|
Patton
»rank: 10488
: essential video:0ne of the greatest screen biographies ever produced, this monumental film runs nearly three hours, won seven Academy Awards, and gave George C. Scott the greatest role of his career. lt was released in 1970 when protest against the Vietnam War still raged at home and abroad, and many critics and moviegoers struggled to reconcile current events with the movie's glorification of Gen. George S. Patton as a crazy-brave genius of World War ll. How could a movie so huge in ...
|
|
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
»rank: 13566
: essential video:This love story made in 1955 and set against the backdrop of war is a many-splendored thing: it features a drop-dead gorgeous Eurasian doctor seeking meaning in her life (Jennifer Jones), a dashing but married American war correspondent who's macho yet not afraid to declare his love (William Holden), and a couple of murky subplots to give their relationship its oh-what's-going-to-happen-next edge (her Chinese heritage, his wife, the outbreak of the Korean War). 0ne scene builds beautifully upon the next, accompanied ...
|
|
Lassiter
»rank: 1304
: essential video:This love story made in 1955 and set against the backdrop of war is a many-splendored thing: it features a drop-dead gorgeous Eurasian doctor seeking meaning in her life (Jennifer Jones), a dashing but married American war correspondent who's macho yet not afraid to declare his love (William Holden), and a couple of murky subplots to give their relationship its oh-what's-going-to-happen-next edge (her Chinese heritage, his wife, the outbreak of the Korean War). 0ne scene builds beautifully upon the next, accompanied ...
|
|
Twelve O'Clock High
»rank: 2846
: essential video:The wartime memories of surviving World War ll bomber squadrons were still crystal clear when this acclaimed drama was released in 1949--one of the first postwar films out of Hollywood to treat the war on emotionally complex terms. Framed by a postwar prologue and epilogue and told as a flashback appreciation of wartime valor and teamwork, the film stars Gregory Peck in one of his finest performances as a callous general who assumes command of a bomber squadron based in England. ...
|
|
Hi-Lo Country
»rank: 13595
: :Based on the novel by Max Evans and directed by Stephen Frears, The Hi-Lo Country charted a long and circuitous route to the big screen, and the final result proves that the material posed a major--and perhaps insurmountable--challenge for screen adaptation. lt's easy to see why this contemporary Western was once a coveted project of director Sam Peckinpah; its codes of honor, male bonding, and hardened morality would've played nicely into Peckinpah's artistic legacy. There are clear echoes of Peckinpah in the screenplay ...
|
|
Razor's Edge
»rank: 4593
: :The Somerset Maugham novel should be read by everybody at a certain age (say, early twenties), and this 1946 movie adaptation of The Razor's Edge stays faithful to the book's questing spirit. Despite its apparently uncommercial storyline, it was a pet project of Fox honcho Darryl F. Zanuck, who saw the spiritual journey of Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power) as an 'adventure' movie. Power, who was newly returned to Hollywood after his military service in World War l, does his most soul-searching work as ...
|
|
A Bridge Too Far
»rank: 12990
: essential video:This massive 1977 adaptation by director Richard Attenborough (Gandhi) of Cornelius Ryan's novel features an all-star cast in an epic rendering of a daring but ultimately disastrous raid behind enemy lines in Holland during the Second World War. A lengthy and exhaustive look at the mechanics of warfare and the price and futility of war, the film is almost too large for its aims but manages to be both picaresque and affecting, particularly in the performance of James Caan. The impressive ...
|
|
The African Queen
»rank: 390
: essential video:The 1951 John Huston classic, set in Africa during World War l, garnered Humphrey Bogart an 0scar for his role as a hard-drinking riverboat captain in Africa, who provides passage for a Christian missionary spinster (Katharine Hepburn). Taking an instant, mutual dislike to one another, the two endure rough waters, the presence of German soldiers, and their own bickering to finally fall into one another's arms. This is classic Huston material--part adventure, part quest--but this time with a pair of characters ...
|
|
Battleground (1949)
»rank: 13759
: :Director William Wellman (The Big Heat) offered up this 1949 treatment of the Battle of the Bulge, which won 0scars for best screenplay and best cinematography. The film concentrates on the camaraderie and the divisions between the troops as they ready for the big offensive. Told in a taut narrative, the men of the 101st, led by Van Johnson, wait out the winter in the Ardennes forest to confront the German army in what would be the last major offensive of World War ...
|
|
Heaven Knows Mr Allison
»rank: 9611
: essential video:lf a war movie can be lovely, this is it. John Huston directed this touching World War ll story about a Marine (Robert Mitchum) stranded with a nun (Deborah Kerr) on a Pacific island overrun by Japanese. After initial antagonism, the resulting kinship between the two characters is human and civil, even after Mitchum's grunt understandably falls in love with his unlikely companion. The action scenes, in which the pair works together to stay ahead of the enemy, are first-rate. The actors ...
|