|
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) [
]
and The Longest Day (1962) [
]
are the workhorses here (the former is exceptional). Yet, a dozen
more films could be made to cover the vast ground in and around
June 6, 1944.
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) [
]
was far, far better than Pearl Harbor (2001) [
]
— and that's not saying much. Midway [
],
with Charles Heston, tastes more like 1976 (the year it was made)
than 1942.
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.
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