isanders Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 As a newcomer to this forum I'm not sure if anyone has asked this? But my recommendation would be Stanley Kubricks "Paths of Glory" Any others? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annette Burgoyne Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 Hi isanders I am 99 % sure there is a tread on this subject, but I'am too lazy too look for it. All Quite on the Western Front, (1930's one) as to be the best. Another good film is The Road to Glory starring Frederic March, Warner Baxter and June Long. Annette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Bowbrick Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 Yup - there certainly was a thread on this sometime ago - general consensus was 'All Quiet on the Western Front' was top. I rather like 'The Blue Max' for the aerial perspective. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Poilu Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 "All Quiet..." is certainly my favourite - the fully restored, un-censored version. "Paths of Glory" is superb but look out also for "La Grande Illusion" - another classic. A lesser known but most remarkable film is the slightly surreal "The King of Hearts". Cannot say I ever thought much of the more modern films like "Gallipoli" with a young Mel Gibson or "Regeneration". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pete Wood Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 I rather like 'The Blue Max' for the aerial perspective. Do you mean that as well as featuring the goddess Ursula (sigh), there were aeroplanes......?? I'd better watch that film again, more carefully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broznitsky Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 RT, ever since I saw her in "Doctor No", my life has followed a different path. And what ever happened to the actress who played the heroine in "From Russia With Love"? Peter (dreamy in Ottawa) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pete Wood Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 what ever happened to the actress who played the heroine in "From Russia With Love"? If you mean Daniela (nee Bianchi), she is in the kitchen making my dinner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Daniela Bianchi Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 Not any more, I'm not. Your dinner is in the dog! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broznitsky Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 If you mean Daniela (nee Bianchi), she is in the kitchen making my dinner I worship the ground you walk on, and the keyboard you type with. Any chance of a piccie? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry_Reeves Posted 30 October , 2003 Share Posted 30 October , 2003 Try Rex Ingram's 1921 film, The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse. Starring Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry as the starcrossed lovers, Julio and Marguerite, it is a tragic story of illicit love in a wartime setting. It shifts from the Argentine pampas to glittering Paris to the German invasion and the occupation of a French village. Mystical undertones are provided by a strange Russian who evokes a vision of the four terrible horsemen. Marguerite forsakes her lover for her war-blinded husband and Julio is killed in action by a German cousin. Anti-German in sentiment to the point of characature, it was banned in Germany. Everwhere else it was a smash hit and catapulted the smouldering Valentino to stardom. Oh! What happy days it must have been at the flicks. Terry Reeves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Dixon Posted 3 November , 2003 Share Posted 3 November , 2003 Oh what a lovely war! always brings a lump to my throat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staffsyeoman Posted 3 November , 2003 Share Posted 3 November , 2003 It's bunk as history, but I always had a soft spot for 'The Dawn Patrol' with Errol Flynn and David Niven. Forget not also that the first ever Best Picture Oscar winner in 1928 was William Wellman's 'Wings' - a tale of WW1 aerial derring do... "King and Country" (Dirk Bogarde/Tom Courtenay, dir Joe Losey 1964)made an impression on me as a young lad, even if the history is dubious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest J.Woodward Posted 5 November , 2003 Share Posted 5 November , 2003 Dawn Patrol may be bunkum, but Niven as Spotty must surely be the one of the better representations of the public school officer on film (as opposed to the cowardley wretch image projected by modern films such as 'The Trench' etc?) How about Aces High (an ariel version of R.C.Sheriffs' Journeys End) as a bit of light viewing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark A Posted 5 November , 2003 Share Posted 5 November , 2003 I'm going to stick up for Regneration. I thought it was a great evocation of the time, the over head tracking shot across the battlefields were suitably grim and I thought it raised some really meaty questions about, well, regeneration. I found the whole conundrum the doctor faced of sending men out to fight, patching them back up when they came back damaged and sending them out again like robots a powerful one. All Quiet On the Western Front is great as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Shaw Posted 5 November , 2003 Share Posted 5 November , 2003 The original 1930s version of All quiet on the Western Front is being screened at the Curzon Soho, London between the 7th and 13th November, the handout states that this is the 'new restoration of Lewis Milestones work and will be the first time this restored uncut version has been seen in the UK' As an added bonus the screening on the 11th November will be preceeded by the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion reading from his new anthology First World War Poems Tickets for the 11th are £8.50 (concessions £5) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Johnsonm Posted 6 November , 2003 Share Posted 6 November , 2003 One film that made a great impression on me some years ago was Life and Nothing But . A French film about immediate post war France concerning a Colonel classifying French war dead and missing and two French women , one a countess and the other a young girl , both looking for the same man . I believe one of the scenes shown was a representation of the explosion in the Tunnel du Tavannes in September 1916 . I may have got the film title wrong but it made a very powerful impression at the time . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted 9 November , 2003 Share Posted 9 November , 2003 I agree with the last poster and your description of "Life and Nothing But" is spot on and while a good film, Lewis Milestone's film of the book "All quiet on the Western Front" still stands the test of time, and for me is the greatest. Some of his WW2 films, like "A Walk in the Sun" are not bad either, and for Korea he made "Pork Chop Hill". But read AQW first, it reads like poetry to me even in translation, and then watch the film. Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" is another fine film As for "Regeneration", I read the Trilogy and enjoyed it, but never bothered with the film. One film that could be made and hasn't is one based on Sebastien Japrisot's book "A Very Long Engagment" . For those not familiar with this book here's a brief synposis: "January 1917: five French soldiers are marched to their own front lines where they will be tossed out into no man's land with their hands tied behind their backs and left for the Germans to shoot. They were, in civilian life, variously a pimp, a mechanic, a farmer, a carpenter, and a fisherman; now they are condemned because each had sought to leave the war by shooting himself in the hand. Taken to a godforsaken trench nicknamed Bingo Crépuscule, the five are reluctantly sent out into the darkness; days later, five bodies are recovered and the families are notified, merely, that the men died in the line of duty. August 1919: Mathilde Donnay receives a letter from a dying man. In it, the former soldier tells her that he met her beloved fiancé, the fisherman Manech, shortly before he died. Mathilde goes to meet Sergeant Daniel Esperanza at his hospital and there hears the story of the execution. She also receives a package with a photograph of the men and copies of their last letters. As Mathilde reads and rereads the letters and goes over Esperanza's tale, she begins to suspect that perhaps the story didn't end quite so neatly. And so begins her very long investigation into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the deaths of five condemned prisoners--one of whom, at least, might not really be dead. " A story of life from death. I'd pay money to see it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geezer Posted 9 November , 2003 Share Posted 9 November , 2003 I wouldn't say they are the best, but just to chuck a coiuple more into the pot, there was 'Sargeant York' and 'The lighthorsemen'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted 9 November , 2003 Share Posted 9 November , 2003 I saw a mention of "Oh What a Lovely War" by an earlier poster. I don't know what others think, but this film worries me. A fine piece of Cinematic Art possibly, but does it say more about the 1960's than 1914-1918 ( Lions lead by Donkeys, meaningless slaughter etc, etc)? I have never seen a recent film called "The Trench", is it any good or just tosh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geezer Posted 9 November , 2003 Share Posted 9 November , 2003 As I remember 'The Trench' starred Paul Nicholls, of Eastenders fame...and yes it was tosh! There was a more recent film called something like 'Deathwatch' which was about some British soldiers caught behind German lines and got stuck in a dug out which was haunted....or something like that, not seen it though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will O'Brien Posted 9 November , 2003 Share Posted 9 November , 2003 There was a more recent film called something like 'Deathwatch' which was about some British soldiers caught behind German lines and got stuck in a dug out which was haunted....or something like that, not seen it though. Geezer Equally as tosh as The trench Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedley Malloch Posted 10 November , 2003 Share Posted 10 November , 2003 Not being a rugby fan and finding yesterday's Radio 5 football commentary from Stanford Bridge offering only a world of grief and pain I turned, as you do in such moments of crisis, to TCM. They were profiling Stanley Kubrik, producer of 'Paths of Glory'. The aforementioned movie was discussed by Scorcese and Spielberg, both of whom considered it a great war film lavishing lengthy praise on the technical ('tracking dolly shots' was one phrase I heard) and conceptual aspects of its production. They discussed the final scene in the estaminet, a section many people find unbearably moving and the reasons for its appeal. One of pair made the point that the scene's power lay in the fact that it was a passage full of sentiment without dealing in sentimentality. I'm not sure what they meant, but it sounded very good. Still, informative to have a professional's opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burlington Posted 18 November , 2003 Share Posted 18 November , 2003 I think that 'Paths of glory' was probably the 'best' film for me- but what is 'best'? Evocation of an era, tearjerker, entertainment value, honesty, or what? How do you determine what is 'great'? By the way, for those who mentioned 'Oh what a lovely war', I did start a thread on this topic on the forum 'photos and documents reguests' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedley Malloch Posted 22 November , 2003 Share Posted 22 November , 2003 I think that 'Paths of glory' was probably the 'best' film for me- but what is 'best'? Evocation of an era, tearjerker, entertainment value, honesty, or what? How do you determine what is 'great'? Ultimatmely it is a personal judgement. It is what the movie does for you. I see Channel 4 recently ran a programme on the 100 scariest movies of all time: Kubrick's (the producer of 'Paths') 'The Shining' won. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risby Posted 10 December , 2003 Share Posted 10 December , 2003 Lawrence of Arabia, for all its faults. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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