To End All Wars is a little known film that depicts the horrible treatment the Allied POWs suffered in Burma/Thailand. It is a much more accurate depiction of their POW experience than the historically inaccurate representation in Bridge on the River Quai.
If anyone has not seen it, I highly reccommend it.
Now that someone meantioned Guns of Navarone someone forgot the sequel Force 10 from Navarone with Harrison Ford.
The Dambusters…even if Peter Jackson’s remake comes out…and 633 squadron. And of course from an earlier time “The Blue Max”
Great Thread!
Good call, Mikeym for “The Guns of Navarone”… OMG. At the climax and the guns have tumbled down the cliff, and the ships start sounding their horns… OH Man! GOOSEBUMPS EVERY TIME!
In ORDER:
Tora Tora Tora! (Accurate and amazingly dramatic. PLUS The Japanese are speaking Japanese and that really makes it compelling in my opinion)
Empire of the Sun (This movie is beyond great! The protagonist is completely a kindered spirit to the highest degree!) This is all time fav!
The Great Escape (If you don’t like this one your ‘Man Card’ is automatically revoked!)
Catch 22 (One of the best anti-war movies ever made (imo))
Bridge on the River Kwai (An Acadamy Award is the least that this one deserves! The madness! The irony! omg GREAT!)
Operation Crossbow (I just dig this movie! It’s all over the map with creative license but I still like it)
SNEAKING UNDER THE WIRE:
The Great Waldo Pepper This is a ‘between the wars’ story and isn’t World War Two… BUT this film CAPTURES THE SPIRIT OF AVIATION unlike ANY other!
Always Not even a World War Two film at all. But there’s references to it and it’s just a wonderful airplane movie! (imo))
STINKO’S FOR ALL TIME:
Flying Leather Necks (John Wayne is real bad. John Wayne is very overrated as an actor. (imo))
Flying Tigers (Worse than Flying Leather Necks… if that’s possible)
A good Airplane Movie with John Wayne is JET PILOT. John Wayne is horrible again but the in-flight Technicolor scenes are gorgeous beyond description! And Janet Leigh is smokin’ hot as the Russian defector! Story is dorky too but all the flying scenes still make it worthwhile!
A Man Named Joe (Proof that Cagney and Hepburn cold make a flick that’s a total waste of celluloid! …And, not all Black & White old movies are good)
Memphis Belle (Too wimpy. I was embarassed watching this handwringing excersise of second guessing the U.S.A.s resolve to vanquish tyranny! I spit on this film!)
That was A Guy Named Joe, Trexx. Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson and Irene Dunne…but more of a chick-flick than anything else, I agree.
Operation Crossbow is a lot of fun!
3 other Bogart films…Across the Pacific, Action in the North Atlantic and Passage to Marsielles…all decent in-studio actioners.
Destination Tokyo (Sub flick)
30 Seconds Over Tokyo (Tracy and Johnson again, with much better results!)
There is one more huge one we’ve all ignored…I had it, but lost the thought!!! UGH!
Big film too! Maybe it’ll come back to me!
On the cusp is “From here to Eternity”
Thanks for the corrections!
The modern remake is “Always”. It too qualifies as a ‘high estrogen’ flick but I just really like the Fire Bomber theme and the flying scenes!
The Great Waldo Pepper, is an ‘interwar’ movie but it is a great one. Unfortunately Bob Redford’s arrogance is keeping it off the DVD shelves or only available for a mighty price.
4 used & new available from $74.48
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Waldo-Pepper-Robert-Redford/dp/630513717X
Mean while his anti-war movies only sell over seas. ARROGANT, anti-american, anti-military sod.
Redford…the most mis-cast member of the “Bridge Too Far” cast (among many) You can almost feel his distaste for the subject…and I’ve felt that for 30 years.
Most disappointing film…because it was shot so haphazardly because you just could not get all those actors together at one time in order to shoot scenes with continuity.
well as this is the AIRCRAFT section, the movies should at least HAVE an airplane in them [swg]
The War Lover with Steve McQueen as a B17 bomber pilot
and as it was a “war” movie Casablanca…
A great Cold War movie is Strategic Air Command.
Fantastic photography of the 1950’s SAC Bombers, and THE film for actual in-flight B-36 footage!
Jet Pilot was a film by Howard Hughes who was a stickler for details when it came to shooting the aerial scenes.
A masterpiece of aerial photography!
Howard Hughes. What’s not to like? Arguably a key figure that helped save the U.S. aviation industry during the Great Depression, a world class skirt chaser, and aiplane nut for all time! Howie was cool.
You forgot to meantion this at the time of filming Jimmy Stewart was a Colonel in the USAF reserve and was a B-17 pilot during WWII. And its cool that he never had to research his roll since as a member of the USAF reserve he had to train on the B-36 and B-47 anyways because of his reserve committment. Rest in Peace Brigadere General Stewart.
I meantioned Force 10 from Navarone not Guns of Navarone. Force 10 is the sequel to Guns of Navarone which starred Harrison ford and Carl Weathers and had the 2 brits from Guns of Navarone. The best scene of Force 10 has to be the ending when the dam that was sabotaged broke open sending a tidlewave of water which destroyed the bridge that the Nazi’s were crossing on.
Many years ago I saw the Memphis Bell at the Airforce Museum. It was so graphic that a couple people got sick (I can still hear the 20mm cannon ripping thru the plan like a jig saw). Saw it again a couple years later in the same place, and it was like a different movie. Another good film clip I saw over there was the introduction to “Red Flag.” That first two or three minutes with the F105G’s playing tag with a sam site was scarey! And the dog fight down in the canyon with the MIG was something else too (you could see the canyon rim above you).
gary
This may be a relatively unheard of one, but The Eagle has Landed wasn’t too bad. Now one of my least favorites would be Battle of the Bulge wit Henry Fonda. Another all star cast and great action, but the story line is terrible[xx(].
In no particular order
Air Force
Winged Victory
Battle of Britain
Sahara
12 O Clock High
Wing and a Prayer
A Walk in the Sun
Objective Burma
I guess ‘Battleground’ is the film I was thinking of, but there may be another that has gone unmentioned.
Battleground was a fab flick centered around the Ardennes Offensive…1948, I think. Band of Brothers (the best in MHO too), got a lot of inspiriation from Battleground.
[#ditto]
I haven’t seen this film in ages – certainly not since it was first in a theatre.
I saw a swell movie once and I cannot remember its title.
The story is about a special group of Allied prisoners being held in a Bavarian Castle by the Nazis. Because they were scientists, engineers and other high tech craftsmen and such they were isolated in this castle prison. The prisoners secretly build a glider and a launch rail. One or two of the most prized prisoners fly off the roof and into Switzerland. I thought it was called, “Castle Keep” but that’s not it.
Does anybody know this movie? I thought it quite good. I cannot even remember any of the actors… “Damn Senior moment” or somethin’