Discussion of everything and anything World War II
bigtwils 
Watch a Bridge Too Far online if you want a classic Second World War Film. Here are some of my thoughts on it from over twenty years ago and some of what I think now. Firstly, I do not know exactly what I was up to nearly twenty-five years ago when I first wrote this. … Read more
Literary Spring Clean in August While sorting through some books that had been packed in boxes for years, I discovered some gems from my childhood. I started my interest in war early. Under age ten, this would have mainly been comics like the Commando series or the films I mentioned in earlier blogs. However, this … Read more
There is only a short introduction to this section as it is hopefully self-explanatory. This is the first part of two parts with The Erwin Rommel film The Desert Fox (based on the book, Rommel: The Desert Fox by Brigadier Desmond Young) being the first and The Enemy Below being the second. Anomalies There are … Read more
This is the second part of the William Friedkin section and focuses on the more heavyweight considerations of censorship relating to violence and the treatment of the Holocaust in feature films. Ironically, it also deals with whether films could be viable educational tools for learning history. At the time of writing the thesis, I had … Read more
Of all the William Friedkin films I could have picked, I doubt that anyone would think that The Exorcist would be the one to be included when writing about Second World War films. The quotation is taken from an interview with the director for the 25th Anniversary VHS Edition. If this piece of work was … Read more
Some of you may have already read some of my thesis work on war films. The title of the work was: With the recent release of several Second World War feature films, how and why has the treatment of the theme of war developed since 1939? The writing began sometime in 1999 and was finished … Read more
I have heard the Normandy Battlefield tour guide and creator of WW2TV, Paul Woodridge, discuss the Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers ‘effect’. This is where people on his tours only want to see where the actions in a film or series took place. His dilemma is that he wants to show people beyond what has … Read more
Pearl-handled revolvers, riding britches, a highly polished helmet and the odd swear word were just some facets of George S. Patton’s persona. Nicknamed, ‘Old Blood and Guts’ he was respected and admired by friend and foe alike, even though one of the soldiers who served under him, Eugene W Luciano, named his memoir after a … Read more
As quiz questions go, asking about Second World War films with Steve McQueen and a motorbike in, would not be that challenging for many people. The Cooler Kings’ attempts to jump his stolen ‘German motorbike’ (more of this later) into Switzerland is arguably the most remembered scene from The Great Escape. Spoiler alert, he fails … Read more
A pause before I began I have taken a few days to put ‘fingers to keyboard’ to write about Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell because it got me as interested as it did riled. So, this blog’s title is self-directed and aimed (with precision) at the author and me. I initially felt he was hero-worshipping … Read more