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Worst war film ever ?


RattlesnakeBob

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Came home the other night and turned om the TV for some pacification before bed and I find a 1960s supposedly 'classic' war film on..

.......I remembered seeing it as young lad many moons ago so thought....

..."ah why not? ...lets have a look!"....

and the result???......well...

..I don't think I've ever actually seen as a film so inept and ridiculous...

..So!.......

I thought I'd start a thread for a laugh and see what the rest of you think of this and other films!

Now then we need to establish some 'categories' ..

...you can dislike a film for any reason but.... it just being 'fiction' and not true..... is not really enough......some daft old tosh such as 'Where Eagles Dare' which is absolutely and totally 'fiction' ....is still, (IMHO) despite it being rather silly and boys comic-ish, sort of entertaining for a wet sunday afternoon..

...and also..

I know certain SKY TV channels often air some truly terrible 'war films' but to be fair.....everyone already knows they are rubbish cos most folk have never even heard of them ...so they must have failed dismally when they were originally released...

..what I'm after is films that were 'big' and 'successful' in their day...but that we now know as..

...'tripe of the highest order'????????

you also have to give a brief reasoning as to your descision by the way !!!!!

so!..........

Here's mine:

The Battle of the Bulge.

Resons for disliking:

1:The whole film

They take a very real & important point of WW2 and call it 'the Battle of the Bulge'.......then more or less totally ignored any of the salient facts regarding said action and make a full on comic book fictional war film instead .

 

2:The vehicles in the film are just about entirely wrong...

Chaffess as Shermans / Pershings as Tigers / M38s as Jeeps / White halftracks painted up as German halftracks etc etc etc etc !.....

 

3: The clueless casting and hilarious scenes/direction/screen play. ...

the worst of which has to be Telly Savalas as a fat 50 ish grizzled tank commander who (amongst other 'heroic' deeds as the token 'crazy but good hearted' American soldier) survives a direct hit that smashs the turret clean off his tank and yet no one in the tank has a spot of blood on them and he's still ready to stop the Nazi advance with nothing more than a .30 cal.... / an archtypical blonde fanatical German tank commander complete with a 'zis iss gud!' accent/.....an equally archtypical 'good' German who wants the war to end / All uniforms worn are spotlessly clean and very new / the 'brave' young Lt who takes to the skies in a spotter plane and thereby single handedly turns the course of the entire war /

a climatic tank battle that looks very much to me as though it took place in Montana rather than the forested landscape of the Ardenne / ....aw gawd ...need I go on???????

 

So there ya go!

FIRE AWAY!

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I'm almost sure this Battle of the Bulge thread has been done before but is very entertaining so...

 

I agree with all the above and the huge variation in climatic conditions seen in the film is particularly farcical.

 

Still a good lazy afternoon watch though...!

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To be fair, a lot of 60s war films suffer from 'stick a cross on it' disease

 

The Big Red One is a pretty good film, but the use of Israeli super shermans for tigers at Kesserine pass is a bit iffy. Can't remember what they used to represent a tiger in the Sicily scene, but I do recall it wasn't german, or indeed WWII vintage

 

Likewise a Bridge Too Far is quite good. Postwar Leopards doing Panther impressions aside

 

 

I guess it was just the case that there was an abundance of surplus kit about when these films were being made and people were less picky in those days about the equipment used. Especially if you are filming in the US where there was easy access to hundreds of shermans M3 HTs etc, and next to no real panzers.

 

Chris

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It's all a bit of give and take and would be impossible to get a perfect film.

 

Old Films (good points) - Other countries shown, not just America. Full size mock up models, blown up. Some believable actors. More patriotic films as tributes.

Old Films (bad points) - Crispy clean clothes, spottlessly clean actors. Bullets that always richocet with the same noise. Never ending magazines and huge petrol fire explosions. Grenades that blow up everything. Facts changed for ease of making the film or ratings. Bouncing polystyrene (oops rocks or concrete), Characters always disobeying orders as they know better. Walking on patrol in a group all together in a bunch. Incorrect vehicle types, uniforms and facts.

 

New Films (good points) - Better special effects. Better sex scenes (or did I cover that in special effects :-D).

New Films (bad points) - Only America shown even if they didnt do it (U52) or didn't save the day Blackhawk Down (Malaysian armour was pivital at saving them). Never ending magazines and huge petrol fire explosions. Grenades that blow up everything. If a Hollywood film 99.9% of the time it ends with everyone hugging and saying yay (really annoying once that is pointed out, and it's not just war movies. Now I watch a movie to pass the time until it get's to the yay moment). Facts changed for political correctness. Unbelievable actors, long hair, ear rings. Characters always disobeying orders as they know better. Walking on patrol in a group all together in a bunch. Incorrect vehicle types, uniforms and facts. Films made completely with a political point to be made.

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Old filmes: Especially a lot of the black and white British films, most of the actors had actually served and it shows! The drill, kit and reactions are real.

 

New films: Keep remaking the classics and IT DON'T WORK!!!!! Especially when half the heroes spend half the film going on about their inner angst! :sleep:

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With regard to the substitution of (more) modern vehicles in lieu of period vehicles in film, it might be a thing of the past.

 

The recent Matt Damon film 'The Green Zone' used Hueys while filming, but these were turned into Blackhawks by post-production CGI wizardy. So you see real actors leaping out of a real helicopter, but you see a Blackhawk on screen.

 

So, I'd hope the forthcoming remake of 'Dambuster' will include whole squadrons of realistic Lancasters.

 

jch

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My crystal ball says that the forthcoming remake of the Dambusters will be the worst warfilm ever!

Why? Everyone know it was Lt. of the US Army that led the raid. The squadron used B17's, and the design for the bouncing bomb was based on a redneck skipping stones on his brother/ uncles ranch. That makes for a good story. Wasn't the leaders dog called Toto?

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Why? Everyone know it was Lt. of the US Army that led the raid. The squadron used B17's, and the design for the bouncing bomb was based on a redneck skipping stones on his brother/ uncles ranch. That makes for a good story. Wasn't the leaders dog called Toto?

 

Ah but you forgot to mention the dams are in Iraq and being defended by the Viet Cong Luftwaffe, :P

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There was no reason for making such crap films really, in 1956 Jack Palance and Eddie Albert were in the film "Attack". This film was made in black and white, and is still one of my favourite films of the 1950s. The film was a real detraction from the usual Hollywood gungo war films of the time, and I thought that the studio took a real risk in portraying a U.S. army officer as a coward (Eddie Albert).

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  • Why? Everyone know it was Lt. of the US Army that led the raid. The squadron used B17's, and the design for the bouncing bomb was based on a redneck skipping stones on his brother/ uncles ranch. That makes for a good story. Wasn't the leaders dog called Toto?
  • You dozy get, they were B29s!

 

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I watched Ice-Cold in Alex a couple of days ago and I still maintain it is a great war film, except of course the American half-tracks posing as German vehicles and the Series 1 Land Rover in the closing shot :-D. Battle of the Bulge definitely tops it on my 'worst' list...

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U 571.... Just an insult to the Royal Navy. I can't be bothered to say anymore about it because it doesn't deserve it. Best film for me is the Battle of Britain. I can watch it over and over again. The only bit that annoys me is before the credits there are the ubiquitous M3 half tracks and US SP guns. Oh and Sailor Malan (Robert Shaw)'s House front door .....

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Strangely, when film makers tended to stick crosses on anything to make it German, during the real Operation Market Garden, when the SS recce unit attacked the bridge, their leader Grabner had a captured Humber armoured/scout car.

But this was substituted by a strange Half Track in A Bridge Too Far.

 

Wonder if it would be possible to digitally stick in scenes using the OT810s and replica SD KFZ 222s which appear at War and Peace now.

 

Dave.

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One plus point with the old school war films was the theme music; Where Eagles Dare, The Longest Day, 633 Squadron, The Battle of Britain, The Eagle Has Landed, The Great Escape, Zulu.

 

 

Now something bad, a German Wehrmacht Saracen in the 1964 film, 633 Squadron. :laugh:

 

 

i178547.jpg

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U 571.... Just an insult to the Royal Navy. I can't be bothered to say anymore about it because it doesn't deserve it. Best film for me is the Battle of Britain. I can watch it over and over again. The only bit that annoys me is before the credits there are the ubiquitous M3 half tracks and US SP guns. Oh and Sailor Malan (Robert Shaw)'s House front door .....

Not. THE DOORBELL! :wow:And the Aluminum garage door. They couldn't make that one agin, mainly because the aircrafat don't exist anymore.

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There's a great list of war movie titles on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_films

 

I only recognise a fraction of them; no doubt some duds in the lesser known ones.

 

Well not sure what qualifies as a war movie as I see Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) is on this list.

 

I went and saw this movie last weekend, as I was bored. If we list bad things in war movies this one has every single one of them. There should be a war movies for children section.

 

Loads of 432's in WW2 :yawn:

It was filmed in the UK so I guess that explains the 432's. What about the occult blue energy firing weapon 4x4 amoured vehicles, anyone know what they were made from?

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battle of the bulge no ! what about the scene when they sing panzerlied :rolleyes:

 

Your favourite Panzerlied singing starts at 1 min 28 secs. into the video.:-D

 

 

I always liked the beginning of the McKenzie Break with the German POWs singing Erika in defiance of their British captors.

 

Also in the McKenzie Break there is a CJ-3B jeep posing as a WW2 jeep.:shocked:

Edited by Red Wings
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Not. THE DOORBELL! :wow:And the Aluminum garage door. They couldn't make that one agin, mainly because the aircrafat don't exist anymore.

Precisely, Tony. But the REAL aircraft combat scenes and musical score and all star cast do it for me. It does make me feel proud to be British and when Dowding (Olivier) walks out on to the terrace at the end and the music changes to a soft string section I do well up, everytime... I do like the portrayal of the Luftwaffe pilots and I have always found them amiable in their portrayal. Some of the more modern films (Spielberg etc) portray them as murderous psychotics but I am sure they were not all like this.

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