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Featured Replies

Currently watching "They Were Expendable" on TCM.   I've seen this about 30 times. It isn't great.

31 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

It isn't great.

WTF is wrong with you? They Were Expendable is one of the greatest WWII films ever made. You're trolling me, right?

I'm going to give you the finger for that.

57 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

Currently watching "They Were Expendable" on TCM.   I've seen this about 30 times. It isn't great.

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A not very secret is Ford became extremely ill and had to leave the picture very early. Robert Montgomery (an actual Navy vet) took over as director and finished the film uncredited.

Oh, the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga!

Edited by RPM

I watched Battle of the Bulge again recently. I’d seen it before but it was like watching it for the first time. Nothing seemed familiar. I had forgotten how divorced it was from historical fact. Nicely cast, well produced bad movie. 

Patton. That’s my favorite movie overall of any genre. Lost count on how many times I have seen it. 

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I watched Battle of the Bulge again recently. I’d seen it before but it was like watching it for the first time. Nothing seemed familiar. I had forgotten how divorced it was from historical fact. Nicely cast, well produced bad movie. 

It was so bad Dwight Eisenhower Came Out of Retirement to Denounce the Movie “Battle of the Bulge”

Quote

 

Now, imagine if, after the preview of the first couple of episodes, Dick Winters and the other survivors of E Company had organized a press interview and said something like “We totally disavow this series – it is nothing like what we experienced, and it is a poor excuse for a film.” 

That is exactly what happened in 1965 when the movie “The Battle of the Bulge” was released, but instead of a major, the SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER IN EUROPE and 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower came out of retirement to denounce the film as “historically inaccurate”.

 

 

Tora, Tora, Tora has always been one of my favorites. 

40 minutes ago, Underdog said:

Tora, Tora, Tora has always been one of my favorites. 

Great production. I watched it during quarantine a couple years ago. Same with The Green Berets. That’s another one of my favorites. They’re very different movies. The first is a little frustrating because of its historical accuracy. The second is more of a propaganda film and gets a little cheesy. They’re both classics.

The effects in Tora! Tora! Tora! are outstanding. CGI has its advantages but I’ve always loved effects using miniature models and those are first rate. It doesn’t help that filmmakers today tend to go so overboard with their use of CGI that it doesn’t seem realistic.

Speaking of miniatures, I also rewatched 1941 back in 2020. Hadn’t seen that in a long time. It’s better than I remembered. More of a wartime movie than a war movie but I think it still counts. 

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This one is rare to TV.  When I find it, a complete stop down.

Also has the guy that played Henry Salt from Willy Wonka 

Despite the obvious inaccuracies, The Battle of the Bulge is still one of my favorite war movies. It’s hard to capture a month long battle with a two hour movie. Some of the things mentioned or shown in the movie actually happened.  The massacre at Malmedy was real.  

Other old favorites include The Dirty Dozen (fiction), The Longest Day, Tora Tora Tora, A Bridge Too Far, The Battle of Britain, PT-109 (arguably pro JFK propaganda, but i still like it) and of course Patton.

Patton is 52 years old.  I know it's not "old," but it's pretty old. 

Obviously The Pacific and Band of Brothers but they aren’t movies

Battleground

The Blue Max

Patton

Dr Strangelove

Full Metal Jacket

Bridge on the River Kwai

30 Seconds over Tokyo

Battle of Britain

12 OClock High

Big Red One

Kelly’s Heroes

Mrs Miniver

The Dirty Dozen

Saving Private Ryan

Stalag 17

The Great Escape

Das Boot

The Best Years of Our Lives

Stalingrad

Waterloo

Gettysburg

Gone With the Wind

Top Gun: Maverick

Sergeant York

There’s a lot more

My grandpa, (WW2 Marine vet) used to cuss every time he saw a John Wayne war movie on TV. He called him a “draft dodging pussy”! He said he saw him in Australia during a USO show and Wayne was booed off stage. I blew it off back then, but now that I’m older and a vet myself I have a hard time watching any of his WW2 stuff made while a ton of his contemporaries put their careers on hold and went to war.

5 hours ago, ReturnofNumber6 said:

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This one is rare to TV.  When I find it, a complete stop down.

Also has the guy that played Henry Salt from Willy Wonka 

Watched it for the first time a couple of months ago.  Terrific.  Love the screeching brits in short pants.

Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare are two all time favs of mine. 

The Tin Drum 

Gallipoli

Zulu

Twelve O'clock High 

The Bridge on the River Kwai 

 

And you might only be able to watch it once 

Come and See 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Author
11 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

Patton. That’s my favorite movie overall of any genre. Lost count on how many times I have seen it. 

So, the GF's son is married to a terrific woman from China (they met when he was serving in Japan and she was in grad school there).  Her folks have been here twice.  They don't speak a word of english, but he likes beer so we drink together and backslap each other. 

Anyway, a few years back, the girl gets pregnant, and the parents come out in the last month of her pregnancy and stay several months.  

We are all in the waiting room at the UCLA med center while she's in labor.   Dad is watching "Patton" on his laptop with Chinese subtitles. 

You want to talk old war movies, then let's talk OLD war movies:

The Lost Squadron

Wings

The Dawn Patrol (1930 & 1938 remake)

Hell's Angels

 

Its been listed already but if you are interested in a movie about the Battle of the Bulge watch Battleground.

14 hours ago, GoPokes83 said:

My grandpa, (WW2 Marine vet) used to cuss every time he saw a John Wayne war movie on TV. He called him a “draft dodging pussy”! He said he saw him in Australia during a USO show and Wayne was booed off stage. I blew it off back then, but now that I’m older and a vet myself I have a hard time watching any of his WW2 stuff made while a ton of his contemporaries put their careers on hold and went to war.

 

Not a war movie in the traditional "combat" sense, but a very good film from the era in which most war movies were pretty fluffy.

The Caine Mutiny.

In retrospect, it is somewhat astonishing that a film that was so ambiguous about the heroism of American warriors was made in that time frame.

Also, Wouk's WWII books are outstanding, if you haven't read them.  Given most of their film treatments, I thought they'd be kind of romantic fluff, but they're not.

The Best Years of Our Lives is an excellent post-war film about servicemen re-entering society. Harold Russell won 2 Academy Awards for the same role. He was the first non-professional actor to win an Academy Award for acting. For his role as Parrish, Russell won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1947. Earlier in the ceremony, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for ''bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures."

 

 

Partial to 12 O'Clock High. The prospects for making it through your tour were really slim in the early days of the Mighty Eighth. 

And as much of a pussy as John Wayne was, Jimmy Stewart was a Grade A badass. Right in the middle of it all. 

 
Partial to 12 O'Clock High. The prospects for making it through your tour were really slim in the early days of the Mighty Eighth. 
And as much of a pussy as John Wayne was, Jimmy Stewart was a Grade A badass. Right in the middle of it all. 

Jimmy Stewart. Fucking Brigadier General James Stewart. Badass bomber pilot.
20 hours ago, HiggyBaby said:

Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare are two all time favs of mine. 

The fact that is took this long for both to get mentioned is sad.    Navarone still holds up pretty well.   At least until the the very end when James Darren goes out in a blaze of glory protecting his newfound "homeland" followed by Mallory saving Andrea's life.   Where Eagles Dare is schlocky and full of shenanigans but at least it's cheeky and fun.

  • Author
12 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Not a war movie in the traditional "combat" sense, but a very good film from the era in which most war movies were pretty fluffy.

The Caine Mutiny.

In retrospect, it is somewhat astonishing that a film that was so ambiguous about the heroism of American warriors was made in that time frame.

Also, Wouk's WWII books are outstanding, if you haven't read them.  Given most of their film treatments, I thought they'd be kind of romantic fluff, but they're not.

It's so good. 

Not a war movie in the traditional "combat" sense, but a very good film from the era in which most war movies were pretty fluffy.
The Caine Mutiny.
In retrospect, it is somewhat astonishing that a film that was so ambiguous about the heroism of American warriors was made in that time frame.
Also, Wouk's WWII books are outstanding, if you haven't read them.  Given most of their film treatments, I thought they'd be kind of romantic fluff, but they're not.

I loved the Caine Mutiny. Bogart and the strawberries, the yellow stain, Fred MacMurray’s pushing the narrative. My mother had the book and I read it in sixth grade. The book is long and sets up Willie Keith as a bit more worldly but more buttoned up out of officer school. Queeg starts out as a buttoned up hero cleaning up the Caine and getting her battle ready. The next section is moving into battle and the very slow change in Queeg and the slow realization by various characters that he was first a coward, and later crazy.

There is much more devoted to the trial in the book. In fact before the movie the stage adaptation was the court martial.

I remember the graphic description of pizza as in 1951 most folks didn’t know what pizza was. Also I guess much of my interest in this was my grandmother’s brother died in that great typhoon.

A Bridge too Far - one of my all time favorites.
The Iron Cross - Sam Peckinpah
The Siege of Firebase Gloria - R. Lee Ermey
The Boys of Company C
The Big Red One

So many others. Just a few I haven’t seen on these lists.

15 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

It's so good. 

Fred MacMurray steals the fucking show.

20 minutes ago, TexasBeta said:

The Siege of Firebase Gloria - R. Lee Ermey
The Boys of Company C

Guess it depends on your pov about old. Both are great films.

needed to add these if not covered by another list ....

Command Decision 1948
Twelve O'Clock High 1949
The Blue Max 1966
Stalag 17 
Fighter Squadron
Hart's War 

My parents took me to see the Blue Max because they knew I lived war movies and aviation. I was 7. I learned abut WWI dogfighting, and about the wonders of Ursula Andreas gettin nekkid.

53 minutes ago, Capt. Squints said:

I don't think Mr. Roberts and Pork Chop Hill have been mentioned, and that's a travesty.

Hey now, I mentioned Mister Roberts and its sequel, Ensign Pulver, on page 1.

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Battleground from 1949 is one I can never pass up. The best years of our lives is one of the best movies ever made.

An often overlooked gem is Decision Before Dawn. Nominated for best picture in 1951.

 

Because there doesn't seem to be a consensus here on "old,"  A Midnight Clear is pretty good.

31 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

If you're not watching Stalag 17 on Christmas eve you're doing it wrong.

Billy Wilder ftfw

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