Between the WORLD WARS Movie Review

Between the Great War and Pearl Harbor

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 moment so evocative. That date divides events as significantly as BC and AD. Before that moment, people thought about the world and themselves in one way. When they learned about the attack, it changed them. In many cases, things that had been massively important were made meaningless. That's the whole point of the most famous of these films, From Here to Eternity.

As everyone surely knows, author James Jones was there at Schofield Barracks on that Sunday morning when the Japanese attack came, and so he felt no need to emphasize its significance. Director Fred Zinnemann pays perhaps more attention to the imminence of the situation than he needs to. His leads—Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, and even Montgomery Clift and Donna Reed—make the strong emotions seem absolutely right. Though Jones's massive work presents serious problems to any dramatic adaptation, this one has become a cultural touchstone.

The same cannot be said of Charlie Chaplin's admirable but disappointing The Great Dictator from 1940. Most moviegoers have probably seen clips from the wonderful dance that his Hitler character does with a lighted balloon globe. It's really the only memorable scene in an otherwise uncomfortable comedy.

Michael Curtiz's Dive Bomber is a curious piece of understated propaganda about the research that Navy aviation doctors did in the problems of high-altitude flying. That doesn't sound like gripping dramatic material, and it isn't, but the film is a fascinating look at a pre-war military that was still using open-cockpit biplanes.

John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, and Mary Astor reteamed after the success of The Maltese Falcon with Across the Pacific, a neat if predictable thriller that casts Bogie as a disgraced army officer who claims to be ready to sell his expertise to the Japanese. The cast isn't able to overcome a so-so script with racist undercurrents.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is no more successful. Some have speculated that it might have been a great war film if director Howard Hawks had accepted it. For several reasons—mostly his dislike of the novel—he declined, and the result, with Sam Wood at the helm, is a turgid, slow-moving affair.

Hong Kong 1941 is a Chinese Casablanca about the romantic triangle that evolves among Chow Yun-Fat, Cecilia Yip, and Alex Man as the Japanese take over the city. For videophiles who have not discovered the wonders of Hong Kong films, this one is a good place to start.

Ken Loach's Land and Freedom is another romance, this one among the dedicated communists who fought for the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. The story is strongly reminiscent of George Orwell's memoir Homage to Catalonia. Pekka Parikka examines another “little” preview that paved the way for what would come soon in The Winter War. His subject is the Russian invasion of Finland in 1939, and the tough resistance that the outnumbered Finns displayed. Though this 1989 film is barely known in this country, it is one of the more realistic depictions of modern combat.