War Films Essay, Research Paper
In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American war were grist for American movies' mill, mostly in romantic flag-wavers which boasted little action. The war film as it is known today — violent dramatizations of men in combat — emerged with the world's first experience of modern warfare, World War I. This study therefore excludes films set against conflicts of previous centuries; readers should consult the articles on epic and historical films for the treatment of pre-20th-century wars. This article will focus chiefly on the films built around the combat of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In the mid teens, as Europe sank into war, pacifist feelings were still strong in America. Woodrow Wilson, having kept America out of the conflict, was re-elected President in 1916. That same year, three important films denouncing war were released. D.W. Griffith's experimental masterpiece Intolerance included the bloody fall of Babylon among its four narratives; Civilization, directed by Thomas H. Ince, depicted a Christlike pacifist who warns against war; and Herbert Brenon's War Brides starred Alla Nazimova as a woman who kills herself and her unborn baby rather than supply the next generation of cannon fodder. In April of 1917 America entered the Great War; by that year, Intolerance had flopped at the box-office, Civilization was being sold as the anti-German drama it really was, and War Brides was withdrawn from circulation. Dominating the screen was producer/director Cecil B. De Mille, who with writer Jeanie Macpherson made two popular war dramas: Joan The Woman (1917), which combined narratives of Joan of Arc and a modern soldier fighting to help France, and The Little American (1917), in which Mary Pickford was menaced by bestial Huns. The latter's success, along with the pro-war fever sweeping the nation, established a pattern for America's 1918 films set on the battlefields of Europe. Griffith's Hearts Of The World starred Lillian Gish; Erich von Stroheim had a minor role as a Prussian brute, and soon was committing atrocities in The Unbeliever and The Heart Of Humanity. Other films that year include Lest We Forget, The Kaiser — Beast Of Berlin, and For Valor. Griffith also included the war in The Great Love and The Greatest Thing In Life, as did De Mille in Till I Come Back To You. Although the conflict ended in November of 1918, Hollywood continued to fight it in many 1919 releases, such as False Faces, The Unpardonable Sin, and Griffith's The Girl Who Stayed At Home. In France, Abel Gance made the anti-war J'Accuse, using real soldiers and footage shot at the front. Audiences of the 1920s wanted to forget the last decade's tragedies, but four noteworthy films found box-office gold re-opening old wounds. The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1921), directed by Rex Ingram, made a star of Rudolph Valentino. The Big Parade (1925), produced and directed by King Vidor, was a moving account of doughboys fighting in France. What Price Glory? (1926), directed by Raoul Walsh, adapted the hit play by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings. Wings (1927), directed by former pilot William A. Wellman, offered dazzling scenes of aerial combat. Wings also made a star of Gary Cooper, who returned to the air in 1928 with Wellman's The Legion Of The Condemned and Lilac Time, produced and directed by George Fitzmaurice. Flying aces were equally popular in talkies, with two 1930 features: The Dawn Patrol, directed by Howard Hawks, and Hell's Angels, directed by Howard Hughes. Hughes' dialogue director was James Whale, who debuted as a director that same year with the bleak Journey's End, adapting the R.C. Sherriff play which he'd also staged in London. The year's classic, however — and one of the classics of American sound film — was director Lewis Milestone's All Quiet On The Western Front (1930), an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel. This powerful anti-war plea, which depicted young Germans increasingly disillusioned by the horrors of combat, was a great popular and critical success; its companion piece that year was the German production Westfront 1918, directed by G.W. Pabst. Several Hollywood films went on to denounce the sufferings of the Great War: The Man I Killed (1932), about a guilt-haunted war veteran, directed by Ernst Lubitsch; A Farewell To Arms (1932), an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel, directed by Frank Borzage and starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes; Hawks' Today We Live (1933) and The Road To Glory (1936), both co-scripted by William Faulkner; and Ace Of Aces (1933) with Richard Dix and The Eagle And The Hawk (1933) with Fredric March, which both criticized the romance of air warfare. The war was treated more for thrills than sermonizing by director John Ford in The Lost Patrol (1934) and Submarine Patrol (1938). Edmund Goulding helmed the 1938 remake of Hawks' The Dawn Patrol, now with a more pro-war tone as World War II was about to ignite. The previous year, two classic French films had tried to warn against the coming catastrophe: Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion looked at the hardships of French P.O.W.s during the war, and Abel Gance's talking remake J'Accuse starred Victor Francen as a scientist who resurrects the war dead. Also in 1937, Franchot Tone was a rookie who overcame his aversion to killing and became a gangster after the war in They Gave Him A Gun, directed by W.S. Van Dyke; but in 1941, when Gary Cooper overcame his aversion to killing, he became the most decorated American hero of World War I in Hawks' hit biopic Sergeant York. By 1942, the United States was at war, and for the duration of the conflict, Hollywood churned out a torrent of patriotic films, including many box-office hits. Germany met defeat after defeat in Captains Of The Clouds (1942), Commandos Strike At Dawn (1942), The Eagle Squadron (1942), The North Star (1943), The Immortal Sergeant (1943), Winged Victory (1944), and God Is My Co-Pilot (1945); Japan was overcome in Guadalcanal Diary (1943), Hawks' Air Force (1943), Delmer Daves' Destination Tokyo (1943), De Mille's The Story Of Dr. Wassell (1944), and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Other notable war films of the period include John Wayne in Flying Tigers (1942) and The Fighting Seabees (1944), the Africa-campaign actioner Sahara (1943), China Girl (1942), Wing And A Prayer (1942), Bataan (1943), Farrow's Wake Island (1942), Action In The North Atlantic (1943), directed by Lloyd Bacon. Many Hollywood directors enlisted and made military documentaries; powerful accounts of war include John Ford's Battle Of Midway (1942), William Wyler's Memphis Belle (1943), and John Huston's San Pietro (1945). The British also made many noteworthy films of their struggle against the Nazis, such as In Which We Serve (1942), One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, We Dive At Dawn, and The Way Ahead (1944). In 1945, the last year of the war, the Hollywood flagwavers included John Wayne in Back To Bataan, directed by Edward Dmytryk; Raoul Walsh's Objective, Burma! with Errol Flynn; and Korda's Counter-Attack with Paul Muni. Three outstanding films also released that year, however, looked more realistically at the tragedies of war. A Walk In The Sun, directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Robert Rossen, scrutinized a veteran G.I. combat unit in Italy. Wellman's The Story Of G.I. Joe dramatized the reportage of war correspondent Ernie Pyle, and made a star of Robert Mitchum. John Ford's They Were Expendable with John Wayne examined the American defeat in the Philippines. Immediately after the war, Hollywood offered moving features of disabled veterans with Delmer Daves' Pride Of The Marines (1945) and the classic The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946), directed by William Wyler. Yet in 1949, three of the biggest hits were patriotic combat films: Wellman's Battleground, re-creating the Battle of the Bulge; Sands Of Iwo Jima with John Wayne, a Pacific actioner directed by Allan Dwan; and Twelve O'Clock High, a psychological drama of the bombing raids over Germany, directed by Henry King and starring Gregory Peck. Less significant at the box-office that year, but a telling hint of the films to come, was Home Of The Brave, an account of racism among American soldiers, directed by Mark Robson, produced by Stanley Kramer, and written by Carl Foreman.Films about the Pacific conflict were plentiful in the '50s. Among the box-office hits were Milestone's The Halls Of Montezuma (1950), the James Jones adaptation From Here To Eternity (1953), directed by Fred Zinnemann, Walsh's Battle Cry (1955), and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), directed by John Huston. The Japanese were also engaged in American Guerilla In The Philippines (1950), directed by Fritz Lang, China Venture (1953), directed by Don Siegel, Destination Gobi (1953) and Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), both directed by Robert Wise, and Walsh's The Naked And The Dead (1958), with writers Denis and Terry Sanders watering down the novel by Norman Mailer. James Mason played Rommel in Hathaway's The Desert Fox (1951) and Wise's Desert Rats (1953), but other than minor actioners such as Burt Topper's Hell Squad (1958), the Africa campaign attracted little attention. More films were made about Europe, most notably producer/director Robert Aldrich's Attack! (1956), a brutal drama of cowardice and failure. The box-office hits were the rousing To Hell And Back (1955), with Audie Murphy, the most decorated American hero of World War II, playing himself, and The Young Lions (1958), directed by Edward Dmytryk, an adaptation of Irwin Shaw's novel about disillusionment among both the Americans and the Germans. Other important films of the European conflict include Force Of Arms (1951), directed by Michael Curtiz; The Wild Blue Yonder (1951), directed by Allan Dwan; Nicholas Ray's Bitter Victory (1957); The Enemy Below (1957), directed by Dick Powell; Wellman's Darby's Rangers (1958); and Topper's Tank Commandos (1959). Producer Stanley Kramer and director Dmytryk looked at the war in the low-budget combat drama Eight Iron Men (1952) and the big-budget hit The Caine Mutiny (1954), with Humphrey Bogart as the unfit Captain Queeg. World War II was also a backdrop for such popular films as Ray's Flying Leathernecks (1951) with John Wayne, George Seaton's The Proud And The Profane (1956), Mister Roberts (1955), co-directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, and Ford's The Wings Of Eagles (1957) with John Wayne. The British also continued to fight the war in Europe during the 1950s. Nazi warships were attacked in The Cruel Sea (1953), directed by Charles Frend, Above Us The Waves (1956), directed by Ralph Thomas, and The Battle Of The River Plate (1956) [aka Pursuit Of The Graf Spee], written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The Dam Busters (1954), directed by Michael Anderson, had the British blowing up the Ruhr dam, and Dunkirk (1958), directed by Leslie Norman, restaged the 1940 Allied evacuation. The celebrated The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957), directed by David Lean, took a harsh look at madness and duty in the Pacific. In 1959 the former Axis powers made two outstanding accounts of the devastation of World War II: The Bridge (1959), directed by Bernhard Wicki, featured a group of German boys defending a bridge against the advancing Allies; Fires On The Plain (1959), directed by Kon Ichikawa, dramatized starvation and cannibalism among Japanese soldiers in the war's final days.In the 1950s, Hollywood revived World War I for the remakes A Farewell To Arms (1957) and What Price Glory? (1952), as well as William Wellman's last film, the autobiographical Lafayette Escadrille (1958). Two of the decade's classics also used the Great War to remind audiences of more recent troubles. John Huston's The African Queen (1952) pitted Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn against the Germans and was a