Every year, Turner Classic Movies packs this weekend full of war movies. Here are my recommendations of the very best:
- Men in War (Friday, May 24): An infantry lieutenant (Robert Ryan) must lead his platoon out of a desperate situation. He encounters a cynical and insubordinate sergeant (Aldo Ray) who is loyally driving a jeep with his PTSD-addled colonel (Robert Keith). In conflict with each other, they must navigate through enemy units to safety. Director Anthony Mann is known for exploring the psychology of edgy characters, and that’s the case with Men in War.
- The Steel Helmet (Friday, May 24): This is a gritty classic by the great writer-director Samuel Fuller, a WWII combat vet who brooked no sentimentality about war. Gene Evans, a favorite of the two Sams (Fuller and Peckinpah), is especially good as the sergeant. American war movies of the period tended toward to idealize the war effort, but Fuller relished making war movies with no “recruitment flavor”. Although the Korean War had only been going on for a few months when Fuller wrote the screenplay, he was able to capture the feelings of futility that later pervaded American attitudes about the Korean War.
- Merrill’s Marauders (Saturday, May 25): This is another Samuel Fuller film, this one telling the true story of a seemingly impossible American mission against Japanese forces in Burma.
- Mister Roberts (Sunday, May 26): Henry Fonda is at his most appealing in this subversive WW II comedy. Fonda gets to play off of James Cagney, William Powell and Jack Lemmon.
- The Best Years of Our Lives (Sunday, May 26): This is the best film on this list and one of my favorite movies from any genre. The Best Years of Our Lives is about people yearning to Get On With It after their lives were consumed by an upheaval they all shared. This is an exceptionally well-crafted, contemporary snapshot of post WW II American society adapting to the challenges of peacetime. It justifiably won seven Oscars. And it’s still a great and moving film. When Frederic March, immediately back from overseas, sneaks back into his apartment where Myrna Loy is washing the dishes, I dare you not to shed tears at her reaction.
- The Rack (Monday, May 27): In this overlooked Korean War film, a returning US army captain (Paul Newman) is court-martialed for collaborating with the enemy while a POW. He was tortured, and The Rack explores what can be realistically expected of a prisoner under duress. It’s a pretty good movie, and Wendell Corey, Edmond O’Brien, Walter Pidgeon, Lee Marvin and Cloris Leachman co-star.
- The Bridge on River Kwai (Monday, May 27): Director David Lean is known for epics, and this is his most successful epic. It’s the stirring story of British troops forced into slave labor at a cruel Japanese POW camp. The British commander (Alec Guinness, in perhaps his most acclaimed performance) must walk the tightrope between giving his men enough morale to survive and helping the enemy’s war effort. He has his match in the prison camp commander (Sessue Hayakawa), and these two men from conflicting values systems engage in a duel of wits – for life and death stakes. William Holden plays an American soldier/scoundrel forced into an assignment that he really, really doesn’t want. There’s also the stirringly unforgettable whistling version of the Colonel Bogey March. The climax remains one of the greatest hold-your-breath action sequences in cinema, even compared to all the CGI-aided ones in the 67 years since it was filmed.
