What movie started your love of war movies

[sauer308]

With out a doubt Saving Privater Ryan impacted me. When He asked his wife if he was a good man.....it still gets to me to this day.

Oh yeah all of the old John Wayne movies are cool to!

[Gregory]

What is the first movie you remember that made an impression on you and started your passion for war movies? I don't mean your favorite war movie. I don't mean current movies or series. I mean the one from your childhood that you still remember like yesterday how it made an impression on you.

Hell Is For Heroes (1962) -- forgotten movie today with Steve McQueen.

[BigDogMilitaria]

I was always into old movies when i was a kid. I would either watch them with my Dad, or my Grandma. Dad and I especially liked old Errol Flynn movies. First war movies i remember really liking were "Charge of the Light Brigade" and "Objective Burma". Owned both of those on VHS back when they cost $30 a shot!

[Croix de Guerre]

Watching "Patton" with my dad and later a "Bridge Too Far" pretty much did me in.

[Jack's Son]

"War and Peace", after three times, I finally started to understand it.

[45ACP]

Not totally forgotten I have it on dvd really good movie.

 

Hell Is For Heroes (1962) -- forgotten movie today with Steve McQueen.

[Gregory]

Not totally forgotten I have it on dvd really good movie.

:thumbsup:

 

Nice to see that "Hell Is For Heroes" is not completely forgotten. I saw it decades ago but, as can be seen, I remember the title and Steve McQueen especially in his hand-to-hand fight scene.

 

Regards

 

Greg

[bluemoon]

I think "A Bridge Too Far" did it for me.

[Rakkasan187]

A few of my favorites growing up:

 

Von Ryan's Express

The Great Escape

None But the Brave

They Were Expendable

The Secret of Santa Victoria

Go Tell the Spartans

PT 109

Wake Island

 

The TV series Rat Patrol and Combat

 

Of course there were tons more but these were some of my favorites..

 

 

Leigh...

[uplandmod]

I have a few films but off the top of my head are:

 

The Longest Day: Sure it has those big paratrooper chin cups, skyraiders flying over the fleet and 1960's black rimmed eye glasses on the french soldiers extras but only a few films have equaled that pure epic feeling of the film of a major military operation like the Longest Day.

 

It took a studio head, Daryl Zanuck to mastermind the film and to get four films directors to make that film. They just don't make films like that anymore. As I kid I just loved that film and even today it is still one my favorites.

 

 

Uncommon Valor: My dad was in Viet Nam and there is something so touching about that film being made around 10 years after our last soldiers left. Sure it's a war romp, but its a war romp with soul. There is a bit a tragedy with all the characters involved and some unfinished business with everyone but over all its a good film and really affected me when I was young.

 

Stripes: Another one that just fired me up as a kid and Warren Oats is just brilliant as the DI..."I'm just getting to old for this $**†!!!"

 

also how can you go wrong with an Urban Assault Vehicle, John Candy, the cast of Ghost Busters and Sean Young!

 

Yes these three films changed my life!

Leonardo

[Sabrejet]

I'd have to cite "The Longest Day" too. My dad took me to see it when it was first released...I must've been about 10 years old at the time? It's always stayed with me. I've seen it dozens of times on tv since then and have it on DVD too. It's not perfect...but for it's day a laudable attempt at telling a story that needed to be told, bearing in mind the events it portrayed were less than 20 years in the past at the time...in other words, in living memory. I can also recommend the book by Cornelius Ryan on which the film is based. (BTW...I don't recommend the "colourised" version of the film! )

[uplandmod]

I'd have to cite "The Longest Day" too. My dad took me to see it when it was first released...I must've been about 10 years old at the time? It's always stayed with me. I've seen it dozens of times on tv since then and have it on DVD too. It's not perfect...but for it's day a laudable attempt at telling a story that needed to be told, bearing in mind the events it portrayed were less than 20 years in the past at the time...in other words, in living memory. I can also recommend the book by Cornelius Ryan on which the film is based. (BTW...I don't recommend the "colourised" version of the film! )

 

 

Zanuck had to fight the censors while making the film because it didn't portray us soldiers in good light at the time, two scenes were cut out (although one was put back in, where the Ranger shoots the unarmed germans and asks "what does Bitte (sic) Bitte mean?"

 

The original ending of the film was a second scene with the young US soldier who Norman Cota tells to go get a rifle. The final shot was suppose to be the young soldier sitting on the beach at the end of the battle next to a long row of dead us soldiers under tarps. Somewhere in a book I read there is a still from that cut scene.

 

Overall it is a sound film with some great acting that make up for its short comings.

 

I also love what I feel is the unofficial sequel to the Longest Day, the near French New Wave war epic "Is Paris Burning?" If there ever was a sequel to The Longest Day it's Is Paris Burning?!

 

Leonardo

[Ashley*76]

I don't consider the few scenes in Forrest Gump as my first experience with war movies, though I was about four the first time I watched it. It was the law in Alabama: Every child had to be able to fully recite the movie by pre-school.

 

Saving Private Ryan was the first war movie I ever saw. I fell in love with it because A: I love Tom Hanks, and B: it pulls at your heartstrings at the end.

Black Hawk Down: far more violent and a little harder to stomach (seeing the guy being pulled out of helicopter after he is already dead and then being beaten....). Blood and gore I can handle. It's seeing little acts of cruelty like that that bother me.

 

I've seen a handful of others, but for the most part, my war movie experience is very limited.

[ken88]

Ima say Saving Private Ryan. Cliché, but can't blame me though. I was about twelve years old when that movie was released. Quite impressive to watch it as a kid. Especially the beach part.

 

Enemy at the Gates was one of these war movie virus movies as well at the time

 

And then there was Band of Brothers of course. Still the coolest series ever :thumbsup:

[history-buff1944]

First, im glad to see a lot of John Wayne fans here as well as fans of The Longest Day and The Green berets and such. They both keep taking an unfair licking and still keep on ticking.

 

Now--its hard for me to say what the first war movie was that really started it all for me as my memory is fading but--I THINK it was: The Longest Day. Ive loved everything about that movie since day one-even if there are militaria-like guffaws in it.

 

After that--the only war movies I grew up being able to watch (pre-cable TV days) were movies that were shown and re-shown and re-re----- like:

 

The Alamo (Dukes version)

The Longest Day.

The Green Berets.

The Great Escape.

Patton.

The Password Is Courage.

Dunkirk.

The Flying Tigers.

Kelly's Heroes.

The Dirty Dozen.

Hell Is For Heroes.

The Hunters.

The Caine Mutiny.

The Enemy below.

Back To Bataan.

 

I never got to see any of the other greats till after cable TV--greats in the vein of:

Battleground.

Sands of Iwo Jima.

Bataan.

PT-109.

Too Late the Hero.

The Battle of Britain.

Sink the Bismarck.

The Wild Geese.

The Big Red One.

Pork Chop Hill.

The Guns of Navarone.

A Bridge Too Far.

Midway.

Tora Tora Tora.

Cross of Iron.

The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

 

And the list will go on forever if I dont stop now.

 

Some recently discovered classics that really are great movies include:

 

Breakthrough.

The Tanks Are Coming.

Fighter Squadron.

 

To name just a few.