War
& Popcorn
NRO
writers pick the best war films of all time.
Compiled
by Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO Executive Editor
November 22-25, 2001
RO asked a selection of its writers — including history buffs, cultural
commentators, and military minds — to compile and discuss their favorite
wartime movies. Contributors were limited as to word count, so entries
are individually subjective, although collectively comprehensive. Of course,
many of these films will make perfect holiday gifts, so we’ve included
the appropriate links to amazon.com (click on either the DVD (
)or
VHS (
)
buttons following each selection).
Andrew
J. Bacevich
Professor, international relations, Boston University.
From Here to Eternity [
].
The U. S. Army in Hawaii on the eve of Pearl Harbor. Not as good as
the novel, but a great movie that reveals the inside (and the underside)
of soldiering. Lancaster, Clift, Sinatra are all superb. Even Donna Reed
is okay. An antidote to the tendency of conservatives to sentimentalize
those who serve in uniform.
Anita
Blair & Doug Welty
A thoroughly modern Washington couple, Doug Welty does
law & Anita Blair does war (she works at the Pentagon).
Three from
director John Milius, whose oeuvre is unmatched for boosting morale in
wartime.
Rough Riders
[].
Tom Berenger, Sam Neill, and Gary Busey lead the Ivy Leaguers and workin'
stiffs of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry up, around, and through the woods
and hills of Cuba to defeat the nefarious Spaniard. Berenger is an inspiring
TR, brave but not infallible.
The Wind and
the Lion [].
Beauty, humor, and still more Teddy Roosevelt. The opening sequence is
a terrorist raid on a civilized garden party--not in the same league as
September 11, but it gets your attention. In the end, the U.S. Marines
team up with the putative bad guys to whup the really bad guys. Great
myth-making for all ages.
Conan the Barbarian
[].
Ooo-RAH! Deliciously overblown--Arnold stands in for America and its allies,
meting out justice to the Evil One, the surprisingly restrained James
Earl Jones. A few too many nekkid ladies and buckets of spilled gore,
but it would hardly be a war without them, would it? Co-writer Oliver
Stone may never live this one down.
Red Dawn
[
].
Well, make
that three-and-a-half from Milius. The Left has always hated "Red Dawn,"
ostensibly for its wooden acting but in fact because of its premise that
a bunch of fired-up American guerillas could oppose effectively a Soviet-led
military force that invaded the homeland. Stars Patrick Swayze, Lea Thompson,
Jennifer Gray, Charlie Sheen, and a bunch of other unknown-in-1984 brat-packers.
Let's roll!
John
Derbyshire
NRO columnist, NR contributing editor & author,
most recently, of Fire
from the Sun.
It is an odd thing,
considering the scale of the events, and their proximity to the rise of
the cinema, that there is no great WWI movie. Lewis Milestone’s All
Quiet on the Western Front [
]
is generally brought forward in this context, but I must say I have never
found it very satisfactory. (I confess I haven’t seen the 1979 remake
[]
, which looks to be worth a try). There is, however, a truly great movie
— one of the dozen or so best movies ever made — that touches
peripherally on the Kaiser’s War: Alan Bridges’s Shooting Party
[].
What a tremendous actor James Mason was! I could happily sit for two hours
watching him read from the phonebook.
For WWII my choice
would be Franklin Schaffner’s incomparable Patton [
]
— another one of the greats, and Richard Nixon’s favorite movie (what
more need one say?) For Britain’s imperial wars, Cy Endfield’s
Zulu [],
which I think I might be willing to say is the best war movie ever made,
bringing out all the peculiar mix of squalor, desperation, disgust, cruelty,
nobility, dignity, and euphoria that make up the experience of war.
Finally, a little-known
Civil War movie, with no actual fighting in it, but which, once you have
seen it, will stay with you till the day you die: Robert Enrico’s 1962
filming of Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge [].
For readers who have switched to DVD, the status of these movies is: Owl
Creek is not on disc at all; Shooting Party is due in February,
and the others are all currently available.
Frank
Gaffney
Formerly senior post-holder in the Reagan Defense Department
& currently the president of the Center
for Security Policy.
Saving Private
Ryan [
].
Already a classic, remarkable for its realistic portrayal of a foot soldier's
view of war — orders that don't make sense, fire fights that suddenly
transform friends into corpses, terrifying combat, and innumerable acts
of usually unrecognized heroism.
Galipoli. A heart-wrenching depiction of the kind of blood-soaked battles that were supposed to make World War I the "war to end all wars," the comaraderie that confronting imminent death often engenders and the human reality of "cannon-fodder."
Bridge Over the
River Kwai [
].
An extraordinary tale based on facts concerning British prisoners-of-war
who wind up helping the Japanese build a railroad bridge, but only after
they are placed in the charge of their own officers. It illuminates the
inspiring quality of leadership, even when misapplied, on men in difficult
wartime circumstances.
The Third Man
[
].
A movie about a different kind of war — the Cold War — in its
opening days in Vienna. It features some of the most dramatic and brilliant
cinematography in the history of film, and its black-and-white images
perfectly capture the shadowy nature of what Churchill called the "Twilight
Struggle."
Casablanca
[
].
Another film classic set in wartime North Africa with clips from Paris
as it was falling to the Nazis. While not a war movie in the sense of
combat scenes and military hardware, it nonetheless provides memorable
insights into the way wars touch civilians' lives and the courage displayed
by some who fight in settings far removed from the battlefields.
Jonah
Goldberg
NRO editor.
I’m assuming that
anybody interested in collecting war movies, already has Bridge on
the River Kwai [
],
Where Eagles Dare [
],
(the classic anti-war war movie) Paths of Glory [],
Stripes [
],
and the other obvious classics. So herewith are a few offbeat recommendations.
The Khyber Pass
is actually in the news again, so it seems inconceivable not to recommend
The Man Who Would be King [
].
This makes my list of favorite movies. Period. More an adventure than
a strict war movie, this adaptation of the Kipling short story about two
British colonial soldiers who conquer the mythical Kafiristan is a must-see,
or must have.
Ride With the
Devil [
],
directed by Ang Lee, is one of the most interesting Civil War movies to
come out in years. The critics didn’t like it much, but I did. Another
very good civil war film is the Oscar-winning Glory [],
though it’s not great because Matthew Broderick was miscast.
But I think, given
the news we should stick with more stuff from the relevant periods. Lawrence
of Arabia [
]
is an obvious choice. Again, more of an adventure movie with lots of war,
this is another of my all-time favorites. I’d put Gallipoli down
— since it is a wonderful movie — but since that battle represents
Winston Churchill’s one great screw-up, it’s disallowed in this era of
Churchillphilia.
We’re constantly
told that our opponents live in the past, so we might as well explore
our own. For that Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (1945) [
]
should be seen, if for no other reason than his St. Crispin’s speech is
awesome. And lastly, I’m not embarrassed to say I watch Braveheart
[
]
almost every time it's on TV.
Victor
Davis Hanson
NRO contributor & author most recently of Carnage
and Culture.
Patton [
].
Much of the complexity of Patton, especially his intellectual rigor coupled
with raw emotion, shines through — despite a somewhat misleading
characterization of Omar Bradley as a loyal friend and confidant (he was
neither). An invaluable reminder in our present ordeal how sheer force
of character and devotion to a humane cause in a single leader can motivate
thousands of amateurs to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: A third of Hanson’s The Soul of Battle is devoted to Patton's Third Army in Europe, which is presented as a case study of how democratic armies, aroused and on the move, can annihilate the enemies of freedom.)
Twelve o' Clock
High [
].
A tragic view of the ordeal of B-17s crews over Europe that highlights
how civilians in a democratic society quite abruptly master and excel
at — albeit at great cost — the deadly craft of warmaking.
Zulu [
].
An accurate retelling of the high drama at Rorke's Drift, where in late
January 1879 less than a hundred British soldiers under the most unlikely,
though courageous, officers held off nearly 4,000 Zulu warriors through
careful volleys, group discipline, shared sacrifice, superior training,
and individual initiative‹hallmarks of the British army in particular
and in fact the Western Way of War in general. Recommended viewing for
any enemy like the Taliban who considers Westerners "soft", "weak" and
"decadent."
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Rorke's Drift is presented in Hanson’s Carnage and Culture as a case study of the unique Western approach to military discipline, a method of cohesion and solidarity which has no real similar counterpart in other rival military traditions.)
Das Boot
[
].
One of the most realistic combat experiences yet filmed that captures
the nightmarish world of German submarine crews during World War I. A
timely reminder how good men can become conscripted for an evil cause,
leaving them to fight only for the preservation of one another rather
than in patriotic fervor battling for a moral principle. We should remember
that paradox of war when we recall that many Afghani peasants were shanghaied
into the army of the Taliban, and so faced the same tragedy of fighting
under coercion for a doomed and evil force.
Jeffrey
Hart
NR senior editor & author, most recently, of Smiling
Through the Cultural Catastrophe.
Casablanca
[
]
is probably the best, or one of the best, movies of all time. Strong contenders,
but not close to Casablanca, are Midway [
]
and The Caine Mutiny [
].
S.
T. Karnick
Editor-in-chief, American Outlook
The Adventures
of Robin Hood (1938) [
],
directed by Michael Curtiz. Delightful, swashbuckling action-adventure
at its best, The Adventures of Robin Hood shows what happens when
power-hungry scoundrels rouse a sleeping giant. Robin Hood (Errol Flynn
in the role he was born to play) and his Saxon compatriots rise up against
their Norman oppressors, and justice triumphs because the people are courageous
enough to fight for it. Marian: "Why, you speak treason!" Robin (smiling):
"Fluently."
Gunga Din
[],
directed by George Stevens. Based on the Rudyard Kipling poem, Gunga
Din depicts the positive side of colonialism, reminding us that things
were far from ideal in the premodern societies that have been the subject
of so much adoration in the West, and remnants of which we are now fighting.
As the merciless Thuggee cult roams through nineteenth-century India and
prepares a murderous uprising, three roguish English soldiers (Cary Grant,
Victor MacLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) are all that stands between
English order and ensuing chaos. But the real hero turns out to be a meek
Indian water-carrier, Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe), who saves both the English
heroes and his Hindu countrymen. Montagu Love as Colonel Weed: "Though
I've belted you and flayed you / By the living God that made you / You're
a better man than I am, Gunga Din."
Hail the Conquering
Hero [],
directed by Preston Sturges. Sturges's satirical look at America's government-induced
efforts to whip up artificial patriotism during World War II — boldly
released at the height of the war effort — shows us what real love
of country and true heroism look like — the humble and awkward but
decent and well-meaning Eddie Bracken, of all people.
Patton [
],
directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. An impressive depiction of the complexities
of war, and an insightful biography of a great but imperfect man, Patton
shows how politics and personalities, even in a time when people agree
on whether to fight, can foul up a relatively simple thing like a war.
Patton: "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by
dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard
die for his country."
The Wind and
the Lion [],
written and directed by John Milius. The hazards of politics, both domestic
and international, provide the backdrop for a highly sophisticated meditation
on how to deal with terrorists, in this intelligent but rousing adventure
based on a true story. Sean Connery plays Berger chieftain Mulay el-Raisuli
the Magnificent, who kidnaps American diplomat's wife Edith Pedecaris
(Candice Bergman) and her two children, in 1904 Morocco. Mrs. Pedecaris
deftly avoids falling prey to the Stockholm Syndrome, while President
Teddy Roosevelt (brilliantly played by Brian Keith) resists Raisuli's
ransom demands, telegraphing the chieftain, "Pedecaris alive or Raisuli
dead."
Michael
Ledeen
NRO contributing editor & resident scholar in the Freedom
Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
He is author, most recently, of Tocqueville
on American Character.
The
Opening Battle Scene from Gladiator [
].
Maybe the best ancient battle scene in all of movies. It shows Roman political/military
virtue conjoined with superior technology in Marcus Aurelius’s defeat
of the Huns. Just like us against the Middle Eastern barbarians. Don’t
miss the dog...wow.
Patton [
].
A year ago, when I was recovering from surgery, I watched Patton
over and over. It’s a real morale-builder. Patton was undoubtedly our
most interesting general, hell, he may have been anybody’s most interesting
general, so of course the intellectuals have mostly hated him on the same
grounds they hate Robert Montgomery Knight, another politically incorrect
leader who knows his military history. George C. Scott is perfect.
Star Wars
[
].
Don’t you love Darth Vader? He’s the greatest bad guy since Odd Job.
Braveheart
[
].
The greatest Scottish Western ever made.
Band of Brothers
[].
I know, I know, it’s a TV series. But it’s gorgeous.
Rob
Long
Hollywood writer & NR contributing editor
There is really
only one movie about the region with which we are now at war that makes
any sense, and that's Lawrence of Arabia [
].
Watch it for the politics, for the clash of cultures, and for a certain
amount of fatalism about the region and its people.
Make it a double
feature with High Noon [
],
which for my money is as relevant and moving and important today as it
was forty years ago. And Gary Cooper's quietly stubborn hero is the perfect
antidote to the whining and feckless left wing college kids you probably
have hanging around your house during the holidays.
Thomas
F. Madden
Author of A
Concise History of the Crusades & coauthor of The
Fourth Crusade & associate professor & chair of the Department
of History at Saint Louis University.
El Cid [],
starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. Epic story of a valiant medieval
warrior, fighting to defend Spain from an invasion of Moors. A stirring
tale and some of the best medieval battle scenes ever filmed.
The War Lord
(1965) [
],
starring Charlton Heston. Set in the early Middle Ages, Heston plays a
noble lord who must deal with the realities of a barbaric world. Aside
from the "right of first night" (which is a Hollywood invention), it is
a highly accurate portrayal of medieval life.
The Adventures
of Robin Hood (1938) [
],
starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The twelfth century's own
special op forces, waging guerrilla warfare to defend the innocent.
Chris
McEvoy
NRO Managing Editor.
This list is confined to World War II, which still offers the richest chest of war material for filmmakers.
The Masterpiece:
No war movie ever had the firepower of cast, score, and screenplay as
did The Great Escape (1963) [
].
What young boy didn’t want to be Steve McQueen, on the German motorcycle,
lifting off one of those last hills for the chance of freedom in Switzerland?
(Many of us cleared that barbed-wire fence, too.)
More Escape: The
tireless escape motif plays to our need for hope in crisis. Like Great
Escape, Stalag 17 [
]
(on which Hogan's Heroes was based) excels with a deep cast and storyline.
The Other Camps:
Schindler's List (1993) [],
Life Is Beautiful (1997) [
],
and The Garden of the Finizi Continis (1970) []
each counter horror with the beauty of life.
Behind the Lines:
Intrigue must-sees include: Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957, Alec
Guiness) [
]
and The Train (1965, Burt Lancaster) [
].
Best Serious Comedy:
The Fonda-Cagney feud in Mister Roberts (1955) [
]
rivals Gore v. Bush.
Best Anti-War Film: The Victors (1963, George Peppard) is meant to disturb, and it does. But war is disturbing.
Best WWII Movies Never Done: Hollywood — despite making near 700 WWII films — has, in places, only scratched this war with quality. Here's a mini wish list:
D-Day+: Saving Private Ryan (1998) [Battle of the Bulge: This complicated and near-final battle of WWII drew Robert Shaw's fine performance — which did not save the 1965 effort [
The Pacific Theater: Tora Tora Tora (1970) [
Hollywood, get to work.
John
J. Miller
NR national political reporter & author of The
Unmaking of Americans.
The war-movie genre reminds us that the film industry, for all its faults, can do some things well. There are too many good war movies to list, but here are a few that shouldn’t be missed:
Henry V (1945)
[
].
The Laurence Olivier version of Shakespeare’s play is a rousing call to
arms, made while the Second World War was still being fought. It sets
out to show that war is often justified, and succeeds fabulously at the
task. The 1989 version of Henry V [
],
by Kenneth Branagh, is also quite good (especially the St. Crispin’s Day
speech), but carries an anti-war message unsuited for our times.
Patton [
].
An actor may never have been better matched with his role than George
C. Scott was with General George Patton, the hard-driving American general
who some think would have ended the Second World War ahead of schedule
if he had been fully unleashed on the Germans.
Gettysburg
[
].
A sweeping four-hour story of what may be the most important battle in
American history. It employed thousands of Civil War re-enactors for the
combat sequences and was filmed on location. It’s very good — but
not as good as the outstanding book it’s based on, The
Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara.
Ran [
].
Director Akira Kurosawa revises the story of King Lear (the daughters
are sons) and sets it 16th-century Japan. Includes what may be the best
battle scenes ever shot.
Red Dawn
[
].
Okay, it’s not a landmark film — but the Left hates this movie. What’s
not to love about the story of Americans becoming freedom fighters when
the Soviet Union invades their country? Red Dawn’s fist-pumping
patriotism is invigorating.
John
Podhoretz
NRO movie reviewer & New York Post columnist.
The greatest American
wartime movie is about life after wartime. The Best Years of Our Lives
[
]
was made in 1946, and tells the story of three servicemen coming home
to an unnamed midwestern city after years at war. Decades before "post-traumatic
stress disorder" and other argle-bargle terms became all the psychobabblical
rage, The Best Years of Our Lives provided a peerless portrait
of the difficulties experienced by three American servicemen who return
to civilian life in an unnamed midwestern city after the conclusion of
World War II.
This three-hour-long film moves like a freight train, offering an admittedly sentimental vision of a postwar nation where social divisions have collapsed — in which the vice-president of a bank is happy that his daughter has fallen in love with a divorced soda jerk because the soda jerk was a great soldier. And there's Homer, whose arms were partially blown off in battle and who must make do with hooks instead of hands — and who cannot quite believe that his high-school sweetheart could possibly want him given his disability. Homer is played by Harold Russell, a non-actor who also lost his hands in the war and who won a well-deserved Oscar.
Billy Wilder once called it "the best-directed movie I've ever seen," and indeed, William Wyler's staggeringly authoritative direction is the equivalent of a gorgeously simple and pitch-perfect prose style. Robert Sherwood's screenplay is similarly a marvel of storytelling. What they wrought, in 1946, was a peerless film about the costs and glories of war.
Kate
& James O’Beirne
Kate is NR’s Washington Editor. James is a retired
infantry officer who now sleeps past dawn because he habitually watches
old movies into the wee hours.
Northwest Passage
[].
Spencer Tracy, as Major Robert Rogers, leads the pre-revolutionary military
forbears of the men who saved Private Ryan and those who parachuted into
Afghanistan a few weeks ago. Rogers's Rangers demonstrate that ordinary
men are capable of extraordinary sacrifice.
Paths of Glory.
[].
Kirk Douglas stars in this powerful story of the insanity of World War
I trench warfare in France. It indicts the callousness which can come
to dominate the decisions of generals who have forgotten that the men
they command are human beings rather than pieces on a bloody chessboard.
Pork Chop Hill
[
].
Gregory Peck portrays an infantry-company commander in a battle for a
meaningless hilltop during the Korean War to demonstrate to the Communists
that America is a credible and dangerous opponent willing to pay for her
victories in the blood of soldiers.
Prisoners of the Sun. Bryan Brown stars as a military prosecutor seeking the conviction of Japanese war criminals at a newly liberated POW camp where a number of Australian officers had been murdered. The search for justice runs afoul of Realpolitik and connivance by Allied officials looking forward to the emerging confrontation with what would become the Cold War.
The Fighting
Sullivans [
].
In this celebration of faith and family, the Sullivan brothers insist
on enlisting together to fight the Japanese. When Ward Bond visits their
home to deliver the tragic news of the attack on their ship, their mother
asks, “Which one?” “All five,” he responds. To spare other families the
Sullivans’s above-and-beyond sacrifice, the military later prohibited
the assignment of siblings to the same war zone.
Mackubin
Thomas Owens
Professor of strategy & force planning at the Naval
War College in Newport, R.I. He led a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam
in 1968-69.
Saving Private
Ryan [
].
Some have seen this as an anti-war movie, which, by portraying combat
so realistically, leads people to question whether there is anything worth
dying for. On the contrary, it shows that the human spirit can rise above
self-preservation. This is a stunning achievement.
Patton [
].
A reminder that even democracies need people who can fight, indeed, live
to fight. As Patton's story illustrates, however, such people are out
of place in peacetime.
Glory [].
A movie that shows the link between liberty and the willingness to fight
for it. Some believed that blacks were "natural slaves" who preferred
servility to freedom. The epic story of the 54th Massachusetts proves
that they were wrong.
Sands of Iwo
Jima [
].
Marine Sgt. Stryker was one of John Wayne's finest roles. Like Saving
Private Ryan, it stresses the importance of training and unit cohesion
as the basis for success in war.
Hamburger Hill
[].
Until Jim Webb's novel, Fields
of Fire, is made into a movie, Hamburger Hill is the best
movie about the war in Vietnam. It is the true story of a brigade of the
101st Airborne Division in its battle for a hill in Vietnam's Ashau Valley.
Unlike Oliver Stone's Platoon
[],
the movie offers a sympathetic portrayal of the American fighting man
in Vietnam.
James
S. Robbins
NRO contributor.
Two battle films
worth seeing are Waterloo [].
dramatizing Napoleon’s last scrap, and Zulu [],
which tells the story of a small contingent of British soldiers facing
a horde of Zulus at Roarke’s Drift in 1879. Both show sufficient fealty
to history without having a documentary feel. All Quiet on the Western
Front [
]
is a gripping adaptation of the semi-autobiographical novel by Erich Maria
Remarque, and the controversy over its anti-war message drove Remarque
into exile from Germany — just in time! Another good movie made by
men who were there is Battleground [],
a story of an infantry platoon in the Battle of the Bulge, for which Second
World War veteran Robert Pirosh won best screenplay.
A good war-themed
biography is Sergeant York [].
for which the actual Alvin York served as a consultant. Gary Cooper won
the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of York, pacifist turned hero.
The film teaches many lessons about war and life, and also depicts an
America one can hardly believe ever existed. First World War buffs should
also check out three Australian films, Gallipoli [],
Anzacs [],
and The Lighthorsemen [].
for all the Antipodean slouch-hatted trench fighting you can handle.
Some films set during
war can be educational in other ways. Catch-22 [
]
captures the absurdities of bureaucracy that apply to war or peace, military
or civilian. Finally, I highly recommend Buster Keaton’s classic silent
Civil War comedy The General [].
You won’t learn anything from it that you can apply to the current crisis
but this is supposed to be a holiday guide. Take a break and have some
fun!
Stephen
Schwartz
Author of Intellectuals
and Assassins.
My Darling Clementine
[],
directed by John Ford, starring Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Walter Brennan,
and Ward Bond. The film I watch when I need reminding of our national
greatness, or inspiration to get through a difficult moment; an unparalleled
evocation of the American commitment to justice, with the geographically
incorrect but spiritually accurate setting of Monument Valley. Henry Fonda
as a Rumsfeld-like Wyatt Earp, determined, steely, unrelenting once challenged;
Victor Mature as the deeply flawed but ultimately heroic Doc Holliday.
Think of Tombstone, Ariz. as the world and Bin Laden as Old Man Clanton.
This movie shows who we are when we are at our best.
For the rest, I will have recourse to four movies by Alfred Hitchcock that illuminate two major issues: terrorism and the challenge of fascist aggression to Americans.
The Man Who Knew
Too Much [
]
and Sabotage/A Woman Alone [].
Although dated, they dramatize the forgotten impact of terrorism on Europe
in the 1930s. Especially interesting in their insightful portrayal of
the heartlessness of terrorists. Some scenes are still shocking today,
especially in Sabotage.
Foreign Correspondent
[],
with Joel McCrea, George Sanders, and Herbert Marshall. Once long ago
I asked my acquaintance Robert Benayoun, the French critic who invented
the Jerry Lewis cult on that side of the water, what he considered the
best movie ever made, and he named this one. I was surprised until I saw
it. I also now consider it, at least, one of the five best movies ever
made. It’s about naïve Americans trying to figure out the beginning of
World War II, set in a Europe filled with Nazi spies and terrorists pretending
to be pacifists. It includes the greatest assassination scene ever put
on film, and has an ending so rousing you’ll want to run out and enlist.
It was unvarnished propaganda for intervention in the war at a time when
much of America was still isolationist.
Saboteur
[
],
with Robert Cummings, in a screenplay filled with peculiar Hollywood leftisms,
thanks to Dorothy Parker and Peter Viertel. A further examination of how
Americans responded to World War II. Although the plot is incredibly convoluted,
the essence is extremely relevant today: the extensive activities and
influence of enemy terror agents and their sympathizers on our soil. A
truly classic Hitchcock ending, one of his greatest.
Jay
Winik
Author of the New York Times bestseller April
1865.
Zulu [
].
The true story about undermanned British forces who refuse to evacuate
or surrender their African mission against attacking hordes of Zulu warriors.
Starring Michael Caine in his first great role, and narrated by Richard
Burton, Zulu's last 45 minutes are some of the most poignant and powerful
in movie history. Early on, we see their terror as this small band of
about 115 men hear a rumbling in the distance — it is the Zulus,
thousands of them. And in the final moments, we see the near decimated,
shocked, and tattered remnants of the British after they have repelled
yet another massive charge. Dawn comes. It is quiet. Thinking they have
held the day, the British, now numbering about 65 men, take the roll call,
only to be shocked when on the ridge of a hill first tens, then hundreds,
then thousands of Zulus reappear, dancing and chanting and holding up
their spears. Says one of the British men, Michael Caine (and I paraphrase
from memory here), with fear and resignation in his voice: "They are taunting
us...Well, get on with it. Just kill us already." "No,"
says one of his mates, a Boer. "You don't understand. They aren't taunting
us—they are saluting our bravery."
More than just a movie about war, it is very much about honor and patriotism; and it will send chills down your spine.
The Longest Day
[
].
A superb, extraordinary retelling of the allied invasion of Normandy,
and the heroism of the young Americans now dubbed "the Greatest Generation".
Faithful to the facts (eg., the scene where Red Buttons parachutes in,
gets caught several stories high on a church steeple while he watches
with horror as his comrades slowly parachute in and get butchered by the
Nazis, is based on a real incident), it is the last of the great epic
World War II films. Watching The Longest Day, one understands why
some movies are called classics; it will leave you wondering what all
the fuss was about Saving
Private Ryan [
].
One of my favorites.
Horatio Hornblower
[].
A four-part series by A&E about a young sailor in the British Navy in
the Fench revolutionary era. It is simply splendid. Why can't Hollywood
make movies this straightforward, this compelling, and this thoughtful
about our American wars?
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you missed it, NRO also recently compiled a wartime reading list, with book suggestions from the likes of David Pryce-Jones, Daniel Pipes, and Laurie Mylorie. Shopper-friendly text is complete with links.