This film presents a dramatization of the wartime heroics of naval doctor Corydon M. Wassell, who is stationed in the East Indies during a Japanese attack on the USS Marblehead. After the less seriously wounded soldiers are evacuated to Australia, Wassell stays in Java to save those left behind. As the Japanese advance, he risks his life and defies orders in an attempt to rescue as many as possible. His actions are later recognized in a radio address given by President Roosevelt.
Category: War
Danish director Bodil Ipsen demonstrates her devotion to American “film noirs” in Red Meadows. Set during WWII, the film concerns the exploits of a group of Danish resistance fighters. Ipsen raised a few eyebrows back in 1950 for her comparatively sympathetic portrayal of a German occupation officer who befriends a member of the underground — though he was careful to show the bestiality of the Nazis during a grueling torture sequence. The story ends with a rousing gun battle and a desperate escape bid. Red Meadows is allegedly based on a true story.
Mourir à Madrid brings together several papers on the Spanish Civil War and integrates capturing different points of view, intended to represent the continuity of the suffering of the Spanish during the Franco regime. The death of Federico Garcia Lorca, Guernica, the defense of Madrid, the International Brigades, are some of the items comprised in this documentary.
Lieutenant Rip Crandall is hoodwinked into taking command of the “Wackiest Ship in the Navy” – a real garbage scow with a crew of misfits who don’t know a jib from a jigger. What none of them knows, including Crandall, is that this ship has a very important top-secret mission to complete in waters patrolled by the Japanese fleet. Their mission will save hundreds of allied lives – if only they can get there in one piece.
Singer Oksana has lost her beloved in the war. Everyone thinks he perished, but actually he was taken prisoner, then ran away, hid, fell into American hands, and… finally, he returns to his village, and meets Oksana.
——UPGRADED——
This bracing World War II epic was the film that brought Verhoeven to Hollywood’s attention. It follows a group of college friends through the Nazi occupation of Holland, as two becomes heroes of the resistance movement, while another turns traitor. As usual, Verhoeven’s moral ambiguity and skewed sensibility keep things complicated: far from a patriotic flag-waver, Soldier of Orange is as knotty, subversive, and gonzo as war movies get (witness the hero performing a homoerotic tango), while demonstrating Verhoeven’s ability to balance action with involving human drama.
A dramatization of the life of Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler’s young architect and one-time confidant, and his meteoric rise into the Nazi hierarchy. This movie is based on Speer’s autobiography of the same name.