Paul, have you seen 'The Raid'? Also, 'To End All Wars', which is a sort of black version of the 'Bridge on the River Kwai'.

BTW, did you guys know that the latter was filmed in Sri Lanka on the Kelani River? You can now go white water rafting right past the old film site.

I agree with NATO308 about CBI. That's kind of like a forgotten war. Also, movies about the battle of Monte Casino and the campaign in the Aluetians would be good.

Art

If we're talking history, and especially miltary history, forget Hollywood. From them we get abortions like "Pearl Harbor" - cripes, the oldie "Tora Tora Tora!" was a million times better.

Maybe the only hope is outfits like TBS ( The Lost Battalion,Gettysburg - I thought that was pretty darned good), or HBO (Band of Brothers). It would seem they wouldn't be inherently opposed to a well documented film or mini-series about the Eastern front, or the Aussies in N. Africa, or whatever. Who would pitch them an idea like that I have no clue.

Of course, nothing would be as interesting as the remake of "The Stepford Wives". YAWN.

Barry

Nobody said documentary, at least I didn't. "A Bridge Too Far" showed 3-4 maps, just about enough to give the non-historian a picture of the overall operations & the key locations. My wife appreciated that. A similar effort with others would be useful & not throw them into documentary status.

John

True, John, but maps were used quite a bit at that time for lots of movies (not just war flicks). You don't see map usage at all in films now. 'Saving Pvt Ryan', 'The Thin Red Line', 'The Raid', Black Hawk Down', etc, all managed to tell a decent story without relying on maps. If you want to make movies for the current generation you have to do it in a way that will be effective, not make movies that our parents would like. Look at cutting edge movies today, and apply what works there to war movies. Steven Spielberg & Ridley Scott took their experience with other genres into war movies.

When "A Bridge Too Far" first came out, I went to the cinema with some mates (not war buffs) to see it. All through the film, I had to explain to them what was going on, & who was who! Fortunately I had read the book (amongst others on Arnhem), so I could oblige. :-)
In many way s ABTF is an old-fashioned film, perhaps the last of it's type. It was made with a large, expensive cast list, with a lot of big names in. This would not be practical nowadays; it also assembled a lot of period kit, which also is probably not available any more.
Kursk, particularly around Prokorovka (sp) is similarly chaotic, so concentrating on the stories of a few individuals, & setting it in the wider context could work (as per Enemy @ the Gates). But I don't know who would make it!

Well, that sort of thing is being done with movies like 'Dark Blue World', for example.

But the thing is, in the day of the old epic war movies, even large budget flicks were targeted at particular groups of audiences. So war movies and westerns were for the dads and sons, musicals were for the mums, romances were for the ladies, and so on. And everyone knew it was just a movie. SFX didn't have to convince. We all knew it was a guy in a gorill suit. Today, though we have these niche genres (sci-fi, horror, etc), big budget movies have to be everything to everyone. You can't have a bloody war movie and expect to have a mixed audience unless you throw in the kissy-feely bits as well. There are a few hardcore movies like 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Black Hawk Down', but that's rare.

definately the taking of Fort eban enamel

Great idea!

Also the Golan Heights, October, 1973, ( I read Eric Hammel's Duel for the Golan: The 100-Hour Battle That Saved Israel 10 years ago, and am still amazed. The Syrians attack was supported by more gun tubes of 122mm+ than the IDF had men on the Heights! I also read The Eve of Destruction : The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War by Howard Blum, which includes more first-person stories--on both fronts ) was an epic battle--heck, the entire Yom Kippur War was, especially the IDF's crossing of the Suez to shoot up the Egyptian SAM site.

By far the battle that I really want to see done well is the epic campaign for Guadalcanal! Guadalcanal had everything, aerial, naval, hand-to-hand...destroyers fighting battleships so close that the BBs couldn't lower their guns to bear and while their bridge was raked with light weapons, battleships fighting battleships; tank attacks, PT boats...desperation marked the campaign for both sides. Early on USMC veritably had to subside on what food they could take by killing the enemy. All this while Imperial Japan was still riding a wave of seeming invincibility (Midway and Buna not withstanding).

It would have to be hours-long to even tell one side, but I think it is the most fascination single campaign of the war.

Fred, if you can get hold of it, read The Heights of Courageby Avigdor Kahalani, who was an armoured battalion commander on the Golan Heights.

Or the story of the dropping of the first atomic bomb? (bet that one will never ever get made!)

Corporal,
In fact that was covered in the movie "The Beginning or the End" starring Brian Donlevy back in 1947. It was a sort of docudrama, very much ahead of it's day. FWIW

As far as great battles go, my vote goes to Bloody Ridge at Guadalcanal.

Gary

great naval battles! like the one that happened on leyte and lingayen gulf. books,films reveal us that it's one of the most biggest armada battles ever occured. flat tops..destroyers, dauntless etc..kamikaze pilots and anti aircrafts..i never get tired seeing the documentary films on discovery channel.

The Battle for the Seelow Heights, Russians crossing the Oder and the leadup to the Battle for Berlin.
The Lake Balation (sp?) or Vienna battles/campaigns would be good too.

Yeah, pretty much any late-late WWII Eastern front... is it still called the Eastern Front when it's on the outskirts of Berlin?

Mike

Sharpsburg (Antietum if you are a yankee) was the first one that came to mind. Then I saw the one about Trafalgar and thought about how much I still love those old sailing ship "pirate" movies. Waterloo would be magnificient and I agree with Rodger the plight of Taffy 3 at Phillipine Sea would also make for a good "Hollywood" version. Personally, I would love to see some of J. Ceasar's great battles, but I think that would tax the limits with the non-History buffs as we've had Troy and Alexander in recent years.

I think comedy / buddy action movies are still the trend in Hollywood. We got a lot of good war flics in the early part of the century. NOw everyone want to do something with "9-11"

Hi David,

Sounds good. I read Gen. Kahalani's bio years ago, don't recall what it was called. He is also mentioned alot in Eve of Destruction.



Seelow Heights would also be fascinating. Heck, so little is known in the West about the Eastern Front that any Ostfront battle or campaign would be worthy of a well done movie.

Kursk would be fascinating, too, especially with the background of the high ranking Soviet spy ("Lucy" was his code name?) and the bulk of German armor were not Tigers or Pzr IVs, but Pzr IIIs and StuGs; and the recent reports that the Germans killed more Red armor than they lost.

I would like to see, in a LONGEST DAY , A BRIDGE TOO FAR, type, [ scope, coverage ] made movie , with BAND OF BROTHERS accuracy :
A movie about the Philippine Scouts, covering pre and post Japan's invasion, the last known cav. charge in history, during a conflict.
The battle of Tarawa
Kursk
Stalingrad
Guadalcanal

Early American history :
Beechers island
The French and Indian Wars
The Modoc uprising

Cheyenne

Hi guys

I like the spread of the battles you bring up.So here`s my two pennorth(two cents worth).What about the battles of Jutland,Malta,Crete,Singapore or the German 1918 offensive.I have not listed any American battles as I agree with our American friends in their comments re the pcific etc.

Den

Simple - the Battle of Long Tan.

And if I hear correctly, there is a film on its way....

When I was writing my Honours thesis, i was interviewing Vietnam veterans from a specific town in New South Wales. Lots of these guys were the first to be called up for National Service, and those that were posted to infantry units, saw active service with 5RAR and 6RAR. Whilst i did not speak to anybody that was directly involved in the fighting at Long Tan, i did speak to several guys who from 6RAR, were with A, B and C company who endured absolute hellish conditions during the establishment of the Task Force base at Nui Dat and began operations in Phuoc Tuy province.

I think this story should be told for two reasons:

For starters, it fills a large gaping hole in the representation of the Australian military in Vietnam, which like the war i guess, has been overshadowed by America's involvement and its representation on screen. When movies concerning Australians in Vietnam do exist - whether it be TV serials or films - they exist with interesting political comments, which says something about how Vietnam was being interpreted in Australia at the time of its production. Such as film does not necesarily need to be a 'positive' We Were Soldiers-esque style of movie which glorifys and maintains the ANZAC tradition, but one which distances itself from those niggling little political comments about the war.

Secondly, I think that as 'Kokoda' did amongst my early 20-something contemporaries, a movie on Long Tan would tap into a demographic which would not necessarily pick up a history book, talk to the people that were there, and associate Vietnam as a painful national mistake, and its veterans that fought the conflict as being psychologically loose cannons. If such a movie motivates at least one person my age to unplug themselves from their ipod and actually go to a museum, a library, or have a chat to a veteran to learn more about Vietnam, then i would be a content man. An example of this occurance would be the response among people my age to 'The Herd's hip-hop version of Redgum's 'I was only 19' (which to shock many, was originally released in the early 1980s!).

My apologies for the essay and for all the uniquely Australian references (im pretty hungover and not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed today!), but my point is really that there is more to the representation of conflict on the screen than WW2 and America during the D-Day landings.

That, my friends, is my 2 bob.

A.

I would like to see a movie dedicated to the 2003 Thunder Run into Baghdad, or the November 2004 attack on Fallujah. The problem is of course taking out the political bias one way or another. Thunder Run would be great because much of today's political rant wasn't around then, plus the story just flows like a movie. Success, then disaster, then triumph from disaster. Read David Zucchino's Thunder Run and I think you'd agree.

Jeff