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Gone To Texas is an astonishing faithful presentation of Sam Houston’s life, although the fictional version is a more dynamic individual than the real man. Sadly, while the script is surprisingly accurate, the acting is mediocre. Still, the miniseries is worth watching as a moderately entertaining history lesson, which is more than can be said about most of the movies on the Texan Revolution. Read More…
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A British company commences a six-day rotation at the front in March 1918. The company’s section of the line has not seen any action for a year, but an attack is expected in the next few days, and a sense of dread builds among the officers and soldiers as they hear the German troop trains every night. Based on a play and filmed shortly after the introduction of sound, the original version was extremely talky, and focused almost entirely on the efforts of the company commander to cope with terror through copious consumption of whiskey. While keeping the basic story, this version has benefited greatly from the addition of many new scenes, making it one of the better movies on WWI. Read More…
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Focusing on the officers of a single British company on the front line line near the end of WWI, the script makes no effort to explain the overall strategic situation, choosing instead to present the officers’ struggle to remain sane. Based on a play, over-talkiness is to be expected, especially since sound was a recent addition to films, even so the actors’ delivery was hard to take. Although the film is noteworthy as an early look at the grinding effect that the nightmarish experience in the trenches had on soldiers, it is hard to watch, and suitable only for fans of early sound films and WWI buffs. Read More…
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Six villagers join Pancho Villa’s army, and are named the Lions of La Plata. Initially bursting with optimism, the endless battles take a toll on them, both physically and emotionally. Villa’s army wins a number of battles, but each battle costs the life of a Lion until only one remains. Read More…
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Don Rosalio Mendoza prospers during the Mexican Revolution by remaining friends with both the Zapatistas and the federal forces. Although he has no interest in either side, and is determined to ensure the continued existence of his hacienda by lavishly entertaining both sides, he becomes close friends with a Zapatista general, who serves as his son’s godfather. As the fighting continues, Mendoza fears for the safety of his wife and son, and plans to move to Mexico City, but finds himself faced with a horrible choice. Read More…
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Viewers of Ironclad may believe that the film is about the fight between King John, who wished to reclaim the absolute power that had been taken from him when he had been forced to sign the Magna Carta, and the barons, who were fighting to preserve the rights of the common people and the nation itself. Cynics may complain that the barons were simply concerned with their own rights, not the rights of the smelly peasants. However, the film is really the struggle of the sex-starved young wife of the castle’s lord to persuade a Templar knight to break his vow of celibacy and satisfy her carnal needs. The story of a leader who gathers a group of disillusioned warriors, preferably seven, to defend a place against huge odds is not new in film history, and Ironclad is not a notable addition to the record. Filled with a cast of solid character actors who have all done better work, the film needed a better script. Still, it is relatively enjoyable and relatively accurate. Read More…
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Set on an American aircraft carrier during the Korean War, a squadron of bomber pilots question the value of their mission. Similar to The Bridges at Toko-ri (1954), the two films share much in common including the respectful presentation of the dangers of air rescue and the frustration of married veterans of WWII called back into service, but Men of the Fighting Lady is filmed like a documentary, and appears to be intentionally boring. To be fair, it is an effective documentary. The planes are beautiful, and the bombing scenes use stock footage from the Korean War, which gives the film an authentic feel. Read More…
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Although the film covers the entire Texan Revolution, it is presented as a chapter in the life of Sam Houston, so viewers will actually learn little about the revolution, especially since the script is a giant mess of inaccuracies. Oddly enough for a film about a revolution, the endless talk about freedom means there is little time for battles. Read More…
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Legends of the Fall was a passion project for director Edward Zwick, since he loved the book and even gave it as a gift to friends. Sadly, none of that passion made it onto the screen, instead it is painful and boring. Zwick has made many good films, but this is not one of them. Set during WWI and Prohibition, the film is primarily a romance, so the two battle scenes on the Western Front are brief. Read More…
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Playing Machine Gun Kelly, a famous bank robber and kidnapper during the Public Enemies Era, Charles Bronson has his first leading role. Aside from the title character, all of the other characters are fictional. As is almost the entire movie. An incredibly anti-crime movie, every single one of the criminals is repulsive. Populated by nasty characters, it is simply an unpleasant movie. Read More…
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Heroes of the Alamo presents the growing tension between the American immigrants in Mexico and the Mexican government that eventually led to the Texan Revolution. Unlike most films on the Alamo, it focuses on the Dickinson family, rather than Davy Crockett or Jim Bowie. Made in 1937, the acting is stilted, as if the actors have not adapted to sound. Even for the time, this is horrible, almost incompetent. Read More…
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Attorney James “Brick” Davis (James Cagney) joins the Department of Justice after his friend is shot from behind while arresting a counterfeiter, and becomes involved in the FBI’s campaign against a gang that has committed a wave of bank robberies. The film presents several key events of the Public Enemies Era but does not include any of the actual Public Enemies. Intended to reassure the public, a single gang is responsible for the entire crime wave. G-Men was clearly designed as an apology for Warner Brothers’ previous gangster films, which had caused it to be known as the gangster studio. While the intent is laudable, the film lacks energy, and is only for Cagney fans. Read More…
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Gallipoli is actually two movies: a buddy movie that takes place in Australia during the early months of WWI, and the Gallipoli Offensive, which was too complex to be explained in the last third of the film. Examining the loss of innocence in Australia during WWI, Gallipoli is not a movie with beautifully choreographed battles or gritty action scenes, just a brutal look at men sent to die far from their homes in a pointless campaign. Read More…
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Flyboys gets most of the facts right, so viewers will actually learn a little about the war. However, the movie is not about the real Lafayette Escadrille, it is just a generic WWI aviation film that happens to feature Americans fighting for France. The film is gorgeous, and the producers clearly loved flying, but the amazing aerial footage is not matched by the cliché-ridden screenplay. Read More…
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Forty Thousand Horsemen, the story of the Australia Light Horse during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in WWI is wartime propaganda, but even so, it is excessive. The movie consists of fun-loving Australians taking advantage of local natives who are not too bright, and riding across endless stretches of desert to fight Turks who are actually decent but are ruled by tyrannical German warlords, while Waltzing Matilda is played repeatedly. Told through the viewpoint of the soldiers, the viewer will learn little about the war itself. The climatic charge is adequate, but does not compare to the charge in The Lighthorsemen (1987). In fact, there is no reason to watch this movie, unless you are a completist like me. Everyone else should spare themselves the boredom and watch The Lighthorsemen. Read More…
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Thad Walker (Tab Hunter), a troubled young American enlists in the Lafayette Escadrile, a squadron of volunteer American fighter pilots who fought for France during WWI. Director William Wellman had been given a smaller budget than he had wanted, so the only aerial combat takes place in the last five minutes. Instead, the movie focuses on the depressingly dull romance between Walker, a fugitive from justice with a boulder-sized chip on his shoulder, and Renee Beaulieu (Etchika Choureau), a reformed prostitute. A weird mash-up of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and the Andy Hardy movies, I kept expecting Mickey Rooney to show up and say “hey guys, let’s put on a show.” The dream project of Wellman, who had actually flown with the Lafayette Corps during the war, studio interference ruined the film. Incensed by the changes forced onto the final version, Wellman had his name removed as producer. Read More…
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An important part of New Hollywood, MASH may have been radical at the time, but it does not hold up well today. The story of three hell-raising doctors in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, it spawned the long-running television show M*A*S*H (1972-1983). Unfortunately, viewers will not even learn about the Korean War since director Robert Altman ensured that there were no references to the Korean War because he wanted viewers to think of the then-current Vietnam War. Famous at its release as a daring anti-war comedy, it has not aged well, since it is simply an annoying, homophobic, misogynist film where a football game is all that matters. Read More…
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Gangster Squad’s presentation of Mickey Cohen as a vicious gangster who rules over the city of Los Angeles until a small band of brave policemen end his reign of terror has nothing to do with reality. Extremely inaccurate, the movie is a deliberate falsification of the situation. Worse, it is not entertaining. Filled with exciting car chases in the desert and exciting shootouts in a hotel, the movie should be exciting but the action scenes are bland and formulaic, so it is cartoonish like 1980’s G.I. Joe cartoonish, but not as good. It will take quite some time to list just the major inaccuracies in this film, so you might want to go to the bathroom first. Read More…
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Near the end of the American Civil War, the commander of a Union prison recruits a mix of civilians, Confederate prisoners and Union troops to hunt down a band of Apache, pursuing them into Mexico, which was occupied by a French army struggling to place an Austrian prince on the throne. As the search extends into weeks and then months, the men gradually shed all traces of civilization.
Described as Moby Dick on horseback, the film became famous for director Sam Peckinpah’s mix of self-destructive behavior and brilliance. Clashing with the executives who ran the studio, the film was taken away from Peckinpah in the editing stage and a drastically shorter version was released, which was ridiculed by critics and ignored by movie-goers. Although no one knew it at the time, it was a dress rehearsal for The Wild Bunch, but it is still an impressive accomplishment on its own. Major Dundee is one of those movies where a film of the behind-the-scenes action would probably be as interesting as the final result. A restored version, based on a cut made by producer Jerry Bresler, was made in 2005, which provides a more coherent story, while revealing the movie’s flaws. Despite the flaws, it bursts with passion and brilliance. Read More…
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Adopting a relatively even-handed approach, the movie covers MacArthur’s career throughout WWII, the American occupation of Japan and the Korean War. While the story does show MacArthur’s self-fixation and growing paranoia, it skips over many of his mistakes because they would have required a much, much, much longer movie. Unfortunately, the limited budget meant that the movie was filmed in the United States, not Asia. Worse, most of the actors are second-rate, and the low budget meant that the battle scenes looked like they were filmed on a studio lot. Although the film looks like an ABC movie of the week in the early 1980s, it is the only full-length presentation of a controversial and extremely influential American general. Read More…
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Balancing the conflicting needs of the radical and conservative factions of the Republican Party, President Abraham Lincoln struggles to convince enough Democrats to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment, which will abolish slavery. The war is almost over, so Lincoln must deal with Confederate negotiators, who hope to win peace and keep slavery, aware that the North is weary of war. Determined to see that the Thirteenth Amendment passes, Lincoln insists that all means short of the exchange of money be employed to persuade Democrats to vote for the amendment. The film is a stunning recreation of the real Lincoln’s world. While this is not the definitive movie about the long road to freedom for blacks in the United States, it is the definitive movie about Abraham Lincoln.
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Numerous film critics have ranked Inchon as one of the worst movies ever made. Inchon is not horrible, but it is painful. Set during early days of the Korean War, the movie is an epic tribute to General Douglas MacArthur. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church and main financial backer of the film, later stated publicly that he wanted the movie to portray MacArthur and his love of God, as well as his battle against tyranny and communism. He succeeded. Unsurprisingly, director Terrence Young blamed the final mess on the producers’ interference. Probably best-known as the director of the first two films in the Bond series, Terrence Young’s career had started to decline. It did not bounce back after Inchon. Read More…
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Set in WWI, it is a surprisingly dark story, where the love interest is a bad girl who has no interest in becoming a good girl, and the never-do-well brother can not be redeemed. The superb technical accomplishments more than compensate for the unbearable overacting, including a minute-long death scene for one of the brothers. The mix of directors and the haphazard transfer from silent to sound resulted in a strange movie, but a very good strange movie that is worth watching.
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A solid introduction to the French Intervention in Mexico, a relatively unknown episode in history when France tried to turn Mexico into a puppet state, Juarez presents the basic chronology, but is limited by the decision to have Paul Muni’s Juarez single-handedly evict the invaders. Read More…
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One of the handful of movies set during the War of 1812, Mutiny (1952) is simply a movie about a mutiny with better-than-average scheming. Read More…
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Silly, inaccurate and boring, weighed down by plodding direction and lame dialogue, Kansas Raiders (1950), a movie about Jesse James riding with William Quantrill during the American Civil War, is just bad, one of those movies that you simply want to end. Read More…
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J. Edgar is a touching movie about gay lovers when the idea of gay rights did not exist, but the love story takes precedence over the story of a paranoid, narrow-minded bureaucrat who believed that his own patriotism was the ideal and anyone who did not meet his standards was a threat to the nation. Read More…
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Avoiding patriotism, drama and heroics, Fixed Bayonets (1951) shows American soldiers struggling to survive the sudden assault of hundreds of thousands of Chinese volunteers during the early stages of the Korean War. Read More…
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A dark, claustrophobic story about an American platoon making its way back to American lines during the early stages of the Korean War, a weak connection to the war makes it a strange yet moving film. Read More…
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Although John Paul Jones (1959) gets the basic facts right, Robert Stack’s portrayal of the famous captain in the rebel navy during the American Revolution is a two-dimensional stock hero who has John Paul Jones’ bravery but otherwise bears little resemblance to the real man. Read More…