War

  • Cy Endfield – Zulu (1964)

    1961-1970ClassicsCy EndfieldUnited KingdomWar

    Synopsis:
    In 1879, the Zulu nation hands colonial British forces a resounding defeat in battle. A nearby regiment of the British Army takes over a station run by a missionary (Jack Hawkins) and his daughter (Ulla Jacobsson) as a supply depot and hospital under the command of Lieutenant John Chard (Stanley Baker) and his subordinate Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine). Unable to abandon their wounded soldiers even in dire circumstances, the regiment defend their station against the Zulu warriors.Read More »

  • Elem Klimov – Idi i smotri AKA Come and See (1985)

    1981-1990DramaElem KlimovUSSRWar

    Quote:
    Ivan Got His Gun. Sam Fuller once declared that the only way for cinema to depict war authentically was to spray the audiences with real bullets, here’s the next best thing. The setting is the Nazi devastation of Belarus, the Exodus and the Apocalypse are the main poles: The 12-year-old protagonist (Alexei Kravchenko) digs up a rifle and eagerly runs to join the partisans in the woods, Elem Klimov proceeds to wipe the smile off the wannabe warrior’s face. Left behind, the boy spends an incongruous idyll with a forest nymph (Olga Mironova), complete with rainbows materializing out of morning rain; a squashed bird’s nest sets the stage for the inferno, which is first glimpsed — casually, mind-scarringly — by the side of a cabin. Bombs and bottles rain from the sky, Klimov’s Steadicam skims supernaturally pale meadows, a full menagerie (stork, cow, lemur, lobster) adds to the surrealism.Read More »

  • Fritz Lang – Man Hunt (1941)

    1941-1950Fritz LangThrillerUSAWar

    Synopsis:
    British hunter Thorndike vacationing in Bavaria has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by German agents and aided by a young woman.Read More »

  • Kaneto Shindô – Ichimai no hagaki AKA Postcard (2010)

    2001-2010DramaJapanKaneto ShindôWar

    Synopsis:
    Toward the end of World War II, middle-aged soldier Keita is entrusted with a postcard from a comrade who is sure he will die in battle. After the war ends, Keita visits his comrade’s wife Yuko and bears witness to the tragic life she has led. This year’s Oscar entry from Japan finds SHINDO in top form and his 49th and reportedly last film as fresh and poignant as ever.Read More »

  • Fritz Lang – Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

    1941-1950Film NoirFritz LangUSAWar

    Synopsis:
    Set in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation, Hangmen Also Die depicts an Eastern Europe populated by spies, traitors and revolutionaries…a deadly funhouse of political intrigue in which every personal encounter brings with it the threat of betrayal.
    Pursued by the Germans after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Dr. Svobonda (Brian Donlevy) enlists the aid of a young woman (Anna Lee) who is oblivious to the lethal crosscurrents that surround her. As she learns more about the mysterious doctor, she grows aware of the involvement of her father (Walter Brennan) and fiance (Dennis O’Keefe) in the resistance, and soon finds herself entangled in the revolution’s secret operations.Read More »

  • George Seaton – The Counterfeit Traitor (1962)

    USA1961-1970George SeatonThrillerWar

    An American oil company executive of Swedish descent, now living in Sweden, is blackmailed into spying for the Allies during World War II. At first resentful, his relationship with a beautiful German Allied agent causes him to realize how vital his work is. When he learns that his anti-Nazi German associates are under suspicion from the Gestapo, he risks his own life to go back inside Nazi Germany to finish his work and try to save his friends. It’s an exciting story with great characters, filmed partly in the locations where the story took place.Read More »

  • Jack Gold – Escape from Sobibor (1987)

    1981-1990DramaJack GoldUSAWar

    Description
    Heavily based on the novel by Richard Rashke, Escape From Sobibor tells the
    inspirational true story of the only successful mass-escape from a Nazi concentration.

    In 1942 Operation Reinhard, the final solution to the Jewish question was put into operation. Three death camps were built in Eastern Poland, near the Russian border, at Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor. Sobibor opened in March 1942. Initially, three gas chambers housed in a brick building used carbon monoxide to kill Jewish prisoners, with three more gas chambers added later.Read More »

  • Ronald Neame – The Man Who Never Was (1956)

    Drama1951-1960Ronald NeameUnited KingdomWar

    Synopsis:
    British Intelligence during World War II is trying to get the German High Command to shift its forces away from Italy prior to the invasion. To create the illusion that England is in fact planning to invade Greece, they plan to procure a dead body, plant secret papers on it, and arrange for the Spanish authorities to find it and send the papers on to the Germans. That’s the plan, anyway. First they have to find a body that will look drowned, then create an identity for it that will pass German scrutiny. Based on a true story.Read More »

  • John Ford – The Horse Soldiers (1959)

    1951-1960John FordUSAWarWestern

    Ex railroad man, Yankee Colonel John Marlowe leads an irregular troop on a mission into the Confederacy, feuding every step of the way with his company doctor Major Kendall. Also confusing issues is Hannah Hunter, a Southern Belle who learns of their plans and must be brought along for security reasons. They succeed in their ‘dirty’ raid on a railhead town, but escape back to Union lines looks grim, with several rebel armies closing in from all sides – including a company of children from a confederate military academy.Read More »

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