Beyond All Boundaries

Tom Hanks 42-minute WWII epic Beyond All Boundaries premiered at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans this weekend. The first reviews of this 4D cinematic experience are very positive, and we look forward to hearing more reactions.

A National Socialist Fred & Ginger

Sometimes we forget the Nazis had movies, too. This musical clip, taken from a 1944 German musical Frau meiner Träume (The Woman Of My Dreams) shows the escapist fare the Germans watched. The film, which stars Hungarian actress Marika Rökk, appears no worse - nor better - than similar Hollywood films of the era.

The Rat Patrol

This 1966-1968 ABC-TV series was set in North Africa. The Rat Patrol were Allied soldiers who tracked and sabotaged Rommels Afrika Korps and Nazi war aims. Rat Patrol as inspired by the British Commonwealth's Long Range Desert Group made up of troops from New Zealand, the UK, and Rhodesia.

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Tom Hanks on His New WWII Project

Hanks, executive producer of Beyond All Boundaries, on his new WWII project. Sounds awesome. More here. And here.

Stars Enlist For National WWII Museum Epic

Wow. From the NY Post today -- The National World War II Museum in New Orleans and Tom Hanks have announced the roster for voicing their new WWII epic Beyond All Boundaries premiering at The Museum on November 6. It seems like Hanks must have drafted the help of half of Hollywood as the cast list reads like a who's who of A-Listers including Hanks, its narrator and executive producer, joined by Kevin Bacon, Corbin Bleu, Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Connolly, James Cromwell, Blythe Danner, Viola Davis, Jessie Eisenberg, John Goodman, Neil Patrick Harris, Kevin Jonas, Justin Long, Tobey Maguire, Daran Norris, Wendell Pierce, Chris Pine, Brad Pitt, Bill Sadler, Gary Sinise and Elijah Wood, among others. Are there more? Keep coming back to Hollywood at War for more information about this special cinematic experience opening in New Orleans.

To Be or Not To Be

On the 70th anniversary of the Nazi's invasion of Poland here is the opening gag of the 1942 comedy To Be or Not to Be directed by Ernst Lubitsch. This clip shows you the lunacy that runs through the film that stars Jack Benny and Carole Lombard as a husband-wife team of actors in Warsaw at the start of WWII. This was the last movie Lombard made before her death in a plane crash in January 1942 selling war bonds. The film was remade in 1983 by Mel Brooks as a vehicle for his wife the late Anne Bancroft.

Is "Inglorious" Glorious? The Critics Respond

Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds is hitting theaters this weekend and the reviews are rolling in. A play on the many cinematic conventions that WWII movies have taken in the past, the movie starring Brad Pitt is both controversial and shoot-em-up entertainment. We're not taking sides, but we are providing links to thoughtful reviews both pro and con.

Wall Street Journal
LA Times
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The New Yorker
Time Out: New York
Boston Phoenix
Orlando Sentinel

Great WWII suggestions from Twitter

On Twitter @WWIIToday posted a link to Time Out London's "50 Best WWII Films" only to see a big response from followers mentioning a host of WWII films they felt deserved more recognition, or higher ranking. Follower Petrov Dempski @petrovdempski kindly compiled the list below. What do you think? You can follow the conversation @WWIIToday, search Twitter #WWIIflix or just note them here. I'll add more as they come in.

12 O'clock HIgh
633 Squadron
Battleground
Best Years of Our Lives
Casablanca
Cross of Iron
Das Boot
Enemy at the Gates
Europa Europa
Germany Year Zero
GI Joe
Grave of the Fireflies
Guadalcanal Diary
Hell in the Pacific
Heroes of Telemark
Judgement at Nuremberg
Kelly's Heroes
Memphis Belle
Mrs Miniver
Night & Fog
Objective Burma
Operation Daybreak
Patton
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Plate
Rats of Tobruk
Sahara
Saints and Sinners
Saving Private Ryan
Since You Went Away
So Proudly We Hail!
Stalingrad (1992)
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the River
The Big Red One
The Longest Day
Tora Tora Tora
The Cockleshell Heroes
The Cruel Sea
The Dambusters
The Glenn Miller Story
The Great Escape
The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp
The Train
Too Late The Hero
When Trumpets Fade
Where Eagles Dare
Windtalkers

Are These WWII's 50 Best?

Magazine editors love these stories. This one is right up this blog's alley. “The 50 Greatest WWII Movies” published recently in the London edition of Time Out magazine with commentary by Inglorious Basterds director Quentin Tarantino, features some surprises – Casablanca is not even in the Top 10. As for their Number One choice, the film is unknown to me (but now in my NetFlix queue). To make it easy for you, I’ve hot linked the pages. Take a look. What do you think of the rankings?

Numbers 2-10
Numbers 11-20
Numbers 21-30
Numbers 31-40
Numbers 41-50

"All the Stars are Here"

Here's the trailer for Hollywood Canteen, a 1944 GI-pleaser that featured a host of silver screen greats in cameo appearances. The National World War II Museum in New Orleans is opening a reincarnation of WWII's Stage Door Canteen in November. Wonder who they'll be bringing in from the West Coast?

Kudos for A Woman

Technically a film about the aftermath of WWII in the Nazi capital, A Woman in Berlin begins with the destruction of the German city and its occupation by Soviet soldiers. The desperate struggle for survival is portrayed as a harrowing ordeal as Berlin's women endure rape and assault by their conquerors. A well-acted and gripping film.

Cinema, Scandinavia and WWII

World War II seems to have preoccupied Scandinavians recently. Two WWII movies new to Americans are showing up here. Both works are edgey and suspenseful, and use the War as a major theme, but they are very different. The first, Flame + Citron, concerns two Danish resistance fighters who battle the Nazi occupiers. It's based on true events.



The second film, Dead Snow, is a gore fest. Flesh-eating Nazis, remnants of the army that invaded Norway, rise up in modern day to prey on attractive young Norwegians. You know what they say: "Ein, zwei, DIE!" Or something like that.



Both countries were occupied by Germany in WWII, and both nations are mining their wartime past for compelling cinematic stories.

The New "Inglorious" Trailer

Quentin Tarantino's most recent trailer for Inglorious Basterds is here - with lots of hints of spectacular action and a femme fatale to boot.


And there's news the director's thinking of making a prequel to the movie.

Some Specifics on "The Pacific"

It's here. Almost. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's new $200 million mini-series The Pacific had its first trailer available on You Tube before HBO yanked it off there and put it up here. According to the various reports the series is scheduled to air on HBO in March of 2010. Meanwhile Tom Hanks has been doing double duty of a sort, he is also the executive producer for the new National World War II Museum cinematic experience Beyond All Boundaries that will have an exclusive premiere this November at the Museum's new theater in New Orleans.

Here's to You, Mrs. Miniver

Mrs. Miniver (1942) is propaganda of a particularly effective kind, a film "worth a hundred battleships" said Winston Churchill. Influenced by the Office of War Information, director William Wyler depicted an England democratic and plucky and far different from the snobs and toffs that dominated pre-War Hollywood's imagination. Clem and Kay Miniver, (Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson) portray a middle-class family facing down the Germans in their own garden. The ending speech, in which the Minivers and their neighbors vow to defend their way of life influenced an FDR speech and a portion of it was reprinted and dropped over occupied Europe. Here's the speech scene:

Since You Went Away

In 1944 Gone With the Wind's David O Selznick was looking to produce a seminal picture about life on the American Home Front during WWII. Since You Went Away was the fine result. The picture's stellar cast included Claudette Colbert, Shirley Temple, Joseph Cotten and Hattie McDaniel. In wide release shortly after D-Day, the movie resonated with Americans, who saw in the struggles of Ann Hilton (Colbert) and her teenage daughters some of what they themselves were experiencing. Nominated for a slew of Oscars, it won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. Since then it's attracted a small but devoted group of fans. Here is one of their tributes -- a montage scored with country popster Carrie Underwood's Just A Dream.

The Longest Day

June 6th is the 65th anniversary of D-Day, an epic moment in WWII and in history. The invasion of France has figured in many films since, but for recreating the agony, horror and ultimate triumph the Allied soldiers experienced nothing comes as close to the actual battle as 1998's Saving Private Ryan starring Tom Hanks. The star of this year's Angels and Demons is doing another cinematic project devoted to WWII with The National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Here are the opening scenes from Ryan for which Steven Spielberg won the Oscar as Best Director. WARNING: This clip contains violent scenes of battle.

Farewell Ashley

On June 1, 1943 actor Leslie Howard, on a BOAC flight from England to Portugal, was killed when Nazi war planes shot his plane out of the sky over the Bay of Biscay killing all aboard. Enlisted by the British government, Howard, who will forever be known as Ashley Wilkes in the movie Gone With the Wind, had been evangelizing the Allied cause to Portuguese and Spanish audiences. Rumors persist that the Germans believed Winston Churchill on board and so attacked the pane. Evidence points to the contrary, and that Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels ordered the attack thinking Howard was a dangerous propagandist and a threat to the German Reich. More. Here Howard is as Ashley, meeting Scarlett in one of cinema's more famous encounters.

The Donna Next Door

Donna Reed's (1921-1986) been in the news this week for saving the fan letters WWII GIs sent her during the War. A native Iowan, Reed epitomized a wholesome American grace evident in the role of Mary Bailey in the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life. Here is the trailer from her most memorable hit from WWII, John Ford's They Were Expendable with Robert Montgomery and John Wayne. She plays a nurse who has a romance with Wayne during the Japanese attack on the Philippines.

Ball of Fire

What was the country like right before Pearl Harbor? FDR stimulated the economy with a huge increase in defense spending, and the country sparked and popped with nervous energy. Barbara Stanwyck as a slang-spouting stripper who teams up with Gary Cooper, a befuddled linguist, to produce "Ball of Fire," one of the last peacetime Screwball Comedies. Here she does a little boogie woogie with Gene Krupa. The film released on Dec. 2, 1941 five days before the Japanese attack on Hawaii.