just been wasted. There's some effective acts of violence and Crawford makes the most of his meagre screen time, but this is one of those "Every actor in World War II conspires together to make one asshole learn a life lesson" movies, and not a particularly good one at that.

Crash Dive (Archie Mayo 1943) Tyrone Power and Dana Andrews certainly have the bland on-screen personalities that should lend themselves to their military roles here (Hell, Power actually was in the military directly following filming) but they don't fare too well in an overly-familiar tale of occasional scenes of water-ridden battle interspersed with yet another love triangle with young schoolteacher Anne Baxter in the middle. While I didn't hate the film, it left me with not a single thing to recommend about it.

D-Day the Sixth of June (Henry Koster 1956) It takes a special kind of perversity to call your movie "D-Day" and then relegate all elements directly concerning the battle to about five minutes of screentime. Rather than combat, what we get instead is the same love triangle war movie structure I'm already tired of and the official project hasn't even begun yet as of this viewing! I don't have any strong negatives to direct at this movie, it is just a slick-looking programmer worth no more than about fifty words.

First Blood (Ted Kotcheff 1982) This one surprised me, mainly because I thought it was going to take place in Vietnam and instead it's entirely set in Washington state! The parallels of the dumb cops picking on the Vietnam vet are glaringly obvious even before the literal expository explanation in the last reel, and it's hard to take the film too seriously when it sets up such a fundamentally stupid premise as "Cops hate military vets." That said, I enjoyed the film's moments of survival action, and Richard Crenna seems in on a joke no one else knew they were telling, but while it's a well-made actioner, I could have done with a defter touch for all its moronic politics.

Flying Tigers (David Miller 1942) Conceptually interesting conceit here as instead of enlisted or drafted fliers tackling Japanese fighters, we have mercenaries flying over Chinese warspace to knock down Japanese flyers pre-Pearl Harbor. Questions of loyalty to money above all else come into play more than you'd think for a film made in the heat of and for the benefit of bolstering the American war effort. The film takes a hardline stance against any character that tries to act "like a hero" and defy safety measures or orders, a trend in direct opposition to many of the other American war films of the time. True, part of this just results in John Wayne coming out looking, as he often does, like the only one who can win the war, but the film is surprisingly complicated in its moral messages.

Four Jills In a Jeep (William A Seiter 1944) Like Fox's other big USO musical, Pin-Up Girl, this isn't very good. Our four real-life USO starlets play themselves reenacting allegedly true events from their own USO tours, but the results rarely merit such repetition. Some cameos by Fox megastars like Carmen Miranda, Betty Grable (who's appeal has not weathered WWII), and Alice Faye help pass the time, and Phil Silvers has a weird musical number intermittently interrupted by a heckler that's of some note, but otherwise this is an easy pass.

Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick 1987) Though as often stated I don't care much for Kubrick, I can usually intellectually appreciate and recognize what others get out of his films. But this, along with Killer's Kiss, is one of the few Kubricks where I have to go as far as to call it a bad film. Surprisingly, for a director so obsessed with control and nuance, this film is sloppy, poorly edited, dreadfully written, ill-conceived at best, and pretty much a chore to sit through. I have no idea what Kubrick thought he was adding to the conversation about Vietnam or to cinema, but whatever it was, it's not good and it didn't help.

Guadalcanal Diary (Lewis Seiler 1943) Surprisingly shaky camaraderie pic with most of the blame falling on the shoddy direction. I'm not sure the lousy script could be helped much, but anyone else directing would have been an improvement. Lots of mismatched shots, pacing issues, unleashed actors, &c. As far as volatile emotional displays against the enemy go, this film is one of the most brazen in its employment, and the manner in which the various threats and would-be quips are bandied about end up as wobbly and unsure as the rest of the pic. Lots of familiar faces with little to do here, as well. William Bendix appears to have walked over directly from the set of Wake Island!

Halls of Montezuma (Lewis Milestone 1951) Milestone's war films have caused me to reevaluate upwards my esteem for the director, as this is yet another masterful examination of war from a director who already has a couple notches in that belt. Though I'd have cut the twenty minutes or so worth of somewhat unnecessary flashbacks that intermittently occupy the first half of the film, Milestone does come up with some clever bridging devices that don't detract too much from the overall thrust of the film. But once the second-half starts, it's nothing but net. Milestone achieves an eerie tone here that, in contrast with the more gung-ho approach of wartime pics of this nature, spoons in some melancholic fatalism. Richard Widmark is perfect in the lead as a former science teacher wearily trying to hold it together as everyone he's supposed to be leading keeps dying-- and then their replacements die too! I also found myself worried more than once for the safety of some of the actors, especially in one scene where Jack Palance nearly gets run over by a tank-- had he been sitting just half an inch to the other side, his long career would've been much shorter!

the Hasty Heart (Vincent Sherman 1949) In post-war Burma, a recovering group of convalescing wounded are enlisted to befriend a proud Scottish soldier who doesn't realize he's dying. The film understands how cruel this form of pity is despite all good intentions, and the film's strongest moments come when all of the men, led by Ronald Reagan, and the nurse he's fallen in love with (Patricia Neal), have to listen to him make plans and embrace for once a happy future that everyone else knows isn't in store. Richard Todd earned his Oscar nomination as the volatile Scot, and the film's last act takes the ramifications of everyone's behavior to their inevitable and frequently painful conclusions.

Here Come the Waves (Mark Sandrich 1944) For those of you with Betty Hutton aversions, be forewarned: there's two of her here as she plays twin Waves alternately enamored with Bing Crosby. Nothing about this film is particularly good, but there's at least two things actively bad about it: One, the now-standard "Accentuate the Positive" is performed in blackface by Crosby and chum in a fashion that transcends other more innocent then-contemporary musical examples of minstrel shows and just comes across as needlessly crass, especially in the light of studios offering persons of color stronger supporting roles in combat films (where they usually survive to the last reel, even!). I am far from kneejerk when it comes to blackface use in musicals, but this isn't an example for the defense. Two, and even worse in its fashion, is a gender role-reversed "skit" in which the girls act like boys and the boys oh emm gee act like silly girls! Here come the middle fingers!

the Impatient Years (Irving Cummings 1944) Oh boy. Reteam Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn from the previous year's the More the Merrier, which is one of the laugh-out-loud funniest films ever made (and also eligible for the list)? How can you go wrong? Well, for starters, have the entire film be an unconvincing appeal to impulsive new brides to stick with their soldier husbands even after it becomes clear a couple days of courtship wasn't enough to build a solid and lasting relationship. Have Charles Coburn push the couple together because "because." Have Jean Arthur and whoever the dead weight in the lead was exhibit no chemistry and acknowledge that they don't like each other. See them both give up all hopes of future happiness since there's a kid in the picture and then praise, unconvincingly, the great joys of parenthood. It's almost worth recommending this on the strength of its nastily expressed attempts at wartime social conditioning re: marriage, but regardless of politics this just isn't a good movie and the very conceit-- a judge orders the divorce-eager couple to retrace their relationship step by step (after they both landed in court after the husband, I kid you not, beat the shit out of Jean Arthur)-- is idiotic on a plane of a 70s sitcom.

the Iron Petticoat (Ralph Thomas 1956) I knew I was in trouble the moment Katharine Hepburn opened her mouth and robot sounds came out. Her Russian pilot of course falls for the US Army major played by Bob Hope, despite the fact that the two share about as much romantic chemistry with each other as they do with the wallpaper on the sets they occupy. If this sounds familiar, it's because this movie already exists a couple times over, in far better variations: Ninotchka, Silk Stockings, and Jet Pilot. In a world where those films exist, this one is unnecessary at best. Although with this flick you do get not so progressive lines like this one from Hope: "I don't like women in uniform. I don't know whether to salute them or kiss them!"

the Purple Heart (Lewis Milestone 1944) A fabulous premise: A crew of US airmen stranded behind enemy lines are brought up on murder charges during wartime by a showboating Japanese kangaroo court for a stand full of friendly foreign press members. This is one of the most fascinating and thought-provoking examples of anti-Japanese wartime propaganda I've seen, and the various machinations employed to elicit empathy for the Americans caught in the midst of clearly illegal proceedings is achingly effective. We figure out early on that this one probably isn't marching towards a happy ending, but there's a sense of real defiance and patriotic glory driving this one home, and it retains much of its power even now.

Sahara (Zoltan Korda 1943) Exciting African WWII tale with Bogart leading his crew of men in an armed defense of a non-existent desert oasis. Some intriguing wartime characterizations result from the film's sympathetic treatment of an Italian prisoner of war (An Oscar-nommed J Carrol Naish) versus the spiteful german captive (the suggestion here seems to be that Italian soldiers fighting for the Axis were more victims than complicit partners), and the film gives ample screentime to many of the more tortuous effects of being stuck in the desert without water.

Sands of Iwo Jima (Allan Dwan 1949) Massively disappointing given its reputation and pedigree behind the camera, this unfortunately turned out to be one of the weakest war flicks I've ever experienced, with all the rote parts operating on half turns. I strongly suspect people are only still conscious of this film's existence due to the particular spoiler-alert place it holds in John Wayne's filmography.

So Proudly We Hail! (Mark Sandrich 1943) Female-centric Bataan-set nurses story with three strong female leads in Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, and Veronica Lake as nurses who must navigate the extremely violent and dangerous professional calling. As indicated by my italics, this movie is surprisingly intense and bloody. I'd assumed going this would be a war-time Woman's Picture, and it is to some extent, but the film also captures an unrelenting brutality directed not just at those the main characters care for or about, but the main characters themselves. Paulette Goddard earned a Supporting Actress nom, but Veronica Lake gives by far the film's best performance in one of her best roles.

Spoiler

And her's is the film's most tragic and shocking component: From the intensity of her breakdown to the attempted murder of the Japanese wounded to the final, unexpected suicide halfway through the film, Lake works against everything the prevailing popular thought process on her as an actress and an icon tells you-- this is why you do your homework before writing off the decade's sex symbols!

This Above All (Anatole Litvak 1942) Hoity-toity Joan Fontaine enlists in the WAFS, meets deserter Tyrone Power, and then some other stuff happens in this disjointed and ill-conceived Brit-set mess. I love war-era war movies more than most and am dreading all the pacifist-y pushback writeups some classics are about to receive in this thread, but the line was behind me here after one character is talked back into service via being advised to just "stop thinking"-- Gee, great. At least sugar coat that pill, huh? Although, the subtle and effective meters weren't running pretty early on after Fontaine calls her aunt worse than Hitler for pretending the war isn't that big a deal. It reminds me a bit of how the greatest villains in Civil War Westerns are those who refuse to pick a side, but this rich bitch was hardly deserving of a lob like "Worse than Hitler."

Thunder Birds (William A Wellman 1942) What Flying Leathernecks is to Nic Ray, Thunder Birds is to William A Wellman. I could stop there, right? But I'll add: Every actor and actress is soooooooo bad in this film. What happened here? Who cast this, someone with a grudge? Even the overarching plot is offensively dumb: a civvy flight instructor with a crush on Gene Tierney helps his rival win her by insisting the suitor can be taught to be a pilot despite all evidence to the contrary, at one point even jumping out of a plane so the sucker has to land by himself. Uh, is this really who I'd want to think is fighting for me and training those who are fighting for me in 1942?

For anyone who rates most of what they watch on IMDb, I believe this link will tell you what war films you have rated most highly (assuming you are logged into the site, and going off of their definition of war of course).

Spotlight:

The Beast aka The Beast of War (Kevin Reynolds, 1988): The current world political situation enhances the movie, which is about a Russian tank (the titular beast) lost in the Afghani desert and pursued by Muhajideen fighters whose village the tank had helped demolish. It's a tightly made action film. But a lot of the interest lies, of course, in the fact that its narrative has, it seems, ceased to be politically viable in the west: the Afghanis are the heroes of a barbarous colonial war that's been thrust on them. It's actually the second action movie from 1988 to take that narrative, the other being Rambo III, a movie that sentimentalizes the issue before pushing it into the background. The Beast is not so simplistic; there are a number of complications, mostly revolving around those from both sides who come to side with the enemy: one of the characters is an Afghani actually fighting for the Russians out of a love for his country(!), the other a Russian intellectual more interested in learning about Afghani culture from the former than fighting. The gender politics lead to an unexpected twist to the expected resolution as well. A fascinating and well made movie that got buried back when it was released.

domino wrote:First Blood (Ted Kotcheff 1982) This one surprised me, mainly because I thought it was going to take place in Vietnam and instead it's entirely set in Washington state!

You're thinking of its sequel, Rambo: First Blood part II, which is twice as bone-headed, politically and every other -ally, but still a really entertaining old-fashioned action/adventure-in-an-exotic-land film.

How about a (pretty clearly) anti-war from Japan -- from 1939. Fumio KAMEI's Tataku heitai (fighting Soldiers). Shot right near the front in Japan's war against China, funded by the military -- but remarkably nonmilitant, showing sympathy both to common soldiers and the vanquished Chinese. Kamei eventually wound up in prison before the end of the war (though not expressly for this films). After the war, he made a film (Tragedy of Japan) focusing on the Emperor's central role in (and responsibility for) the war. Initially approved by the US censors, MacArthur apparently had a fit (after Japanese right wing government leaders complained) -- and this was banned immediately before its scheduled premiere. More on the film... (pdf).

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream ... sequence=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not sure if this is available in the Internet netherworld -- but pretty certain there is no commercial version. Alas. Really, an essential film.

It's up on That Site Which Shall Not Be Mentioned, but without English subs

That list you gave above, dom, is a bit maddening in that I can't decide if you left a film off because you don't think it's great or because you forgot. And it'll bug me the rest of the day if I don't ask, so where do you rate:

The Big Parade
Ivan's Childhood
Went the Day Well?
Paths of Glory

They're probably going on my own list.

I had wondered about Paths of Glory, at least until I saw his Full Metal Jacket write up

Mr Sausage wrote:That list you gave above, dom, is a bit maddening in that I can't decide if you left a film off because you don't think it's great or because you forgot. And it'll bug me the rest of the day if I don't ask, so where do you rate:

The Big Parade
Ivan's Childhood
Went the Day Well?
Paths of Glory

They're probably going on my own list.

I've only seen Paths of Glory of those four, which I think is okay but I prefer Zemeckis' cheeky homage, also starring Kirk Douglas (and his other son), Yellow, to the Kubrick original. Obviously some if not all of these unseen holes will get plugged as the list progresses!

domino harvey wrote:

Mr Sausage wrote:That list you gave above, dom, is a bit maddening in that I can't decide if you left a film off because you don't think it's great or because you forgot. And it'll bug me the rest of the day if I don't ask, so where do you rate:

The Big Parade
Ivan's Childhood
Went the Day Well?
Paths of Glory

They're probably going on my own list.

I've only seen Paths of Glory of those four, which I think is okay but I prefer Zemeckis' cheeky homage, also starring Kirk Douglas (and his other son), Yellow, to the Kubrick original. Obviously some if not all of these unseen holes will get plugged as the list progresses!

Please do try to catch the other three. Of them I'd say that Went the Day Well? and Ivan's Childhood are top ten candidates for me.

Will do! Curious participants should note that Mr Sausage's spotlight, the Beast, is OOP but currently still in stock on Amazon and available from Marketplace sellers for eight bucks and change

So I haven't had enough time to pre-watch a lot of films for this project, but I have been thinking of an arbitrary set of rules as to what constitutes a "war film" that I'll try to follow. Obviously, people can still vote for what they want, and there are various cut-offs here that I may argue myself back into. For the sake of discussion, here they are:

1) The focus is on individual soldiers or civilians who are in clear and present danger from the war.
Reasoning: This leaves out Homefront and Homecoming films. As much as I may like Hail the Conquering Hero, The Best Years of Our Lives, A Canterbury Tale, and Coming Home (and may not like Anchors Aweigh), I don't think they're war films so much as they are dramas related to war. The tropes and themes they're dealing with are ultimately quite different. However, it does leave in "threatened" Homefront films like Mrs. Miniver, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, or Devils on the Doorstep, where war is very much a real and present threat. I think it also still allows Prisoner of War films like Grand Illusion and The Great Escape.

2) The soldiers are part of a greater military unit and not acting alone.
Reasoning: This separates the war film from action. For me, an essential part of a war film is the individual soldier dealing on some level with his duty to his comrades in arms, and further to his country. Rambo (the latest or First Blood Part II) is an action film to me, not a war film, because it's largely a one-man army film (even though Rambo feels guilt for fallen soldiers, they're part of the backstory, not the main plot).

3) The characters have no real deciding role in the reasons and politics behind the war.
Reasoning: While I think a war film can center around a general or leader, I think a film becomes an "epic" when a character starts to become the driving force behind a war and the point of view shifts to "top level" rather than "bottom level." I don't want to dismiss all pre-modern period films from consideration. El Cid and Spartacus are epics because despite depicting wars, their hero protagonists are absolutely central to most of the conflict in the films. Even the villains of the pieces are more opposed to the protagonists than they are committed to their causes. These are films in which the conflicts can be resolved just as easily through a duel than through the battlefield. While I probably won't vote for it because I don't like it, 300 may qualify as a non-modern war film under this criteria, since despite the focus on Leonidas, he's forced into war more than politically rallying for war. Alexander Nevsky might be a weird halfway film, what with Nevsky on one-hand, and the bumbling oafs looking for a bride on the other.

Granted, all of this leaves out the Cold War, which I'll have to think about. Ultimately, I'd classify most as spy films or espionage thrillers, but I might consider ones in which a hot conflict is a possible imminent threat.

Just taking the UK WWII film as an example (and trying to ignore the really big titles), there is a fascinating number of subgenres within just this one:

POW/prison escape films such as The Colditz Story, Danger Within, Two Thousand Women and The Wooden Horse;
resistance dramas (often dealing with French subjects) with Carve Her Name With Pride and the two French-language Hitchcock shorts Aventure Malgache and Bon Voyage, or the Au Revoir Les Enfants-prefiguring Conspiracy of Hearts, and the 'notoriously banned while the British government was trying to appease the Nazis' film Pastor Hall;
counter intelligence films such as I Was Monty's Double or The Day Will Dawn;
submarine films, of which the best is probably We Dive At Dawn, directed by Anthony Asquith and starring John Mills, although Mills also starred (typecast in that genre!) in both Morning Departure and Above Us The Waves later on;
the big epics tackling big events of the war, of which the best example is probably Dunkirk (which is in the Scott of the Antarctic-mould of heroic failure, and contrasts interestingly to the fictional treatment of the same in Atonement much later);
alternate history "what if the Nazis invaded Britain?" docu-dramas in It Happened Here;
the North African campaign is extremely well represented with the magnificent Ice Cold In Alex (wearing its Wages of Fear influence well in suggesting sheer effort, and which ends with perhaps the most blatant product placement moment in film, which itself inevitably became an advert, but a fully earned one!) and Sidney Lumet's military prison drama starring Sean Connery, The Hill;
home front films, either the women empowered by taking on factory or land work in films such as Millions Like Us and The Gentle Sex (the last narrated by Leslie Howard); or life in the Blitz, of which the supreme example has to be John Boorman's Hope and Glory (though I also want to put in a mention for the wonderful Aardman animated short War Story!);

Then there is the plethora of aviation films such as Battle of Britain (worth watching for the spectacular dogfighting scenes) but also Anthony Asquith's The Way To The Stars (also don't forget Asquith's Freedom Radio, all about Hitler's doctor, Vienna and pirate radio broadcasts!), the Douglas Bader biopic Reach For The Sky (about the pilot who still flew in the Battle of Britain despite having losing both legs in an accident in the early 1930s) and especially Carol Reed's magnificent 'moulding raw recruits into fighting men' ensemble drama The Way Ahead.

If you want a slightly more recent film, I would also recommend Dark Blue World, all about the Czech pilots based in Britain during the war (including using footage that had been cut from the 1969 Battle of Britain film), intercut with their reception back in Poland following the end of the war and the Communist occupation.

John Mills is all over this genre, though this is also where Leslie Howard and particularly David Niven were at their best too. Interestingly Leslie Howard recently got revived as a pop star, when Public Service Broadcasting's track Spitfire used extensive quotes from his dialogue in The First of the Few!

I think that might be enough to be going on with!

Shrew, those are some interesting distinctions, but I think any reading of this genre that denies a place at the table for the Best Years of Our Lives or Hail the Conquering Hero is refining itself down way too far. This isn't just a "Combat" list. As you say, we'll all have our own limits and perimeters for what "War" means to us, but feel free to loosen those constraints for yourself some!

And Colin, are Public Service Broadcasting well-known in the UK? I found the recent album pleasant in a kind of third-rate Pell Mell meets whoever did the samples for Godspeed You Black Emperor! fashion, but I have a hard time imagining any of it playing on the radio!

Out of curiosity how many people are planning on including films about films dealing with more ancient wars (let's say non-gun based for my lack of thinking up a solid all-encompassing term)? It seems a lot of the discussion so far has focused on wars that happened during the life of the film medium (or used similar-ish weaponry to those wars). And when I think war film, my mind usually goes straight to WWI and WWII type material, and there seems to be quite a different feel to these films and films about wars that happened very long ago. But on the other hand I see no reason to exclude any film based on the time period of the war.


I'm sort of divided on the issue, and I'm curious how others plan on approaching it.

I would not hesitate to include films from an ancient era if one struck my fancy, but I haven't seen any I like enough to crack my top fifty-- yet! I think any film with soldiers in battle is fair game, regardless of era

What about something like Starship Troopers that deals with war in a fictional setting?

Given the clear parallels between WWII recruiting propaganda and the film's depictions of interplanetary warfare, I think it belongs whereas Star Wars, despite the title, does not