Best Brit WWII Film?

[Steve Crook]

deckard: "A Caterbury Tale" for example, if we're thinking archetypal, is it a war film or a story filmed in wartime?....just a thought. Decks.

Quite a few of Powell & Pressburger's most famous wartime films are also famous for not showing the war - just the effects of it in the extreme situations it put people in.

The Spy in Black (1939)
Contraband (1940)
An Airman's Letter to His Mother (1941)
Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941)
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)
Squadron Leader X (1943)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
The Silver Fleet (1943)
The Volunteer (1943)
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

A little bit of fighting the enemy in a few of them but really remarkably little considering what was happening at the time.

Steve

[deckard]

Very good at showing the effects too Steve, what springs to mind, taking "A Canterbury Tale" as an example again, is when Alison was walking around Canterbury looking at the the aftermath of the bombing and the lady she talks to remarks about the view of the cathedral now the buildings are gone, very sobering! Decks.

[Steve Crook]

[quotedeckard:
Very good at showing the effects too Steve, what springs to mind, taking "A Canterbury Tale" as an example again, is when Alison was walking around Canterbury looking at the the aftermath of the bombing and the lady she talks to remarks about the view of the cathedral now the buildings are gone, very sobering! Decks.[/quote]Yes, that's a lovely scene isn't it. There's a benefit even to having your city destroyed!

BTW The lady with the cut-glass voice wasn't a professional actress. Kathleen Lucas was just a local lady, who helped out. She was very good at helping out. She ran Canterbury WVS & her husband was a surgeon at the hospital so she did volunteer work there as well & helped run the hospital library.

Those scenes were of course filmed in Canterbury and showed the extent of the damage very well. Almost as much damage as the City Council have done since then with their re-planning :)

Steve

[deckard]

Mmph! yur not wrong! The town where I live had a lovely central area fondly called "The Moor"(reclaimed land don't y'know) and then they decided to re-develop it into a "piazza" so people can sit and relax - yer rite! It's now a haven for skateboarders. I rekon there are a lot of mini "hitlers" in local councils all over the country and they've probably done near enough as much damage as the original. Decks.

[dylan]

Originally Posted by Steve Crook Was it propaganda? It was based quite closely on a true story. No sign of any prams rolling down the steps :) Steve

In his autobiography, Balcon said he wanted to make a good, honest and truthful film which would be good propaganda for the war effort and (modestly)that San Dimetrio London amply fulfilled all those requirements.

Its subversive as only Ealing could be with its stock cast of proletarian actors (Fredrick Piper, Gordon Jackson, Mervyn Johns et al) completing the voyage with a democratic allocation of tasks instead of the officer (read *class*)elite, who have all been metaphorically thrown overboard, giving the orders.

[Steve Crook]

dylan: Re: San Demetrio, London In his autobiography, Balcon said he wanted to make a good, honest and truthful film which would be good propaganda for the war effort and (modestly)that San Dimetrio London amply fulfilled all those requirements. Its subversive as only Ealing could be with its stock cast of proletarian actors (Fredrick Piper, Gordon Jackson, Mervyn Johns et al) completing the voyage with a democratic allocation of tasks instead of the officer (read *class*)elite, who have all been metaphorically thrown overboard, giving the orders.

Fair point. I was just wondering where it fits in the grey area between stories created as propaganda and true stories that also happens to good propaganda for the war effort.

Although I must admit I had never taken any significance in there being no officers. It was just that the boat that stumbled upon the ship happened to have no officers. It was obviously too subtle for me :)

Steve

[Bob M.]

I can watch any Brit war film with the great Sir John Mills in. Especially DUNKIRK. Sir John has the ability to play any rank in any of the armed services. In This Happy Breed, every time he comes on he has been promoted, from A.B. seaman all the way to commisioned officer. I've heard tell he has played every rate in the Royal Navy??? Next stalwart has to be Harry Andrews, Sergeant Major or Group Captain, always superb.

[Harleybloke]

I love 'A Bridge Too Far' but having just visited Arnhem and Oosterbeek, it loses something as the locations aren't right.

More than made up for by 'Theirs is the Glory' though!

[scholes]

49th. Parallel.
Reach for the Sky
The Dambusters
Ice Cold in Alex
A town like Alice

[batman]

Ashes and Diamonds
Downfall

[CaptainWaggett]

Millions Like Us
Went the Day Well?
The Next of Kin
Night train to Munich

[orpheum]

I always enjoy watching The Longest Day because it manages to capture the feeling of the time and the realisation,which we are bound to forget,that it was not by any means a foregone conclusion that it would succeed.

[christoph404]

"The Cruel Sea"
what can one say about this film that has not been said already? Hawkins et all, outstanding, and the emotional cost of warfare as expressed by Hawkins is a tour de force of acting.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by Harleybloke I love 'A Bridge Too Far' but having just visited Arnhem and Oosterbeek, it loses something as the locations aren't right.

I'd vote for A Bidge Too Far as well. It's an outstanding film in so many ways.

The current John Frostbrug was only built in 1978 (soon after they made the film). But it's quite similar to the original and the one down-river at Deventer that they used in the film isn't all that different.

But given the usual problems of making a film about real events, most of the film is remarkably accurate. OK, they couldn't use exactly the right locations for the Arnhem/Oosterbeek scenes. But there's much in there that is very accurate and that most film-makers wouldn't have bothered with.

I'm always struck by the similarity of the leading actors to the people they're portraying. And that (apart from Elliot Gould who conflates a few people), every leading actor is playing a real person and is portraying what that real person really did.

The river crossing at Nijmegen by the 82nd airborne is still one of the outstanding actions of the war. It wasn't just put in the film to attract an American audience, it really happened.

Even many of the supporting actors are showing things that really happened. Like Christopher Good playing "Maj. Carlyle" who is really representing Majors Wallace and Tatham-Warter shows a lot of the things that those fine gentlemen actually did. Digby Tatham-Warter really did carry an umbrella into battle because he couldn't remember passwords

Steve

[Frank63]

Originally Posted by Harleybloke I love 'A Bridge Too Far' but having just visited Arnhem and Oosterbeek, it loses something as the locations aren't right. More than made up for by 'Theirs is the Glory' though!

I wondered when someone would mention "A Bridge Too Far" a brilliant film showing the bravery of ordinary men in extarordinary circumstances. As Major General Roy Urquhart said " If you meet a man who says he was at Arnhem, buy him a pint, he deserves it"

I also like "Memphis Belle" , I know it's nothing like the true story but it does illustrate the horrors of war quite graphicaly. And you'll never see so many B17's all together in one place at one time again.

It's a bit like 633 Squadron, a crap story but Oh! to see a flying Mosquito once more.