""Cross of Iron," Best WW2 Movie???" Topic

Just saw it again and it is definitely up there with SPR and Stalingrad. If not the best, one of the best.
What do you think?

It does rank right up there for me. The Ruusian attack scene where the platoon is fighting for its life in those trenches was awesome! (Movie wise guys, I am not fond of war except on a tabletop ;) )

There are also some memorable quotes in there as well...

"I had no part in it!"

"Demarcation!"

Regards,

Marc

Don't forget, "We're Winning! We're Winning!"

and of course

"And I'll show you where the Iron Crosses grow."

Tim

No way!

The best is The Longest Day.

Most moving and impressive is Saving Private Ryan.

Cross of Iron and Saving Private Ryan.

The best to me.

What about Enemy at the Gates? The Great Escape?

Not really a movie but I like 'Band of Brothers'. Especially the interviews they had with some of the actual members of the Airborne.

the first two trench battles and the factory fight where topnotch!! Loved the other squad saving the support weapons( mg42) Thats one you don't leave behind. mark

"you said Yes!!!" is thelocal favorite.

"do you preferthe company of men in all situations?"

Killsme to this day...hahaha

Cross of Iron - I think hands down.

too many great lines and lots of nice dirt and grit.

or the "good" cut of Thin Red Line which only lasts about 18 1/2 minutes....

Stalingrad is the best. I bought an extra copy for my dad.

That kids' song in Cross of Iron gives me goosebumps...

You can find 18.5 minutes that were good in the thin red line?

I didn't.

Cross of Iron is up there with about 5 others for me. If I had to pick one, it's still Kelly's Heros. Enemy at the gates didn't work as well for me as others, though the bombing and Stuka sequences were incredible. Others at the top of the list are Battleground, SPR, Tora Tora Tora, and (and I know I'm about the only one who likes this movie here) A Midnight Clear.

What is that children's song?

Who can forget "Dirt combined with certain oils can make you waterproof..."

Irishserb I liked A Midnight Clear as well, so your not alone. I also liked an HBO movie called When Trumpets Fade. It was set in the Hurtgen Forest.

Hard to pick. Among my favorites in no particular order -
The Great Escape
Stalag 17
Tora! Tora! Tora!
In Harms Way
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Longest Day
To Hell and Back
and one about the OSS staring Cagney...Rue Madeline I think? I know that was the address of the house they bombed killing Cagney and his SS torturers

I could go on for awhile but if I tried to list them all I'd miss the Super Bowl this afternoon and my figers would fall off from too much typing.

My only complaint about Cross of Iron is that it seems to only cover the first half of the book... And it is a great book.

Jake

Bronze Goat,
There is a thread just about the song. Run a search or someone will link us maybe.

Sam Peckenpaw was the director of COI ...He is considered one of the masters of the slow motion action scene. A great movie up in the top 20 for sure

Sam directed Wild Bunch, Getaway and Straw Dogs, Rifleman TV series and Gunsmoke TV series and also wrote Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

"Come and See"

I still like Bridge Too Far. Good acting, fairly well-written script. I would have liked more realistic German armor, but it was still nicely done. Longest Day and Tora, Tora, Tora are very well done movies as well....historical accuracy was high. Tora, Tora, Tora might be the best in that regard. Cross of Iron is excellent as well....some weird scenes...but probably entirely appropriate amongst the horrors of war. Saving Private Ryan is a fine movie as well...it brings out the worst in war for all to see. I don't consider the acting or story to be great, but the action scenes and cinematography were on a high order. The Great Escape is also a great movie...the casting was superb! My all time favorite is still Kelly's Heroes though....the blend of comedy, action and just enough historical realism move that one right along.

That sequel "Sgt Steiner" aka "Breakthrough" was dreadful! Richard Burton crawled out of the booze barrel for long enough to do a few takes and collected his paycheck.

One of my favourite bad war-films.

Agree with Come and See (about Russian partizans), Longest Day was good until you notice that some of the American troops on Omaha are African Americans! Tora Tora Tora was the best though!

'Agree with Come and See (about Russian partizans), Longest Day was good until you notice that some of the American troops on Omaha are African Americans! '

I'm not particularly enthused about Longest Day, but I think that is a petty and poor reason to dislike it

OT, I think Stalingrad was marginally better than Cross of Iron, though COI has a higher butt-kicking quotient.

Looks like I'm in a minority again. I LOVED Thin Red Line - it's one of my favorite all time movies - and though Saving Private Ryan too silly for words.

What, no votes for Battle of the Bulge?

I concur with several of the above nominations. Still, I think it would be useful to separate out films that try to depict a whole campaign (or at least afford some kind of overall, synoptic view) and those than are really focused on a small unit, usually a squad or platoon.

In the first category I guess A Bridge Too Far stands out; but since it is based largely on Cornelius Ryan's "novel", it is rather prone to inaccuracies and biases in the portrayal of the British and the German forces in particular.

In the second, I also like Stalingrad; yet some of the combat tactics it depicts - e.g., the assault of the German Sturmpionere - strike me as somewhat unrealistic.

I have just been watching the old Combat! TV series (gotten via Netflix) which I saw a long time ago as a kid. They seem to hold up pretty well despite their age.

A few things I want to address, "Kelly's Heroes," is one of my all time favorites. Just seems to be a bit to slanted to the comedy side for it to be considered along the lines of COI or SPR. But it is a very family friendly movie that is pretty much devoid of blood so it is easy to watch with the family. Nobody gets their body parts blown off.

"A Bridge Too Far," is a bit over extending itself. We don't really get to connect with anyone. I guess the star power forced the director to get everyone their contractual screen time. All in all a good film but it needed some unknowns to keep everything in line. Too many Connery's, O'neals, and Hopkin's everywhere. "The Eagle has Landed," did at least have a begining, middle and end. ABTF, is all over the place. Not easy to tell where everyone is until the end. But I thought many of the fight scenes were well choreographed.

Guys, "Come and See," doesn't belong in this war movie category. The 2 minute close-ups of people and the extended games of hide and seek were for Fellini art film fans only fans only. Good to use in film school to study of what not to do.

I must say that after the movie plods along for about hour and a half, with some strange moments between the girl and boy just walking around and close-up of their faces for what seemed to be an eternity. What was up with that? I needed that like another hole in my head. It does get to some interesting moments like the barn scene and a small bit of recruitment stuff by the Nazis but by that time I was fed up with the whole ( let me be an art film) thing.

I just wanted a good old fashioned WW2 movie and what I got was a cross between a bad Twin peaks with a WW2 twist.

Please stay away from this movie but if you must judge for yourself keep the fast forward in reach.

As to the Combat series, I think that if you like WW2 and you haven't signed up for Netflix for the 2 weeks free promotion and ordered the series (for free) you are doing yourself a big disservice. The show is excellent. Mostly a drama, yet well written and acted. Vic Morrow and Rick Jason are very intense. The series includes good action footage with mostly authentic MP 40s and M1s. By the last season, which is done in color, the action is kicked up a notch and all the scenarios can be gamed pretty easily. I see it as great for inspiration.

Cross of Iron especially considering when it was made (i think 1976?) is simply the best. As brutal as SPR - but with a better story.

"Play your cards right, and we'll introduce you to Trieblig!"

"We are attacking! we are defending! we are counter attacking!"

I purchased a Finnish movie on ebay called "Winter War" in Finnish it's call Tav...something, tavosta, tavisota something like that. Anyways...it's very,very good.

Yes, Cross of Iron and Winter War are my top vote...

SPR and Stalingrad have too many cliches.

battleground is the best ww2 movie in my opinion, mostly because its about my grandfathers unit!

If you like Cross of Iron, check this out!

link

A Midnight Clear was good, wish I could find a copy round here. COI is one of the tops for sure. Just watched Colditz again, was pretty well done, though some details were changed. Think Pat Reid was a consultant on it though.
Too Late The Hero is on my list.
The combat scenes in The Eagle Has Landed were good, even if the story was a bit far fetched.
How I Won the War is on my current search list, should be on DVD in the States soon.

Cross of Iron is an excellent film. I also like The Eagle Has Landed, Kelly's Heroes and The Battle of Britain. My favourite however has to be A Bridge Too Far.

It's a brilliant film based on a brilliant book about a plan which was one of the most audicious of WW2!.

Sorry guys... I positively HATE Saving Private Ryan...

For me it is probably The Longest Day, Cross of Iron and the Battle of Britain in no particular order. SPR & Kelly's Heroes are both good films but I'd say that they were updated westerns. Not a criticism - I like westerns. Tora Tora Tora is great too, very atmospheric but rather spoiled by the fact that you know who wins.

I also like the British and Canadian films produced as propoganda during and just after the war. Not all that brilliant technically or particularly well acted or scripted but very 'British' - appeals to that mawkish romanticism that is the nearest we Brits come to patriotism.

Tony H

FYI, Saving Private Ryan is on UKTV next Sunday :-)

Scale Creep, you are the only other guy on this site I know other than myself who likes "The Thin Red Line". One of my all time favorite movies, and some of the best cinematography.

I also loved "Alexander", all 3 hours of it, and SPR left me grossed out but cold, so be advised that others might question my sanity.

Oh, yeah- loved Cross of Iron and think it holds up amazingly well for a movie going on nigh 30 years old.

"Good kill"

"You arrogant piece of Prussian Pig... ('excreta')"

I agree, I thought it was pretty good, I don't remind as clearly as the "Thin red line" though which I found a top movie once I understood what the director was all talking about... ahem took me three weeks.

(Nitpicking alert...) Winter War/Talvisota not striclty speaking a WWII film. But I do love and own it!

Which "Thin Red Line" do you guys like? The B/W original or the recent remake (in color)? I watched the latter first and while it has great cinematography found the experience rather surreal. The original is much more gritty and combat-heavy.

bbtoys33,

Can you describe Winter War? Good story? Writing? Acting? Are the hardware and combat scenes "accurate" (at least from a movie angle)? I've only seen bits and pieces during HMGS East conventions and am very curious.

Tim

Count me in... I liked every artsy, philosophical minute of Thin Red Line. Maybe not the best *war* movie, but...

SPR is interesting, but certainly has treacly Spielbergian fingerprints all over it.

I keep hearing about Cross of Iron, and will now attempt to track it down.

There are so many stars in A Bridge Too Far because there were so many important characters in the story.The director decided he needed big personalities to adequitly capture them in the small time aloted. That from an interview I saw years ago.

My vote would probably go to A Bridge too Far, since it was done in such epic scale.

The others mentioned above are good too, as well as Patton (just gotta love ol' blood and guts), Sink the Bismarck, and Battle of the Bulge.

SPR? Is that the actual name of the movie or abreveated?