Memorial Day weekend viewings

[trekgeezer]

They Were Expendable (1945) Directed by John Ford  --   Starring Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, and Donna Reed

This is the story of the first PT boats and their involvement in the defense of the Phillipines in WWII.

Robert Montgomery's (Lt. "Brick" Brickley) character is out to prove the usefullness of the boats, but not making much headway. LTjg "Rusty" Ryan (John Wayne) wants a transfer to a real ship until they get news of Pearl Harbor and then later the inevitable invasion by the Japanese of the Phillipines.

At first they are told to hide out and act as messenger boats between Bataan and Corregidor. Rusty gets wounded in the thumb (he has contracted blood poisoning) and is ordered to an Army hospital where he meets Lt. Sandy Davis (Donna Reed) an Army nurse, who at first he doesn't like but warms up to after he see's her in action and under pressure.

This is kind of a maudlin movie. John Wayne's portrayal is understated and atypical for him. His romance with Donna Reed's character is bittersweet. At the end of the movie her fate is not known, she is assumed dead or a member of the infamous Bataan death march.

Many of the PT boat crews are also left to a similar fate. Ryan and Brickley are ordered back to the states with two Ensigns (they are  the last of the PT boat officers) to build the PT boat program. They must tell their men and then leave on the last plane out.

Please make note of Ward Bond as the salty old CPO and the very young Cameron Mitchell and Marshall Thompson. Thompson has a rather hilarious conversation with the cook you should look out for.

A little trivia: PT boats were made of plywood and carried 12-14 man crews. They carried four torpedos and travelled at about 48 knots top speed. It took brave guys to go up against warships in a plywood boat.

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) - Directed by Mervyn LeRoy --     Starring Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Robert Mitchum, and Spencer Tracy as Jimmy Doolittle.

After Pearl Harbor the US needed some kind of retribution against the Japanese, so then Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle came up with a crackpot idea. Take16 B-25 bombers to the gills with bombs and fuel and launch them from carriers to bomb Tokyo. This entailed the planes having to fly farther than there range with extra fuel in cans loaded aboard them, but they would still not have enough for the return trip. So, they would keep on going and try to make it to mainland China and hopefully get rescued by friendly locals.

I don't know if any here have seen a WWII bomber up close, but their is an awful lot of plexiglass in those things, in fact the bombadier and the turret gunners were encased in the stuff. I can just imagine the fear and adrenalin when they were on a mission.

This story is shown through the eyes of Lt. Ted Lawson (Van Johnson) and his crew. They are amazed at the lack of defense thrown at them by the Japanese. They end up  ditching just short of the beach and everyone is pretty beat up but alive. They have to depend on the local Chinese resistance for medical help and to stay ahead of the Japanese.

You should be pleased with the portrayal of these events, especially if you have seen the Michael Bay version served up in Bruckheimer's Pearl Harbor.

Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) Directed by Robert Wise -- Starring Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden, and Brad Dexter

Cdr. Richardson (Clark Gable) gets his boat shot out from under him in the the infamous Bungo Straits. After a year at a desk job he is still obsessed with getting the ship that sunk his boat.

Along comes the USS Nerka, whose Captain is retiring, and Richardson sees his chance to get vengeance. The first officer , Lt. Bledsoe (Burt Lancaster), who's next in line to be Captain isn't too happy about Richardson wrangling the command away from him.

They set sail and Richardson puts them through almost non-stop drills of diving an firing torpedoes. They later find out why when he perfects the maneuver by taking out a Japanese destroyer with a bow shot.

This movie, unlike some others, realistcally shows the life of what we in the Navy called "pig boat sailors". The cramped innards of the sub coupled with the tension of the situation have seldom been done better.

Don Rickles plays one the enlisted men, I believe this was his first movie role.

I have the deepest possible respect for the people who served in WWII. There were no one year tours, once you were in, you were in for the duration of the war unless you died of were severely wounded. My father in law was in the Army through out the entire war. He served in North Africa and was in the invasion of Sicily.

My own father was drafted at age 32 in 1944 and because of his age served in the MP's at West Point, NY guarding German POW's.

I have known several D-Day survivors and a few Marines who served in the Pacific War and I can't tell you how much I admire these men for what they did. As has been said before, they literally saved the world.

[saintmort]

Not going to describe just state titles

HEavenly Creatures (1994) - Great
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) - Good
School Daze (1988) - Alright

[Scott]

Seen them all TrekGeezer. It's been a while since I've seen them, but they are all good films . As a child I watched every WWII film on TV in the 70's. The one I remember most on your list is RUN SILENT RUN DEEP, always recall the part when a torpedo inside the submarine lands on one of the crew members during an attack.
Don't watch to many WWII films anymore as I've seen them all, but maybe one day I go back an catch the ones I liked most.

I just watched Roger Cormans SKI TROOP ATTACK (1960) on DVD tonight. Didn't find it as interesting as the 3 films you mentioned. Bought if for $0.97 last month on DVD and finally watched it tonight.

WWII DVD's that I have set put for future viewing are:

A WALK IN THE SUN - Seen it long ago, but bought a copy for $0.97 at ACME recently

TOO LATE THE HERO - Saw this on TV years ago and remember it was a good one, so I qued it up on Netflix, not sure when I'll move it up.

A few WWII films about the Philippines that I qued up on Netflix, but not sure when I'll be getting  to  them. My wife is from the Philippines and I'm always interested in films that have anything to do with them.

RAIDERS OF LEYTE GULF - Don't think I've seen this one, but I might be wrong. Qued it up on Netflix.

THE RAVAGERS - Don't think I have ever viewed this one.

THE WALLS OF HELL - Don't think I've seen this one either.



Post Edited (05-30-05 22:22)

[Kory]

NUMEROUS movies on Sci-Fi channel involving snakes, spiders, and genetically mutated rats.

But the best one of the weekend was on IFC...

I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE!

I can't get enough of that piece of crap movie!

[BeyondTheGrave]

3 flims that I saw this weekend that I got from Netflick were:

High Plains Difter
Red Sonja
Great Escape


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"We Greeks created democracy! You also created homos!"-Ghost World

[Yaddo 42]

"Too Late the Hero" is one of my all time favorites, bought it on DVD last year.

I saw Don Rickles once in a interview talking about Gable and Lancaster in RSRD. He was getting laughs imitating them while saying they were movie stars not actors, he said they would say their lines, the director would say "Cut" and they would chit chat with the crew or ask for cigarettes in exactly the same tone. He said they were too busy being "Clark Gable" and "Burt Lancaster" to become their characters, and no one was paying to see them inhabit a role anyway.

I watched parts of "M*A*S*H" yet again, love that movie. But mostly I watched the Saturday Adult Swim shows that I taped while at work. The movie marathons on the cable channels were either stuff I'd seen before (the war movies on AMC) or crap I had no interest in anyway ("Out Cold" or "Sorority Boys" on Comedy Central). Although I caught parts of "The Wild, Wild Planet" on Turner South, I'll have to keep a lookout in case they reair it, what I saw looked like great vintage B-movie groovy Italian 60s scifi schlock.

[odinn7]

Rich, what did you think of High Plains Drifter? That's one of my favorite Eastwood westerns.

"What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't."

[Eirik]

"You should be pleased with the portrayal of these events, especially if you have seen the Michael Bay version served up in Bruckheimer's Pearl Harbor. "

You mean those bombers weren't crewed by fighter pilots hot for revenge, one of whom had managed to hide a serious speech impediment well enough to be assigned a position where using a radio was crucial??  

I watched The Longest Day as has become a long standing tradition with me, and I also watched Glory with my oldest (nearing seven) for the first time.  WWII movies I think are popular because the locales and themes can vary so widely, but Memorial Day still makes me think of the Civil War first and foremost - such a huge percentage of our population lost, many guys fighting on their home turf, and I don't know if we ever came so close to losing a war (Revolution excepted).

[BeyondTheGrave]

Odinn7 I really liked it. One of the few movies I rented from Netflick that I will probably buy when I go to the store. The ending struck me as eerie. The scenes are powerful like when they killed the Marshall. A well done western.  Plus it had a midget. Can't beat that.


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"We Greeks created democracy! You also created homos!"-Ghost World

[odinn7]

The midget sheriff...a classic piece of that film.