Citizen Goes To War!!!

That sounds good! Especially the part I bolded. I only have a couple more days to watch war film before I send in my ballot to the Top 100 War Countdown so I won't be able to watch it before then, but...I plan to keep watching war films during the 2 months that the daily countdown reveal goes on....so I'll get to it if I can find it. Thanks

Cool. I brought the new quiet on the Western front recently can't wait to watch it and will do later if I got time. Subtitled as well I didn't know that till recently.

Subtitled would be handy unless one spoke German and French. I don't.

Lol i only know some German nowhere near enough to understand a full movie 😄 I knew a guy who spoke French German and English he said watching inglorious bastards made him feel like Mr worldwide. Really made me laugh for some reason. But yeah I don't mind subtitles definitely wouldn't want to watch it dubbed

During the height of the Korean War conflict, 1952...two jet fighter pilots come into conflict when Major Saville (Robert Mitchum) takes a fancy to Lieuntent Abott's (Lee Philips) wife Kris (May Britt). Ironically it's up to the Major to look after the demoralized Lt Abbott who's self loathing is driving his wife into the arms of the Major.

Sound like a soap opera? Hey it's the late 50s and melodramas were all the rage. This one is set during the Korean war and features lots of footage of F86 Sabre jets in action. My favorite jet powered fighter plane what a cool looking plane! There's lots of stunning aerial footage of the plane and one heartbreak real crash of a F100 Super Sabre that killed the pilot.


The aerial dogfights with Korean/Russian Migs looks great both visually and exciting. Of course the Russians weren't loaning Migs to Hollywood to make this movie! Those Migs are actually F-84F Thunderstreaks.

Truth be told the melodrama personal stories don't work well here. I like Robert Mitchum but his character has little charisma with May Britt, Though Swedish born actress May Britt does a fine job at subtle and believable acting just too bad William Holden wasn't the lead. The other actor who shines in this in an offbeat wacky way is Robert Wagner. I got a kick out of young Wagner's hip beatnik talk, and how it confused older Robert Mitchum to no end.
The Hunters is a splashy war picture with on location footage in Japan. Not the best of the sub-genre but still worth a watch.

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For the average person watching this film today it's nothing more than a zany screwball comedy from days long gone by...But for audiences back in 1944 this was one helluva gusty movie! It was made during WWII and deals with a serious concern of the time.

Betty Hutton is a young woman living at home with her strict father (William Demarest) and her wise beyond years, younger sister (Diana Lynn). The local town boys have enlisted in the army and are about to be shipped off to fight in the war. Betty feels it's her duty to attend an all night dance party to help send the boys off right. It's the least she can do for them. But her father forbids her to go so she lies and says she's going to the movies with a goofy guy who's physically unfit for the army, (Eddie Bracken). Eddie has the hots for Betty...she leaves him at the movies and takes his car and goes off to the big party.

The next morning Betty drives up to the town's theater where Eddie has been waiting for her all night. She's drunk as a skunk and says she got married but doesn't remember to who and she has no marriage licenses either. Latter Betty finds out she's pregnant.



For today's audiences a young pregnant woman is the stuff TV reality shows are made of and no one cares much, but back in the 1940's this social commentary comedy was cutting edge stuff. Director/writer Preston Sturges gets around the Hays Code censors by having a pregnant Betty married...BUT he cleverly never shows the marriage and Betty has no proof of marriage, so it's a conceit to the audiences that she's not really married at all.

In other words she did what many young patriotic girls did during WWII, she gave her virginity to a soldier as part of the war effort. That really did happen and they were called Victory Girls and unwanted pregnancies were often the results. By wrapping this message in a zany comedy Preston Sturges pushed the envelope of film making and delivers a fun but poignant film.

When the movie first came out it was a huge hit and tickets sold out quickly, no doubt to the racy nature of the film. It's a film that's worth watching for both film history and for great performances by Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn and William Demarest and just for the fun of it too.

This take crushed my spirit a bit.

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Letterboxd

Whoops

Pretty good anti-war film that deserves to be more well known. This is Sinatra's only directorial movie, he did a good job of it too. The film is shot mostly on Kauai and looks real good with some of the closeups being done on a sound stage.

Its main claim to fame is a pretty decent morality tale of what happens when a U.S. platoon crash lands on a small South Pacific island which is occupied by a small contingent of Japanese soldiers. The Japanese have lost communications with their main army and feel abandoned...and discipline is breaking down. The U.S. platoon is also cut off from their army as the radio is fried so both sides are on their own. First we get bloodshed but then the two sides need to work together just to survive. The scene were the medic (Frank Sinatra) makes a deal to amputate a gangrene leg of a wounded Japanese solider in exchange for much needed fresh water was the highlight of the movie. Really a well directed and acted scene.

Sure this situation wouldn't have happened for real but the ending wraps it up on a poignant note. A number of Japanese actors were involved as was the Toyo studios. I liked that the movie spends an equal amount of time on the Japanese soldiers story.

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Continuing my Oppenheimer theme:

Just for my future info, I watched these two older History Channel show episodes:

This is part of the award winning, American Experience TV series that is on PBS. This particular episode is a 1h 51min recounting of the early life of J. Robert Oppenheimer with the primary focus on the actual trail transcripts of 1954 when Oppenheimer was interrogated a total of 27 hours by a committee investigating alleged communist ties.

Actor David Strathairn (who played Oppenheimer in the movie Day One) recreates the closed hearing trial by reading directly taken from the originally transcripts. Plus we get the the usual still photos with voice over narration that is effectively done. I thought this was excellent! Well rounded and detailed without spending too much time on the actual Manhattan Project as this is about the political downfall of Oppenheimer after WWII.

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