La Tour Eiffel

The other day, while reading the Wikipedia entry for the Eiffel Tower, I noticed the rather striking photo to the right, which is captioned "25 August 1944: American soldiers watch as the Tricolor flies from the Eiffel Tower again". On June 13, 1940 the French tricolor flag was struck from the top of the tower when German occupation forces took over Paris. When Hitler toured Paris on June 28, 1940, three days after the official surrender of France, he was told (I can't determine if this was actually true or not) that the elevator cables in the tower had been cut by the French and that he would have to ascend on foot, which he declined to do (being acrophobic). Some time later, Wehrmacht soldiers climbed to the top in order to fly a swastika flag, which was too large and blew away a few hours later, to be replaced by a smaller flag. In August 1944, with Allied troops closing in on the city, General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz disobeyed several direct orders from Hitler to destroy Paris, including the Eiffel Tower. Liberation day came to Paris on August 25, 1944 when von Choltitz surrendered to American and French forces. One sidenote - General Charles de Gaulle insisted that French troops lead the liberation, which Allied command agreed to, but with the stipulation that the leading division consist of only white soldiers, which was very difficult due to the fact that about 60% of Free French divisions were West African conscripts.[1] On liberation day, de Gaulle demanded that the French flag be flown from the tower, so a French colonel rounded up six American soldiers who, despite the fact that the elevators were repaired hours after liberation, took 3 hours to get to the top of the tower. Once there, they were tasked with attaching a 300-pound flag to a radio antenna (not a flagpole) in a 40mph wind. Another three hours later, La Tricolore was back to its rightful place above the streets of Paris, and photos of the event were on the front pages of newspapers around the world.[2]

Sources: Wikipedia, 1, 2

Tobruk (1967)

Starring Rock Hudson, George Peppard, Nigel Green
Directed by Arthur Hiller
NR, 107 minutes. Trailer
Tagline: What they did that day will be remembered for all time!

If you're in the mood for a good late '60s WWII North Africa campaign commando film (it can happen!), you're in the right place. I watched Tobruk on Netflix streaming; about 15 minutes in I remembered having seen it before, but long enough ago that I only remembered parts of it. Hudson does a great job as the heroic anti-hero Major Donald Craig, an arrogant, anti-authoritarian Canadian officer who conceived a desperate plan to lead a group of British soldiers through the Sahara desert in order to destroy Rommel's huge fuel depot at Tobruk, Libya and save Egypt (and likely the entire Middle East) from Rommel's nigh-unstoppable Afrika Korps. Along for the ride are a band of SIG (Special Intelligence Group) men, led by Captain Kurt Bergman (Peppard, displaying a dubious but serviceable German accent). The SIG were a real unit of German-speaking Jews mostly recruited from Palestine (administrated by Britain until just after the war - an amazing story in itself, fictionalized by Leon Uris as Exodus). Peppard delivers one of my favorite lines from the movie:

Major Craig: They say there's a little of the Jew in everyone.
Captain Bergman: Jah, a little of the Nazi, too. 

Sad but true.

A nice undercurrent of the movie is the tension and distrust between the British and Jewish soldiers, a tenuous alliance against the common enemy. Italian Army (Esercito Italiano) troops also make an appearance in this film; the only other movie I can recall seeing them in is Sahara (1943). One of the themes throughout the movie is the "wolf in sheep's clothing" - Allied soldiers masquerading as Germans, a German spy in their midst, lots of subterfuge, camouflage and guessing at true identities. There are a few scenes where director Hiller makes excellent use of silence to heighten tension, which I think was very well done. In fact, there is relatively little action for a WWII movie until the end, which is both explosive (quite literally) and bittersweet, with displays of personal courage and self-sacrifice. There's a lot at stake and very little room for error, and after all that masquerading everyone finally takes off their masks and we get to see who all the characters really are.

Points of interest:

• American M3 halftracks were altered to look like their Wehrmacht Sd.Kfz. 7 (Sonderkraftfahrzeug or "special purpose vehicle" 7) counterparts.
• Parts of Tobruk were used in Raid on Rommel (1971)
• Rock Hudson replaced Laurence Harvey (The Manchurian Candidate)

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB.

The Bridge at Remagen (1969)

Starring George Segal, Robert Vaughn, Ben Gazzara
Directed by John Guillerman
PG, 115 minutes. Trailer
Tagline: "The Germans forged one little bridge. Sixty-one days later they lost the war."

This was a DVD rental from Netflix. I actually can't remember ever having heard of this movie before; I became aware of it I believe through Netflix's recommendation system. Despite not being George Segal's biggest fan, I decided to give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised. It has generally good characters, great action, some moral ambiguity and at just under 2 hours is easy to sit through. Overall I enjoyed it, and it fits in neatly with other mid-to-late 1960s WWII movies, such as "Kelly's Heroes", that have a certain flavor that I have a hard time defining.

Based on the book The Bridge at Remagen: The Amazing Story of March 7, 1945 by Ken Hechler, the movie takes place in Europe during the last months of the war. The Allied forces are desperate to find an intact bridge over the Rhine river into Germany, and the US 9th Armored Division is tasked with capturing the titular bridge (actually named Ludendorff Bridge) leading into the 'heart of Germany'. Segal plays Lieutenant Hartman, and I thought he did a great job at portraying a war-weary, cynical, and disgusted combat officer. Playing the part of the 'grizzled sergeant' is Ben Gazzara who, interestingly, eschews wearing a helmet throughout the movie, in favor of a 'jeep cap' (see photo above; I just learned the name for this type of cap while writing this). This seems a little unlikely to me, as it would be a serious breach of Army regulations in addition to being just plain suicidal, but maybe I'm wrong and it happened more often than I would think. The other star of the movie is Robert Vaughn, who I always liked since the summer I got hooked on watching reruns of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as a kid. I always thought we was an underrated actor and hated to see him have to take so many B-movie roles (though I honestly have never seen it, I can't imagine that C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D. was one of his career highlights). Before watching Bridge, I had a hard time imagining him as a Wehrmacht officer; he doesn't exactly fit the Aryan stereotype, with his dark hair and New York blue-blood looks. However, he does pull it off very well and does a great job drawing sympathy as the honorable, conflicted, doomed Major Paul Krüger.

One very interesting thing about the film itself is that filming in Czechoslovakia was interrupted on the night of August 20-21 1968 when that country was invaded by the Soviet Union, forcing the cast and crew to flee the country in taxis. The one exception was actor Robert Logan, who stayed behind in order to film and photograph the invasion. There's one scene in the movie that amazed me: it appears that the filmmakers actually destroyed one large building as tanks rolled by in the foreground. Apparently the filmmakers were given permission to destroy parts of the town of Most, Czechoslovakia, since the town's center was scheduled to be destroyed anyway to make way for a mine. Speaking of tanks, I was expecting to see Shermans left and right, but the filmmakers instead used the - I don't know how to put this any other way - very cool-looking M24 Chaffee light tank. From what I could dig up, this appears to be historically accurate for the battle, along with M26 Pershing Heavy Tanks.

Other tidbits:

• Known as "Operation Lumberjack".
• The "CROSS THE RHINE WITH DRY FEET COURTESY OF 9TH ARMD DIVISION." banner seen in the movie was real, and the original is displayed in the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor in Fort Knox, KY. 
• The movie states at the end that the bridge collapsed ten days after its capture. This was in fact due to the detonations of 11 V-2 rockets launched by Germany to destroy the bridge. Although the closest rocket strike was 300 yards away, it's thought that the vibrations were enough to bring down the beleaguered bridge, earning the officer of the V-2 launching team a congratulatory telegram from Hitler.

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB

Welcome aboard!

Hi, and thanks for visiting! Recently while enjoying a WWII movie I had never seen (or even heard of) before it occurred to me how many films of that titanic struggle have been made, and continue to be made (albeit at a much slower pace than in the 40s, 50s and 60s). I was inspired to start this blog as a fun way to discover new movies and rediscover old ones that I haven't seen in a long time. Whether I like a particular movie or not, I always like to look it up online to find out any background information on the filming process and actors, as well as answering the inevitable "did it really happen like that?" question. I'm hoping to review one or two movies a month on average, and to include not just my personal feelings about the movies but also any interesting trivia that I happen to come across, as well as some historical background. I'll probably also post some book reviews as well, though I suspect these will be fewer and farther between. As you can see, I also love WWII propaganda posters, so I'll throw in some of my favorites from time to time. Hopefully in time this will be a place where people will come to give recommendations, opinions, and corrections when I inevitably make a mistake. Enjoy!