WWII Stories - 12 Movies/Documentaries

Rating:
Summary: Inexpensive...but cheap
Review: This appears to be a pretty good value, except...the movies are not so good.

"Hitler's SS" was 1985 British TV movie about 2 German brothers who join the SA and SS. Fair.

"Battle of the Last Panzer" is a 1969 Italian movie dubbed in English. Forgot it already.

"Battle of El Alamein" is another 1969 Italian movie dubbed in English. Features Michael Rennie ("Klaatu" from "The Day The Earth Stood Still") as Montgomery. Passable.

"Five for Hell" is yet another 1969 Italian movie dubbed in English. It has unintentional humor in the form of a Fred Astaire-like dancing soldier, a mini trampoline, and lead-filled softballs that save the day. Klaus Kinski has a minor role seducing a number of women when not flailing about with a machine gun. Might be good at a Friday night kegger.

"Officers and Men" was released as "Cry of Battle" in 1963 and starred Van Heflin and James MacArthur ("Dano" on "Hawaii 5-0"). Van Heflin's character is very sexist and racist, and I lost interest in this Philippino guerillas-vs-Japanese story about halfway through.

"Casablanca Express" is yet another Italian movie, from 1988. Included a few recognizable actors (Francesco Quinn, Glenn Ford, and Donald Pleasence) in a story about a kidnapping plot to take Winston Churchill from a train with the title name. Not nearly as good as a similar-plotted movie "The Eagle Has Landed", and in fact is not really good on any level.

"Gung Ho!" is an American made 1943 fact-based movie about the preparation for attacking the Japanese-held Makin Island. This was the first American offensive action after Pearl Harbor. The movie is interesting for a couple things - the origin of the phrase "gung ho" in the American language, and the appearance of a young Robert Mitchum with veteran Randolph Scott. Has the typical propaganda slant that you would expect from a war-time movie. Almost OK.

"Pacific Inferno" is a 1979 Jim Brown movie in which Navy divers, as Japanese POW's, are forced to dive for $16,000,000 in silver dumped off the Philippines. After 5 or 10 minutes (before they even got in the water), I could not really see myself watching all of it. Skipped it.

The documentaries are the only saving grace. They are well made and feature contemporary interviews mixed with archival footage of "The Blitz", "Dunkirk", "The Battle of Britain", and "Churchill's War".

The two "pages" between the covers that hold a double-sided disk popped out of the spine, but I could jam them back in pretty well. The disks themselves have no identification other than, for example, "Disk 2 Side A" etched very small around the hole.

For serious WWII buffs, the 26-part "The World at War" is still the top documentary, and there are much better WWII movies.