SAS Wargames Club

 

 

Home

Rules

Interests

The Gang

Contact

 

Mike's
War Films of Note

Spartacus, 1960
The essential historical epic, and a forebear of Gladiator, this tale of a slave rebellion from Stanley Kubrick and producer/star Kirk Douglas is a true classic. Having been trained up to fight to the death for the purpose of entertainment in the arena, Douglas' Spartacus revolts against his owners and leads the other slaves on to freedom. His socio-political cause is the point of the story, and this appealed to writer Trumbo, who saw the gladiator who defeated Roman battalions as a political symbol.
Gladiator, 2000  Despite the get out clause that this is a work of fiction using historical figures, there's no escaping the fact that Gladiator is set in Ancient Rome, a period for which there is no shortage of both classical and armchair scholars to point out the 'goofs'. For example: Maximus is seen with a rubber sole on his sandal! The cavalry use stirrups, but they weren't used for another 600 years. Maximus boasts about Spanish horses but there were no horses in Spain till the Moors brought them 500 years later. And so on. Despite the outstanding achievement of recreating the Colisseum, other historians can't get over the fact that it was unlikely that Gladiators ever fought animals. This was left to criminals or Christians. The biggest liberty with the facts is the death of Emperor Commodus. The historical figure, whose father Aurelius probably died of plague, was actually responsible for bringing an end to the Germanic wars by making concessions to the tribes, and he returned to Rome in triumph. For most of his reign he was popular with the army and the masses and he was known to have taken part in staged fights, but certainly didn't die in the arena. Instead he was strangled in his bath by an athlete called Narcissus.

Russell Crowe goes to war with a Roman Emperor in this mighty epic from director Ridley Scott. When General Maximus' (Crowe) family are murdered by Joaquin Phoenix, he wants revenge. Sold to gladiator trainer Oliver Reed, Crowe fights his way up through the ranks all the way to the Colosseum. The darling of the crowd, he soon gets the chance to go one-on-one with the Emperor. Although Gladiator is primarily a battle between two men, Scott's epic use of the camera lift the events to the scale of war.
Where Eagles Dare, 1968
A classic Second World War thriller starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood as crack paratroopers sent deep behind enemy lines to rescue a captured Allied general imprisoned in a forbidding castle commandeered by the SS. Alastair MacLean's script has more old-fashioned thrills, spills and hair-breadth escapes than 20 chapters of 'King Of The Rocket Men'.
The Longest Day, 1962
This star-studded Second World War action-film is a big, long, loud spectacular from the days when 'epic' filmmaking really meant something. With 42 international stars (including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and Sean Connery), The Longest Day depicts the D-Day landings at Normandy from both the Allied and German perspectives, and its scope in story and production is nothing less than mammoth.
Das Boot, 1981
Film version of Wolfgang Petersen's superior soap set in the claustrophobic world of a World War II German submarine. The director exploits his claustrophobic setting to maximum effect, paradoxically using a steady-cam which rushes through the cramped interior only adding to the sense of isolation. Combined with the soap opera dramatics of the crew's life on board, Das Boot makes compulsive viewing.
home   |    page 3   |    page 4   |    page 6     

 

© Copyright © 2005 by http://www.saswargames.com The SAS Wargames Club.