[MoMo]

Thanks, Bsmith13,

However, perhaps it is too late. It would be hard to convince main-stream Hollywood that people have brains and that revisionist conceptions of the recent past's conflicts are an insult to the brave men who fought in them for , what to them, was a just cause!

Apart from Spielberg, only a few independent productions have tried to present a realistic representation of WW2, and only, ironically, because they were emulating "Ryan" and "BoB".

Case in point: in " Der Untergang" ( The Downfall), the German production team created a wonderful depiction of the demise of The Third Reich and Hitler's death ( I cheered because I once tried to convince a West German policeman that I only wanted to go into the Death Zone so that I could piss on the B-s-a-d's bunker...I was 20 and drunk and it had been a long party!). The battle scenes in this opus are excellently staged ( even with CGI ) and brilliantly executed.

Fascinating.

Keep the posts coming with your ideas and favourite and most hated films!

Tally Ho!

MoMo

[MoMo]

I just remembered something. From my childhood. I remeber once seeing a realy bad film. A real B Feature with Tony Curtis.

All I remember is the ending: Tony swims out to sink a Japanese detroyer by hurling a hand-grenade at it:

" Aieeeee! We are killed by Yankee wild man!"

This saves the day ( and some woman on a coral island. Even though I was 6 at the time I still recall being apalled at the stupidity and impossibility of this action.

The movie ended there!

Does anyone 'out there' know what this movie is likely to be?

Must be near the bottom of the pile, Gomer!

From, they don't make 'em like that anymore,
MoMo.

[Tri-motor]

Originally Posted by MoMo

I just remembered something. From my childhood. I remeber once seeing a realy bad film. A real B Feature with Tony Curtis.

All I remember is the ending: Tony swims out to sink a Japanese detroyer by hurling a hand-grenade at it:

" Aieeeee! We are killed by Yankee wild man!"

This saves the day ( and some woman on a coral island. Even though I was 6 at the time I still recall being apalled at the stupidity and impossibility of this action.

The movie ended there!

Does anyone 'out there' know what this movie is likely to be?

Must be near the bottom of the pile, Gomer!

From, they don't make 'em like that anymore,
MoMo.

"Operation Petticoat" i do believe.

[bsmith13]

Originally Posted by Tri-motor

"Operation Petticoat" i do believe.

Actually, I don't think it was. I have Operation Petticoat, and they never take on a destroyer. No hand grenades either.

[MoMo]

BSmith is correct.

I too have " operation Petticoat" and that's not the film. The film with Tony as the hero was a far earlier film...before Tony hit the Big Time. In the film which I am trying to track down, Tony is a beefcake-hero-stereotype. The film had no brains and no humour. It was also filmed in cheap, glaring colour with no finesse.

Thanks for the guess. I guess that I will have to look up Mr Curtiss's filmography and try to figure it out from there.

MoMo

[djjeffhall]

Hey folks,

RE: Downfall - That movie scared the Hell out of me. Not only because the war scenes are scary and well done. That I can live with. What really scared me was that it made Hitler human. I'll never forgot the scene with Eva Braun and some of the secrataries cxharacters outside the bunker trying to have a few moments of "normalcy" before the inevitable end.

RE: Tony Curtis - IMDB.com or allmovie.com should help you track down the film you are looking for. Both are fairly comprehensive movie guides.

[MoMo]

Warning: the worst film ever about the WW2 air war over England has to be a stiff upper lipped effort called " Ships With Wings".

This opus was made in the early days of the so-called phoney war in an attempt to convince the British public that we should not be afraid to face the Hun's air armadas because our pilots would see them off in the same manner as Nelson saw off that damned Froggie fleet of Napoleon's!

As it happens, the film was on message...we did see off the Luftwaffe thanks to our brave pilots who, with the aid of radar and the Hurricains and Spitfires, gave their all.

This film does the RAF no service and should be deposited, with appropriate dangerous hazzard warnings, to the toxic waste dump of history.

I have tried to expunge all memory of the film from my own personal universe and, therefore, can recall very little of it. Suffice to say, there were lots and lotttts of frozen upper lips and lots of Royal Academy of Dramatic Art clipped accents. The acting was as wooden as most of the props and everyone associated with the film should have been dropped over Berlin clutching the reels of highly inflamible celluloid.

Don't ever go there!


MoMo

[MoMo]

Gotta keep this thred movin'.......

Is the time right for a remake of " The Dirty Dozen"?

Who would be in the cast?

Some more candidates long overdue for a remake with the right equipment:

" Reach for the Sky" ( the mix of Spitfires was amazing but not strictly accurate )

" The Battle of the River Plate" ( I love Powell and Pressburger movies, but the Graf Spee in this one was an ex US heavy Cruiser from the Brazilian Navy! )

" Sink the Bismark " ( the model work was really great but CGI would make the battle scenes more dramatic. Also, a great deal of the story was missing because the scriptwriters focussed the drama on Admiralty House instead of the ships. There is a much better story to be dramatised here. Where are we going to get all those Stringbags though? CGI? The Fleet Air Arm Museum still has one flying, I believe. )

" The Battle of the Bulge" ( ...less said about the tanks, the better. There has not been a decent movie about this massive subject since
" Battleground ", which is a brilliant film for its day. Great film even today. CGI tanks and a couple of real ones for close-ups would make this a real epic. Warner Brothers' original " The Battle of the Bulge" suffers from the same disease as all Warner's WW2 films:- too gung-ho with too many beefcake actors who had to cope with a poor script and little of their own chance to add input.)

" Anzio" ( Bob Mitchum had to deal with a bad script and even worse co- stars who had emigrated from TV and tended to be over exposed. No new characterisations here! An examination of the strategy and politics of the debacle would be a welcome angle to view the battle )

" The Battle of Britain" ( this would not benefit from CGI except for some of the shots with Stukas. I can't remember seeing an Me 110 in the attack scenes. Perhaps the film suffers from too many Spits, Hurricanes, Me109s and Spanish Heinkels. Perhaps some creative CGI would add more of the technical drama to the story.
The overall strategy was bravely interpolated into the drama, but when it was made too many ex mandarins were still alive and too many establishment reputations were at stake. What about how Dowding--who incurred the displeasure of Churchill--was stabbed in the back by the RAF clique which wished to cosy up to Churchill to enhance their career prospects?
Also, a fresh view of the principal characters, the pilots, would make an interesting film.
But....don't let any of the creatures who made " Pearl Harbour " anywhere near a war film again! )

Just some more musings, dear all....

Lights, action, camera...

MoMo

[STARMAN 352ND]

A remake of Battle of Britain would be good with all the high tech stuff they have today in Hollywood.
This movie will have to be a allstar cast to make it great.
The orig Battle of Britain movie is one of my favorites.
JP

[MoMo]

Dear djjeffhall,

Thanks for the data. I'll track it down later.

Dear Starman,

a remake would be great, but don't hold your breath!

MoMo