I have seen The Land that Time Forgot, first when I was a kid and I thought it was awesome, then again just recently and I thought it was a good but the “special effects” are so old now it looked a little funny. The story is good one.
It seems that everyone has picked most of the movies I would have already but here goes my list:
Midway is a classic.
Force 10 from Navarone and The Guns of Navarone are also classics.
TORA TORA
Enemy at the Gates, especially the beginning sequences when Vasily first gets to Stalingrad, thats some great film work.
Saving Private Ryan, the beach landing scene is brutally realistic.
Patton
Battle of the Buldge
A Bridge too Far and A bridge Over the River Kwai
The Longest Day, John Wayne classic and The Sands of Iwo Jima (another John Wayne Classic)
Memphis Belle
DasBoot
Kelly’s Heroes
The Dirty Dozen
Where Eagle’s Dare
The Big Red One
and can’t forget The Great Escape - Awesome movie.
These are some of my favorites. As you can tell I like my WW2 movies alot.
Other movies that I haven’t seen listed yet:
King Rat
Catch-22
Run Silent, Run Deep
Stalag 17
Hell in the Pacific
Wow…King Rat…i also forgot about that one…a book written by James Clavell…and a damn good film…saw it a few years ago on the TV…
once I was a big Saving Ryan fan but I took my distance from it because to me the movie is not accurate to History enough…Spielberg did a better job w. Schindlers List!..For me it took a whileto understand why some Veterans wouldn’t watch the movie or just stood up after a half an hour…
Combat! was much better, because for the most part most of the guys didn’t come back and it had the feel of a gritty war drama.
@aequitas:
once I was a big Saving Ryan fan but I took my distance from it because to me the movie is not accurate to History enough…Spielberg did a better job w. Schindlers List!..For me it took a whileto understand why some Veterans wouldn’t watch the movie or just stood up after a half an hour…
Please elaborate. I would love to hear this.
@Brain:
@aequitas:
once I was a big Saving Ryan fan but I took my distance from it because to me the movie is not accurate to History enough…Spielberg did a better job w. Schindlers List!..For me it took a whileto understand why some Veterans wouldn’t watch the movie or just stood up after a half an hour…
Please elaborate. I would love to hear this.
Probably because Ted Danson and Ben Affleck’s wife are in it.
“A Bridge Too Far”
&
“They were Expendable”
besides the fact that they took a wheelsystem from a T34 for both Tiger Tanks and the MG 42’s where fired continuesly without overheating on the beach and a few Gi’s held off a half AA group of the Waffen SS?..… :? :-D
The movie may make people believe that the Americans knew allready about the Holocaust and that the pur anger and hatred for the Germans and all who were allies with 'em was justified but it wasn’t the case!!..the western allies started to know about the Holocaust after August '44 when the Soviets liberated the first of many KZ’s -concentrationcamps in Poland.
I’m not trying to justify the Germans but to punish the people who tried to do their job and defend the Atlanticwall ON THE BEACH dosen’t sound fair to me either,they were soldiers swore the oath and believed a Lie…Spielberg did a way better job w. Schindlers List and B.o.B.
This movie is not helping anyone to recall the truth or remind Generations of the glorious and heroic liberation of France from the Evil Nazisim, rather a pre-runner of Inglorious…
If I have to choose between Longest day and Ryan , I go for Longest day…
I just wouldn’t count saving Ryan as a best WWII movie…
@aequitas:
besides the fact that they took a wheelsystem from a T34 for both Tiger Tanks and the MG 42’s where fired continuesly without overheating on the beach and a few Gi’s held off a half AA group of the Waffen SS?..… :? :-D
I’m not sure what you are talking about concerning the wheel system (maybe they couldn’t get Tigers for production?), but certainly you can explaining away the MGs with either multiple guns firing or dramatic effect. Hell, the Longest Day, if we are only faulting unrealistic portrayals, has Germans speaking English and no blood/gore/effects of gunfire/explosions. People just fall over and die. On your last point - yeah, I can somewhat agree with it, but it was again for dramatic effect (something Spielberg himself has said to defend inaccuracies), but it was more than a few men, not to mention Rangers & Airborne and not standard Army.
The movie may make people believe that the Americans knew allready about the Holocaust and that the pur anger and hatred for the Germans and all who were allies with 'em was justified but it wasn’t the case!!…
Where? I haven’t seen the movie in a while and still don’t know every line of dialogue, but where do they talk about the Holocaust in SPR?
This movie is not helping anyone to recall the truth or remind Generations of the glorious and heroic liberation of France from the Evil Nazisim, rather a pre-runner of Inglorious…
If I have to choose between Longest day and Ryan , I go for Longest day…
The only thing that relates Inglourious Basterds and SPR are that both have Nazis in it.
I liked the Longest Day book, but the movie is fairly boring to me. I appreciate the talent in it, but for being an account of D-Day, it’s just kind of hokey because of the film age then. SPR is gritty, dirty, visceral, and damn realistic even though it’s a mostly fictional account with an historic backdrop.
I just wouldn’t count saving Ryan as a best WWII movie…
Longest Day by a huge margin is much better film. It was way ahead of its time for 1960. Incredible cinematography and various interesting subplots and stories. That is my all time favorite because they had everything in it and the kitchen sink.
@Imperious:
Longest Day by a huge margin is much better film. It was way ahead of its time for 1960. Incredible cinematography and various interesting subplots and stories. That is my all time favorite because they had everything in it and the kitchen sink.
I think A Bridge Too Far is a better book and movie. The only problem is it needed to be longer since there was a lot more going on that they didn’t show (like how rough it was at the end of the bridge they held with nearly nothing).
Bridge too far dragged on too long, but i consider it pretty good. Longest day was paced much better with much more interesting things going on.
I have seen both countless times, but for entertainment i take longest day because of the action.
I like the part in longest day where that one G.I. is stuck on the roof in St. Mer Eglise…they still have to this very day a puppet hung from that roof to celebrate their Liberation day…Cool huh?!..I think his name was Steeles…
I like the part when that french guy listens to the radio while eating dinner and runs out the house with his gun and ww1 helmet and his wife tastes the soup thinking the soup made him crazy. Latter another french old man waves the flag from his window and nearly gets blown up by shore bombardment fire.
The best shot was that continuous shot of the fighting all in one take.
And the glider part when they land Major. Howard’s detachment was actually in the real operation in 1944 to take that bridge. He was replaying his role in that battle…just a bit older than before.
Never figured out that part when one GI was winning at craps and the bunkmate reminded him of fort Benning where he was laid up for an injury on jump training. I dont understand why he was so upset about hurting his leg.
The acting in that movie was really good. They had like everybody who was anybody in the 1960’s in one movie.
I don’t know that it is the Best but my favorite is Patton.
Band of Brothers would be second.
And The Longest Day is bloody well awesome. I have the Blu-ray version of it and it is a terrific transfer.
I think the bit about the craps game in Longest Day though is more a superstition issue or a karma issue. Last time he had such great luck gambling he balanced it out with terrible luck the next morning breaking a leg. It might have felt like having even better luck would lead to the next morning having even worse luck. It is what he needed to do to be less scared about going into battle. Later he even says, “Now we’re both jumping clean.”
I always thought it a statement on the irrationality that fear can cause or as an elegant comment on the fatalism many soldiers probably felt.
Yes that makes more sence. The GI wanted to not experience another bad luck episode ( such as dying) after having really good luck, so he threw away his winnings to ‘get clean’ from that cycle.
I just find acting from that period, especially something so graphic as war, to be really hokey. It makes me want to say “Zoinks!” or “Gadzooks!” I don’t think it’s really befitting of what actually happened. That’s why I like SPR way better - it LOOKS like a real war. It even made vets walk out, maybe even others that thought it was too much.
But probably one of my earliest childhood movie memories (and I think this is from the Longest Day) is where a paratrooper is using his kids toy clicker to try and find his comrades, and he hears another one. So he stands up and calls out and gets shot. Then a German soldier steps into the frame and reloads his K98, which sounded like the clicker. It could be a different movie though, I just remember it was black and white.
Well its not a movie, but i like watching the old series of baa baa black sheep
That part was in the movie Jermo.
SPR didnt have the numbers of men to make much of a battle scene. They did it with cute editing and sound. Longest Day actually had thousands of extras and a panoramic view of the beaches, so you got the full measure of the landings, plus all the other operations. SPR was essentially a movie about not about the actual campaign, but a more personal story of war and the price of humanity for the few men it was dealing with. I prefer the movie about the battle and what it meant to the allies who fought it. Watch it again and compare.
