Favourite WW2 movie/tv series?

ollaetta

It's interesting how WWII movies have changed. All the great old gung ho ones, Battle of the Bulge, Bridge Too Far, Battle of Britain, Tora Tora Tora, Patton etc. were made at a time when the war was a relatively recent memory and most veterans were still only in their 40's.

The recent ones of note, Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Stalingrad, Flags of our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima etc. take a much more reflective look at the conflict.

Has anyone seen a movie called "The Blockhouse" from 1973 starring Peter Sellers in a far from comedy role? It's about a group of prisoners who had been used by the Germans as forced labour and who get trapped in a bunker after D-Day. They have supplies to last months but the story covers the change in the personalities and relationship when they realise that nobody knows they're there. I wasn't mad about it but some reviewers think it was great.

My personal favourites for the desert island:

Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day, Downfall and Black Book.

Saabdub

The Battle of Britain, fantasic aerial combat scenes filmed with the actual surviving aircraft (just record it and fast forward through the naff Christopher Plummer, Susanna York relationship subplot).

Hey, I'm on a roll, here's some favs from other wars.

The Blue Max, filmed in Ireland and the best WWI dogfight sequences in colour:D

The Battle of Waterloo (Christopher Plummer again as Wellington) the next best thing to actually being at the battle!

Saabdub

Kaiser_Sma

Downfall
the thin red line
Band of Brothers
Catch 22
Empire of the sun
The Big Red One
enemy at the gate

Dads army...one of the most historically accurate ww2 dramas ever

helimachoptor

In no particular order....
Tora,Tora, tora,
BoB
Saving Private Ryan
Enemy at the Gates

There's a few others but their names escape me at the moment

Grizzly 45

German side.
Stalingrad,seen by many ex wehrmacht lads in Germany and said horribly realistic.
Das Boot, Im Westen nichts neues [all quiet on the Western front],Downfall,Stauffenberg[German version about the 20 July coup on Hitler]

Allied side.no paticular order
Battle of Britan,Dunkirk,Bridge over the River Kwai,Saving Pvt Ryan,Band of brothers,Flags of our fathers,letters from Iwo Jima,heros of Telemark [Richard Harris rocks!!] Pearl harbour[minus the chick bits of course:o and major clangers] enemy at the gates[Would have been better if they had kept the story somwhat factual of the final Vallesilev/Koneig sniper duel]

docus/Tv seris
If you have satellite and EU stations.Pro 7 in Germany shows a brilliant seris which I hope they will show here.It is just called after the year it was filmed in IE 1938,1940 eyc.It is a collation of offical and home movies of life in the Germany during the Reich and war years with commentary.

On the lighter side
Allo Allo & Dads army.

majiktripp

I've just started watchin a series from the US called simply "The War" direct by Ken Burns, (7 part series, each epidode is 2 hours long) If you check the reviews on IMDB its very ihghly rated and I have to say its a very good show. Stories told from the US point of view but from that of 4 small towns. Very good human stories much like the final episode of Band of Brothers where the actual soldiers told their stories for a single hour.
At 7 episodes times 2 hours it'll take a while to get through as its pretty heavy viewing with some excellent (I mean excellent,by the fact your ducking with the camera guy as bullets fly past in black and white) footage. If you were to wish and view it ...well you know ....its available online.I give it 9 thumbs up!

Hagar

I was raised on Combat in B&W. It may not have have been made in B&W but everything RTE on our telly was in the 60's. I'd love to see a few episodes of it now just to see if it was as good as I remember.

Dr Strange

Hagar wrote: »

I was raised on Combat in B&W. It may not have have been made in B&W but everything RTE on our telly was in the 60's. I'd love to see a few episodes of it now just to see if it was as good as I remember.

Hagar, if you have a multi-region player have a look here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Combat-Complete-REGION-1-NTSC/dp/B000BC8SXI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1210424256&sr=1-1

wandatowell

Sherifu wrote: »

Kellys Heroes / Where Eagles Dare / Guns of Navarone / Dirty Dozen

Spot on man, 4 great movies.

I love Donald Sutherland in Kellys Heroes, very funny guy

Dudess

I'm interested in Japan's role:
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, Empire of the Sun, A Town Like Alice.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

kowloon

Would be nice to see a series about a unit thats not American.

Lockstep

Dudess wrote: »

I'm interested in Japan's role:
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, Empire of the Sun, A Town Like Alice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children_of_Huang_Shi
?

Still upcoming etc.


There's a few books I could reccomend if your interested in Japanese patricipation in WWII. Not too up on movies with the Japanese though.

Mahatma coat

When Trumpets Fade is a great movie too, much less false bravado and chest thumping than the other offers there.

gotta give a mention to Hell in the Pacific too.

and of course Kelly's Heros is one of the funniest movies ever

Forgot to mention Patton in my last post. One of my favorites

Dudess

kickoutthejams wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children_of_Huang_Shi
?

Still upcoming etc.


There's a few books I could reccomend if your interested in Japanese patricipation in WWII. Not too up on movies with the Japanese though.

I'm still really haunted by the Nanking Massacre. There were similar horrors being carried out in Croatia in the name of the catholic church. An interesting and not very highly documented aspect of WWII. Does anyone know of any movies/television programmes about same?
It has actually come into a current discussion on Atheism and Agnosticism: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055290838&page=2

Lockstep

Dudess wrote: »

I'm still really haunted by the Nanking Massacre. There were similar horrors being carried out in Croatia in the name of the catholic church. An interesting and not very highly documented aspect of WWII. Does anyone know of any movies/television programmes about same?
It has actually come into a current discussion on Atheism and Agnosticism: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055290838&page=2

The Japanese were extremely strange. I was reading a book called the Women Beyond the Wire which had harsh conditions in the men and women camps, but the Japanese treating the kids relatively humanely.

One guard who beat women for wearing makeup at their tenko(roll-call), he could later be seen giving cheap jewlery to some kids saying they reminded him of his kids back home.
In the camp, the English and Dutch kids formed into rival gangs, with forts and throwing mud etc but when the Japanese found out, they gave the children a long lecture on how there was too much war in the world already and that the kids shouldn't be adding to it.



TBH I'd never even heard of that stuff in Croatia. to the Library!

Dudess

Wow, that's mental about the kids! There was a really popular drama series on TV in the 70s/80s called Tenko about women in a Japanese camp. Before my time but I've seen a lot of clips on those nostalgia programmes. It looks absolutely ridiculous - clearly filmed in some studio in Sussex. But it was huge.

kowloon

That series (Tenko) was replayed on one of the sky channels not long ago (Prob UKTV Gold), Time has not been kind to it.

Lockstep

Dudess wrote: »

Wow, that's mental about the kids! There was a really popular drama series on TV in the 70s/80s called Tenko about women in a Japanese camp. Before my time but I've seen a lot of clips on those nostalgia programmes. It looks absolutely ridiculous - clearly filmed in some studio in Sussex. But it was huge.

Funnily enough, that Women Beyond the Wire had something to do with Tenko.

Think they did a book version of it or something.

440Hz

More Holocaust than battle related but watched The Counterfeiters there recently, really enjoyed it - def worth checking out. The same weekend we rented The Grey Zone - switched if off after 20 minutes the acting and story was so poor we just couldn't keep going with it.

marcsignal

kowloon wrote: »

That series (Tenko) was replayed on one of the sky channels not long ago (Prob UKTV Gold), Time has not been kind to it.

I remember that one, and believe it or not, the women acting in it were encouraged not to wash their hair, and only to bearly wash themselves for the duration of the filming, to add to the authenticity, and their costumes/clothes wern't washed at all throughout. They even sprayed the cast lightly with olive oil, or something, to give them that look of constant perspiration.

true story

'Colditz' had to be my favourite from back then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oQGkAyRviA

or the lesser known 'Danger UXB'

or 'Private Schultz', the series was loosely based on a true story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHlWHH2bCiw

Morlar

recent movies;

Downfall,Das Boot, Svolochi, Come and See, kokoda

The 1960's ones:

cross of iron, dirty dozen, kellys heroes, the eagle has landed, a bridge too far, the longest day, patton, the guns of navarone, the great escape, stalag 17, 'the big red one' restored version (which features trim castle), basically all 1960s ww2 movies etc
Ice cold in alex, dambusters (which they are remaking with a newly named dog) also 'where eagles dare' which is brill.

ejmaztec

One that I haven't seen for years is a 1963 Carl Foreman film, "The Victors". Shot in black and white. It was a very cynical and probably more realistic view of the war than some of those new-fangled Hollywood full-colour epics that appeared around the same time.

TerrorFirmer

440Hz wrote: »

More Holocaust than battle related but watched The Counterfeiters there recently, really enjoyed it - def worth checking out. The same weekend we rented The Grey Zone - switched if off after 20 minutes the acting and story was so poor we just couldn't keep going with it.

I was absolutely shocked by The Grey Zone as well. Despite a relatively good cast - incidentally getting those names seems to constitute the bulk of the budget - it wasn't even remotely of standard TV produced quality. Grainy picture, no sense of scale, ropey acting, poor set pieces - the whole thing felt like it was taking place in a small shed and being shot on home video as opposed to a huge camp. In fact, the events dramatically splashed across the box don't even happen in the film!

Truly awful movie - only one or two decent - and by decent I mean well made and convincing - scenes.

Mahatma coat

caught the tail end of a docco last night on SBS it was called

Wehrmacht, The

very good, lots of interviews with German soldiers, some Survivors of Stalingrad,

have been huntin round on the web to see if I can find it, should I stumble across a legit version I'll post a link

marcsignal

I ring my dad at home every week, and he tells me what WW2 stuff is coming up that week from the the TV listings in Ireland, so he can record them for me.

Apparently 'The Longest Day' and 'Battle of the Bulge' were on today on RTE 1&2. However there is a Documentary called 'Hitler's British Girl' about 'Unity Mitford' on tonight (June 21st) on Channel 4, at 20:00.
I saw this on the web and it's BRILLIANT ! Not to be missed ! so set your timers

Next Tuesday (June 24th) @ 01:45 in the morning there's another great movie called 'Night of the Generals' on RTE2, so that's another one for your timers. I've seen it before, circa 1968, and it's a great story about 3 German Generals and series of mysterious murders.

Here's a good website http://www.quicksilverscreen.com with some good WW2 stuff in the Ducumentary section.
You'll require the downloadable player for some of them, but others are on google video.

Enjoy

marcsignal

Tora Tora Tora on ITV Sunday June 29th @ 14:50

marcsignal

This Documentary series is now upon the web if anyone's interested

Part 1 http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=47999

Part 2 http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=48000

Part 3 http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=48001

Part 4 http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=48002

Part 5 http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=48003

Part 6 http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=48004

Enjoy

Latchy

I was very immpressed with Band of Brothers when it was first shown on BBC .Apparentely it was scheduled for saturday night prime time viewing on BBC 1 until thinking it would not get the viewing figures up ,big wigs at beeb switched it to BBC 2 were it got great viewing figures and reviews for it's portrayal of reality war ,but to late for beeb to admit their mistake .