The films in this section might have been shoehorned into the different World War II headings. But despite the fact that they were made over a 50-year span, they share an anticipation of the conflict to come, and in some cases they show the preliminary engagements. For Americans, World War II has a definite starting point, December 7, 1941, and it is not simply hindsight that makes that historical…
1942 John Huston For his third feature, John Huston tries to repeat the screen chemistry that made his debut, The Maltese Falcon, so successful. He gets it about half right, and turns a fairly predictable piece of propaganda into a diverting, but derivative entertainment. In strictly visual terms, the film is spookily similar to other more famous films of the period. The bleary-eyed channel surfe…
1941 Michael Curtiz Michael Curtiz may be the most famous “unknown” director of Hollywood's golden era. He made some of the most popular and profitable movies—Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Yankee Doodle Dandy—and because they ranged so widely in subject and tone, he was never identified with his pictures in the way that Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford …
1943 Sam Wood Someone once said of writer Henry James that he chews much more than he bites off. That also applies to Sam Wood's adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's famous novel. It's a simple story of a commando raid that could have been a fine adventure tale. (Remade under the title The Guns of Navarone, that's exactly what it is.) But Wood overinflates every aspect, dr…
1953 Fred Zinnemann The restrictions on popular films being what they were in the 1950s, writer Daniel Taradash and director Fred Zinnemann were forced to make massive changes in James Jones's profane, bawdy, excessive best-seller before they could bring it to the silver screen. Key character motivations were changed, the language was sanitized, the violence was discreetly veiled. But the …
1940 Charlie Chaplin In many ways, this is not a very good movie. But when an important filmmaker addresses an important subject with a directness that few of his contemporaries dared, attention must be paid. And despite the flaws, the resemblance between director-star Charlie Chaplin and Adolph Hitler, the target of his often heavy-handed parody, is eerie. Beyond the similarities in mustaches, f…
1984 Leung Po-Chi The Chinese version of Casablanca has a hint of the flamboyant action that Hong Kong movies have become justly famous for, but at heart, it is a more conventional story of love in a time of chaos. Though a few cultural differences must be overcome, that story is built on universal cinematic themes and characters. More importantly for most videophiles, the film is a showcase for C…
1995 Ken Loach Though Ken Loach is known as a filmmaker with strong leftist leanings, his take on the Spanish Civil War is neither polemic nor propaganda. It's actually much closer in structure, plot, and emotion to Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, which was produced two years later. Loach, however, is more interested in politics and the sacrifices that political beliefs dema…
Talvisota 1989 Pekka Parikka In 1939, with the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in effect, Stalin made territorial demands on neighboring countries. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were forced to cede land to Russia. Finland resisted. On Nov. 30, the Red Army attacked, and for 105 days, the outnumbered Finns held off the invaders. The Winter War is the Finnish version of that campaign. Based on milit…