Favorite World War II Movies

[Gary D.]

Librarian - Thanks for bringing up Mission to Moscow. During the Joseph McCarthy era, this film came back to haunt Hollywood. I've never seen this film, and Walter Huston was one of my favorite actors (he was great in Abraham Lincoln (1930), an early 'talkie,' which is hard to understand because of the quality of the sound on the tape I have). As much as I detest Stalin, the fact is that if Russia had caved under to the Nazis, Hitler could have thrown all his forces against the West, along with the vast resources of a conquered Russia.

I usually mangle quotations, either from Shakespeare or the Bible, but I think the great Winston Churchill said something to the effect, that if Hitler invaded Hell, he, Churchill, would rise in Parliament to say something good about the Devil. One of my favorite quotations, whoever said it, is 'He who sups with the Devil should use a long spoon.'

[Librarian]

Oh, I’m glad if you liked those motion pictures, my dear Mr. Gary D! You know, it's depressing how many important old films have already been marginalized in memory (if not completely forgotten!) nowadays.

And yes, I always held Walter Houston in very high esteem as well, although for me his best performance ever was in that absolutely phenomenal film about sometimes hidden, but constantly present voracious nature of man and the built-in human lust for greed - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Brilliant film, indeed!

I don’t suppose that my next offer was ever considered as a praiseworthy achievement in this category, but it surely is one of the best within the small group of WW 2 thrillers. Billy Wilder’s Five Graves to Cairo (1943), however, offered a very fine and multifaceted dramatic performance of "the man you love to hate" to the majority of moviegoers – Erich von Stroheim.



"Five Graves to Cairo", Billy Wilder (1943)

Although never a great actor, he was often a very good one, especially in this film as a luxuriously malevolent German villain – field Marschal Erwin Rommel! By my personal opinion, the insidious and highly potent persuasiveness of film which accentuated a war-mood in those days surely deserves more of our attention.

In the meantime, as always - all the best!

[Gary D.]

Originally Posted by Librarian

* * * And yes, I always held Walter Houston in very high esteem as well, although for me his best performance ever was in that absolutely phenomenal film about sometimes hidden, but constantly present voracious nature of man and the built-in human lust for greed - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Brilliant film, indeed!

I don’t suppose that my next offer was ever considered as a praiseworthy achievement in this category, but it surely is one of the best within the small group of WW 2 thrillers. Billy Wilder’s Five Graves to Cairo (1943), however, offered a very fine and multifaceted dramatic performance of "the man you love to hate" to the majority of moviegoers – Erich von Stroheim.



"Five Graves to Cairo", Billy Wilder (1943)

Although never a great actor, he was often a very good one, especially in this film as a luxuriously malevolent German villain – field Marschal Erwin Rommel! By my personal opinion, the insidious and highly potent persuasiveness of film which accentuated a war-mood in those days surely deserves more of our attention.

Von Stroheim was both a great actor and a great director. As far as his directing went, however, he was so profligate that he could bankrupt a studio (a trait which he shared with Orson Welles). He was excellent in Sunset Boulevard playing Gloria Swanson's butler and ex-husband.

I am sure I've seen Five Graves to Cairo, which came out about the same time as Sahara--a tape which I just picked up and am looking forward to seeing. Stars Humphrey Bogart and great character actors Dan Duryea and Bruce Cabot. I usually confuse it with The Iron Lady, however, about a group of Americans (later on, long after the war) who come upon a buried Panzer tank in the Sahara and manage to get it running.

I am not sure what von Stroheim's politics were--he came to Hollywood long before Hitler took power. Other great actors did a fine job of portraying Nazis--particularly Conrad Veidt, who had it written into his contract that he would play a Nazi, but never in a good light. Therefore, we have his excellent role in Casablanca. Surprisingly, many of them were Jewish, although I don't know why this is surprising. Luther Adler's Hitler in The Desert Fox was amazing. He caught the German leader to a tee in Hitler's last years, when the effects of Dr. Morel's injections of bull's texticles and other lethal connoctions were driving him over the edge.

Gary

[herman2]

This guy looks so much like Bruce Willis in his younger days!

[Gary D.]

Originally Posted by Librarian; * * *
I don’t suppose that my next offer was ever considered as a praiseworthy achievement in this category, but it surely is one of the best within the small group of WW 2 thrillers. Billy Wilder’s [I

Five Graves to Cai[/I]ro (1943), however, offered a very fine and multifaceted dramatic performance of "the man you love to hate" to the majority of moviegoers – Erich von Stroheim.

Although never a great actor, he was often a very good one, especially in this film as a luxuriously malevolent German villain – field Marschal Erwin Rommel! * * *

How did von Stroheim depict Rommel in this movie? Probably the complete opposite of the near-hero of James Mason's 1951 The Desert Fox. Rommel wasn't political and The Desert Fox has Lucie Rommel (played by Jessica Tandy) as an 'innocent.' I've read that she was a fervent Nazi. Is this true?

[Librarian]

Well, from the very beginning, the Austrian émigré turned actor proved to be a difficult customer to handle. Even as an actor he was an egotist with an unusually individual talent. Often he was right, but he alienated a great meny people in proving it. Stroheim was not a man of patience or biding his time, nor was he a man of compromise. His insistence on the ultimate in realism was legendary. When he, for example, wanted scenes of home life in a San Francisco apartment, he moved his cameras and crew into a San Francisco apartment! Even the murder scene in his cause-célébre among film, "Greed", was staged in a building where a similar murder had taken place! And the climactic sequences in Death Valley were literally sweated out – slowly and painfully under a blazing sun, with no shade or comfort. Most of the crew were taken quite ill at one time or another – poor Jean Hersholt spent months recuperating in a hospital from a particularly unpleasant eruption of blisters that grew under the skin. Stroheim drove everybody mercilessly, and whether it was from loyalty, admiration or sheer hatred and a determination to show him that they could not be licked, he drew performances from his players and work from his camera operators that they never equaled under any other director. The actors played as though hypnotized into believing that they were really the characters they were portraying.

Of course, MGM executives were not happy with the film, which didn’t fit in with their policy at that time, and through the years tended to exaggerate the figures involved in its cost. But that film remains not only a movie milestone, but Stroheim’s own lasting monument. It has to be mentioned that he had also a pretty weird and in the same time wonderful fascination for the old Austro-Hungarian empire, with elegance, luxury and royal society, but real life in 30s, and early 40s, alas, wasn’t all champagne bubbles…

On the other hand, concerning other great actors which were portraying Germans during the war, perhaps the last truly original villain hero was nowadays sorrowfully and almost completely forgotten Helmut Dantine.



Helmut Dantine, "Edge of Darkness" (1943)

As captain König in Lewis Milestone’s "Edge of Darkness" he was the foremost proponent of a gallant, to a certain extent sportsmanlike negative hero, to whome that gallantry did little good. Incredibly suggestive with his deep-set eyes and fine, well-modulated voice, he somehow always stood aside, like concealing his own, true feelings for. His directors usually exploited his face by giving him rather more close-ups than usually.

Another forgotten villain of a more rough-and–tumble nature, was Raymond Hart Massey, one of several sons of the owner of Toronto's Massey-Harris farm equipment and tractor company, who played a neat and egotistic Nazi officer in 1943's "Desperate Journey" directed by Raoul Walsh.



Raymond Hart Massey, "Desperate Journey" (1942)

Free of temperament, kind, always ready to take advice, he managed to get himself well established as an actor in United States, where he represented almost a role model of a quiet, but dependable fellow. However, for the most part director Raoul Walsh in this film was more concerned with putting on the biggest and most exciting show possible, with an all-successful traditional hectic clearing up - a good punch right-into-the-kisser! After all, a sturdy inner lining of parody was often surprisingly perceptive in those times...

How did von Stroheim depict Rommel in this movie? Probably the complete opposite of the near-hero of James Mason's 1951 The Desert Fox.

Well… I think that you are on the right track, my dear Mr. Gary D. But I really don’t want to spoil anything regarding the story of the film. The best parts are some excellent close-ups, with that ruthless and bombastic attitude vigorously emphasized.

BTW: Those legendary male hormones, which were actually applied only once by that truly badly informed Dr Morell to combat Hitler’s fatigue via those Orchikrin pills, actually were completely out of harm's way, my dear Mr. Gary D. Much more damage actually was induced by those even today highly popular herbal-based remedies, widely used as alternative treatments for a number of ailments. You see, recent biochemical studies actually revealed the fact that intensive intake of a highly intriguing class of biochemicals, generally know as phytohormones, by means of multiple herbal constituents like that seemingly absolutely harmless Euflat is inversely associated with the risk of numerous and dangerous cardiovascular diseases.

It is also very interesting, and in the very same time highly disturbing that numerous scientist have completely neglected the fact that estrogenic, androgenic and progestogenic activities of the known phytoestrogens, and structurally related herbal flavonoids like genistein, kumestrol, formononetin, ligustilide or, God forbid, 8-prenylnaringenin are capable to effect so called endothelial barrier dysfunction and to inhibite leukocyte-endothelium interaction, thereby modulating vascular inflammation, a major event in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis as well as numerous highly interesting occurrences in human body.

As far as I remember, that benign Euflat – used to combat those digestive disturbances and meteorism, contained certain ammounts of a highly intriguing herb called Radix angelica…also known as Angelica Sinensis. You see, my dear Mr. Gary D., I am eager to learn what were the exact amounts of 3-Butylidene-4,5-dihydro-1(3H)-isobenzofuranone in that… natural… bio-enhancer of no matter what.

And why? Well, once upon a time even those good old-timers in the North Central Plains knew that grazing on alfalfa is capable to cause reduced fertility in sheep…

In the meantime, as always - all the best!

[Gary D.]

Librarian --

I liked Helmut Dantine, even though he never made it that big. But everyone doesn’t have to be a ‘big’ star. Even the great Walter Huston was generally considered a competent character actor. Raymond Massey, for that matter. All were very good in their parts. I remember Dantine’s young German pilot’s character taking refuge in Greer Garson’s kitchen in Mrs. Minniver.

Raymond Massey was so versatile that I never categorize him. He was good as Abraham Lincoln (possibly as good as Walter Huston); the scheming illegitimate pretender to the throne in Prisoner of Zenda, John Brown (I think in an Erroll Flynn movie—can’t recall the name); and as James Dean’s puritanical father in East of Eden. Speaking of which, Massey detested Dean and didn’t approve of his approach to acting. Massey’s rage was real when Dean leaned over and whispered an obscenity into the distinguished older actor’s ear. If I could read lips, perhaps I’d know what Dean said.

You’re very knowledgeable about the cinéma as well as history and medicine. I can pretend some knowledge of the first two, but am pretty much ignorant as to the third. I picked up most of what I know of Dr. Morrell, the Führer’s quack doctor, from the excellent The Secretary Martin Bormann: The Man Who Manipulated Hitler. I often use this well-thumbed book as a ‘bible’ when I write of the Third Reich era. Morrell’s concoctions might have ‘cured’ Hitler of his first complaint, but I wonder how much they led to his mental deterioration, which led to all the blunders he made later on in the war.

As you doubtless know, Bormann was thought for years to be living it up in South America. Then two skeletons were unearthed in late post-war Berlin, one of which undoubtedly was Martin Bormann’s. A photograph of the skull, juxtaposed against a profile of Bormann in life matched up perfectly.

I look forward to seeing Five Graves to Cairo—it will undoubtedly turn up in one of my thrift-store ventures, where I purchased Sahara, which, by the way, is an excellent movie. I wonder where it was filmed? Certainly not in North Africa in 1943. Perhaps in that area of California and Arizona (I live in Arizona, by the way), where so many ‘Saharan’ flicks were made, such as The Garden of Allah with Charles Boyer and Marlene Dietrich.

Thanks for your continued input. I would still like to have your thoughts on Lucie Rommel—fervent Nazi or just loyal wife?

Gary

[Librarian]

Thank you for your truly kind words, my dear Mr. Gary D. You know, I have always adored those old movies, and as a kid, I watched them with my parents every week, so I completely do share your views about those great films and those glittering personalities of filmdom’s heroic epoch.

Honestly, I don’t know what those leading personalities of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s had, but I think that quite a lot "stars" of later decades yearned they had it. I prefer to call it darned good showmanship. In those times the public loved their stars, and the stars reacted accordingly. Today we still have movie idols, of course, but that dedication, warmth and love emanating from both the audience and the stars has gone. Fame is more transient thing now, the accolades are louder, and more hysterical, but they are less sincerely felt, and they burn out quickly - as soon as another idol comes along. In those days if a star was going to give a performance it would be a performance all the way! And when you were watching them, you knew damned well who they were – in capital letters. No poking around in the mind, no turning over of a half dozen names before remembering who they were:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxPgplMujzQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YMPNNWnU7g

Yes, they were able to do anything and to do it with such a perfection and appearance of ease and grace attained through dedication and hard work, that even today they are symbolizing a glamorous age of the movies now departed – an age that will never be forgotten.

And although I do know that James Dean sometimes almost childishly enjoyed being naughty, I think that he newer behaved so badly as one of my personal heroes, Mr. James Cagney, who while being suddenly inspired, snatched up a half-grapefruit, and screwed it into the face of poor Mae Clarke in that well-known masterpiece of the silver screen - "The Public Enemy". An excellent reminder that you newer know what a man can imagine at a dinner table.

Your homeland, Arizona, is very close to my heart as well, because certain members of my truly wide-dispersed family actually lived in the vicinity of Scottsdale. And in many a western movie, the Hollywood cavalry has raced down the slope and splashed picturesquely through the Red Rock Crossing in Oak Creek Canyon. Hollywood sheiks and their dark-eyed temptresses have enacted many a romantic scene amid the shifting sand dunes west of Yuma. Arizona, with its red and caramel cliffs, its lofty mountains, purling streams, and forests of Ponderosa pine was, and I hope that still is every bit as beautiful in reality as it was on the screen.

You are asking me about Lucy Rommel… well, I think that she was just a loyal wife. She had dignity, poise and some sort of regal features, being the patrician lady and virtuous women threatened by sundry fates worse than death.

Finally, allow me just a very brief elucidation of that tiny "hormonal" quandary. You see, man is a unique animal in that he searches for order in the world he lives in. Looking through the chaos of seemingly unrelated events, he tries to perceive their inherent patterns of order. There are many ways in which man attempts to understand the organization of the universe, the world and himself, and science is factual knowledge gained systematically and logically. It is said that there is a scientific method, a strict procedure followed by men as they pursue knowledge. Scientific truths are result of independent substantiation of things perceived – they are results of testability, a confirmation by direct and unquestionably existing evidence.

And the only direct evidence we have in this issue, my dear Mr. Gary D. is located here:

http://digital.library.duq.edu/cdm-m...ISOBOX=1&REC=1

Everything else is only a depiction of new conclusions from a set of assumptions.

Today, my dear Mr. Gary D, we know that an organism’s behavior is the result of the behavior of its cells. Cells are made of molecules, and the function of the cells is ultimately the result of the behavior of those molecules. Human history therefore is but a product of molecular influences on a macro-system called human being. Therefore, I really do hope that some day someone sufficiently dedicated will be able to note down a definite, absolutely undeniable and completely testable historical treatise "Operation Barbarossa as a neurosecretory induced distraction of the Nash equilibrium: terminal macro-social effects of colchicine suppression to (PGF2 alpha)-induced synthesis of oxytocin in Hitler’s paraventricular nucleus".

After all - biology interacts with history in many complex ways that make us who we are.

In the meantime, as always – al the best!

[Gary D.]

Originally Posted by Librarian

* * *

Honestly, I don’t know what those leading personalities of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s had, but I think that quite a lot "stars" of later decades yearned they had it. I prefer to call it darned good showmanship. In those times the public loved their stars, and the stars reacted accordingly. Today we still have movie idols, of course, but that dedication, warmth and love emanating from both the audience and the stars has gone. Fame is more transient thing now, the accolades are louder, and more hysterical, but they are less sincerely felt, and they burn out quickly - as soon as another idol comes along. In those days if a star was going to give a performance it would be a performance all the way! And when you were watching them, you knew damned well who they were – in capital letters.

* * *

Your homeland, Arizona, is very close to my heart as well, because certain members of my truly wide-dispersed family actually lived in the vicinity of Scottsdale. And in many a western movie, the Hollywood cavalry has raced down the slope and splashed picturesquely through the Red Rock Crossing in Oak Creek Canyon. Hollywood sheiks and their dark-eyed temptresses have enacted many a romantic scene amid the shifting sand dunes west of Yuma. Arizona, with its red and caramel cliffs, its lofty mountains, purling streams, and forests of Ponderosa pine was, and I hope that still is every bit as beautiful in reality as it was on the screen.

I guess we're a bit off the track, but, insofar as 'modern actors' go, I have little interest in most of them. When I check out at the grocery store, I sometimes peruse the magazines while waiting for the next customer to move on. 'So and So is having a baby!' As if I knew who 'So and So' was.

There are famous people, on either side of the Atlantic, who still have integrity, although I'm hard put to name any in Hollywood--certainly not the likes of the great Irene Dunne or Jimmy Stewart. Do you know that when he went into the service and piloted a plane on missions, he never lost a man? And he was completely loyal to his men--to his wife--and to his stepsons. Frankly, he's what I look for in an American president--and we'll never see his likes again.

My former employer was, in the 1940s, the attorney representing most of the film industry in Arizona. One day I brought up that one of my favorite movies was Lust for Gold (1949), and Mr. Cox kept me interested for thirty minutes telling me about his experiences when they made most of the movie in the Valley of the Sun. The producer had called him early one morning asking him to drive over to Apache Junction to remove a modern sign (the movie was supposedly about Jacob Walz, and the never-located (if ever existed) Lost Dutchman Mine, in the 1870s or '80s.

I'm going to check out Lucie (or Lucy?) Rommel to see what her real politics were. As you know, anything on the Internet has to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. I've run up against sites that deify Hitler, actually terming him 'St. Adolf.' I guess there are also 'Flat Earth' sites as well.

Nice to hear your input.

Gary

[Librarian]

Oh, I completely do agree with you, my dear Mr. Gary D. Indeed, not all inventions positively change our lives - some of them are making us scratch our heads as well! For example, our modern electronic miracles, like our dearly beloved Internet, are more than capable to effortlessly disseminate half-truths, lies, and sheer stupidity with the same ease as they do the same for true values. Look no further – here is a beautiful illustration for the previously mentioned claim:

http://www.ourhollowearth.com/

What can I say? Perhaps only that good old Schiller already emphasized in his tragedy "The Maid of Orleans", written in 1801 in Leipzig, the fact that "… Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain."

Fortunately, the laws of evidence provide that deliberately avoiding knowledge does not rank as pure ignorance, but rather as willful blindness. Theoretically, that is completely sufficient for the preservation of the integrity of science.

And yes – I was told about those excellent results of major James Stuart by The New York Times, which appeared in print on March 1, 1944.

On the other hand, history of the US Presidency clearly indicates that dynamic and positive leadership always arouses somehow spontaneously in the time of need. No one could have guessed in the black days before March 4, 1933, for example, that Franklin D. Roosevelt would set his mark on the age as have few Chief Executives. Furthermore, once upon a time even Alice Roosevelt Longworth remarked that Calvin Coolidge had been weaned on a dill pickle, although he had a clear-cut conservative philosophy based upon his Vermont boyhood-exhortations to thrift, hard work and respect for learning and virtue. Therefore don’t worry, my dear Mr. Gary D. – comforting moral leadership will be awakened somehow.

And now – back to our main theme in this thread.

Although every society has certain stereotypes concerning members of other societies, ethnic or racial groups and categories, the dominating Hollywood typecast during the WW 2 actually openly demonized Japanese soldiers as strange, vicious and sinister men of mystery, as bunch of half–sadists taking obvious enjoyment in seeing the white hero chained or tortured. Unlike Germans, who possessed certain levels of moral integrity in those wartime film incarnations, Japanese soldiers were almost constantly portrayed as entirely different people, without any trace of inclination toward understanding capable to transcend opposing cultures, religions and states.



Richard Loo, The Purple Heart (1944)

Mr. Richard Loo was one of the most successful Chinese American actors of the wartime Hollywood era, who constantly played high-ranking Japanese officers or spies educated in the United States, consequently capable to spoke fluent English.

Numerous questions, such as what were the business concerns, or perhaps official constraints that contributed to the aforementioned practice of unswervingly negative representation of Japanese soldiers in wartime Hollywood films, have not been fully explored.

In the meantime, as always – all the best!

[Gary D.]

Librarian --

I was taken to task for some of my thoughts on Imperial Japan, particularly in comparing the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in China and during the Bataan Death March. I didn't research who was responsible for the horrors committed against American and Filipinos--I shall, and I'm hoping the instigator was executed after the war.

I was fortunate enough to pick up The Reader's Digest Illustrated Story of World War II--and the death march was written up by one of the survivors. It's hard reading--very hard reading.

I know the Japanese looked with contempt on soldiers who lay down their arms and surrendered. Even the Germans accepted honorable surrender, and surrendered. Probably, the regular Wehrmacht, contrasted to the Japanese military, treated troops of co-signers of the Geneva Conventions, more humanely. Offhand, I don't know if Japan signed the Geneva Conventions--I know the Soviets didn't--which is not to excuse how the SS treated captured Soviet soldiers.

I guess I should end up saying something about movies, which is what the thread is all about: I did see Purple Heart, but it's been a while. Did you see The Fighting Sullivans? Weren't there four brothers who went down with their ship? Even now, when I see it--I have a copy--it's hard to control my tears. At the time, the U.S. Government didn't want to release the film because of the heart-wrenching poignancy of this wartime film. I think they had a ruling, after the Sullivans' deaths, that this could never happen again--nor could they force all the sons of a family to be drafted.

[Gary D.]

Originally Posted by Librarian

* * *

Although every society has certain stereotypes concerning members of other societies, ethnic or racial groups and categories, the dominating Hollywood typecast during the WW 2 actually openly demonized Japanese soldiers as strange, vicious and sinister men of mystery, as bunch of half–sadists taking obvious enjoyment in seeing the white hero chained or tortured. Unlike Germans, who possessed certain levels of moral integrity in those wartime film incarnations, Japanese soldiers were almost constantly portrayed as entirely different people, without any trace of inclination toward understanding capable to transcend opposing cultures, religions and states.

* * *

Richard Loo, The Purple Heart (1944)

Mr. Richard Loo was one of the most successful Chinese American actors of the wartime Hollywood era, who constantly played high-ranking Japanese officers or spies educated in the United States, consequently capable to spoke fluent English.

Numerous questions, such as what were the business concerns, or perhaps official constraints that contributed to the aforementioned practice of unswervingly negative representation of Japanese soldiers in wartime Hollywood films, have not been fully explored.

* * *

I suppose, when we're fighting a war, particularly World War II, we have to demonize our enemies, as we particularly did the Japanese. I'm not sure when the first 'positive' depiction of a Japanese officer or statesman was made--perhaps Bridge to the Sun, which I remember seeing in 1961, with James Shigeta as the young Japanese diplomat Hidenari Terasaki, and Carroll Baker as his American wife, Gwen Terasaki. Although I’ve read later that perhaps ‘Terry’ wasn’t quite as innocent as his widow made out.

I admire the Japanese people—Japan rose from a feudal society within less than a hundred years to a major world power—which she is now, at least economically speaking. They accepted Western technology, utilized it, and kept their traditional values. Most Japanese today grew up long after the war, so I don’t blame them.

During the height of the Cold War, we discussed world affairs in social studies, but I don’t remember anything particularly bad being taught about Russia—except the Soviet system contrasted with the free-enterprise one.

A couple of years ago, I exchanged emails with a fellow member of my fiction-writing group. Gennady lives in St. Petersburg, Russia, and was a former Soviet officer. He wrote that all through school, and into the military, he was indoctrinated with anti-American teachings—apparently, it didn’t take. We did disagree on the reasons why President Bush went into Iraq, but Americans have done that. I have always liked Russia--old Imperial Russia, however, not the USSR--and was always pro-Russian people, and I was never called down for it.

As my mother once told me, even an enemy soldier is someone’s son.

[Librarian]

I shall be very indebted to you for your kind excusing my inability of prompt responding to your previous answers, my dear Mr. Gary D. I hope that you will take into consideration the highly unpleasant circumstances - subsequent receipt of an official information that my personal account with Photobucket was allotted with 10 GB of monthly bandwidth, and that official records show that I have less than 2 GB of bandwidth left to my account.

Great pressure of work connected with reallocation of photographic material prevented me from dispatching answers in time. Every precaution will be taken to avoid a repetition of a similar event.

Words are never enough, my dear Mr. Gary D. The eye sees. The mind knows. The heart feels. But the words do not exist to make us see, or know, or feel what reality is, what actually happens. The words, alas, are never right about the precise meaning of humanism.

It is a pleasant-sounding word, and it brings with it a graceful touch of fresh air from the Renaissance. That word is a kind of ideal attribute to man – lithe of mind, unprejudiced, unfettered by ancient rigmaroles, skilled in his control of the whole province of man. But has there ever been such a being? From time to time someone emerges out of the gray who looks, in favorable light, like the hero we all might wish to be. Sir Philip Sydney on the field of Zuthpen, Shelley lamenting Keats, Senator William Pitt Fessenden in a eulogy delivered upon the death of senator Foot of Vermont, Lieutenant Arthur Rhys-Davids sincerely regretting death of Werner Foss, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin unfolding the phenomenon of man…

Yet again, those sadly forgotten instances of humanity are the only seeds of true nobility and greatness capable to heal a soul of an individual or the wounded spirit of a society, cultivating those perilous deserts of unawareness and neglecting where stereotypes are ruling, destroying nature’s unique experiment to make rational intelligence prove itself sounder than the reflex. Knowledge and understanding, my dear Mr. Gary D, is our destiny, it is a responsibility for what we are, primarily of what we are as ethical creatures.

Since even things written down have an extraordinary propensity for going wrong in the writing, we ought to be permitted to show the pictures – not just the words, but also the real things. And we ought to have the moral fiber to look at those things.

Then, and then only, treating everybody and everything without any prejudice or discrimination, we will be able to appreciate universal strength of the human spirit that a passionate commitment to the Noble Cause by George Tomas, Francis Henry, Joseph Eugen, Medison Abel, and Albert Leo who were prepared to walk the road of duty – and they did – when it came to the price of their splendid commitment.



Condolences of the President F. D. Roosevelt sent to Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan (official draft)

Then, knowing that even a solitary candle of chivalry, even in the midst of otherwise cruel hostility possesses enduring capacity to absorb evil, to transform human existence from a dungeon of shame to a heaven of human dignity, we will be able to work through our fears.



Example of a chivalrous surrender of Japanese soldiers

Those, as well as numerous other examples of humanism, able to prove that perfect courtesy can be shown even to those who may look upon someone as to their archenemy, completed in a special thread called Examples of Humanity, will substantiate the old-fashioned claim that human problems can be solved in humane ways, and that the glades of grass growing on graves are symbols of regeneration – the final act of reconciliation between death and life.

And now back to the films.

Yes, my dear Mr. Gary D, I watched "The Fighting Sullivans", and that film really is an example for nowadays outdated and quaint, heartbreaking and honest artistic reflections. However, I think that Hollywood never filmed a story about another, for me much more heartrending occurrence – that sadly forgotten scene when colonel Frences I. Fenton kneeled by the body of his own son, also a member of the 1st Marine Division, a 19-year old scout-sniper who was killed in action on Okinawa, May 7, 1945.

I, too, sometimes do look at that photo and weep. Spontaneously. For once we lose our compassion, we lose our souls.

In characterizing all Hollywood films from the 40s, the greatest war film of the 40s was perhaps the "Guadalcanal Diary" (1943), directed by Lewis Seiler.



Anthony Queen, Guadalcanal Diary (1943)

This was perhaps the only film entitled to take its own place as an individual work of art, being capable to encompass overall historical grandeur and personal vignettes, such as those incredibly convincing shots of close-combat battle, with absolutely brilliant play of Mr. Anthony Queen as Private Jesus "Soose" Alvarez.

Well, that’s all for today. In the meantime, as always – all the best!

[Gary D.]

Originally Posted by Librarian

* * *

Condolences of the President F. D. Roosevelt sent to Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan (official draft)

Then, knowing that even a solitary candle of chivalry, even in the midst of otherwise cruel hostility possesses enduring capacity to absorb evil, to transform human existence from a dungeon of shame to a heaven of human dignity, we will be able to work through our fears.

* * *

I copied Mr. Roosevelt's letter to the parents of the Sullivan boys. It's obviously heart-felt and not boil-plate. It's trite to say, but there are times when words, indeed, fail even the most eloquent statesman.

I know FDR wrote a letter to a 'future President,' requesting that the Sullivans' grandson be admitted to West Point. President Eisenhower was more than willing to accede to this request, but young Sullivan wanted to make it on his own--he did. I think, to this day, there is a The Sullivans ship in the U.S. Navy.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted by Gary D.

I copied Mr. Roosevelt's letter to the parents of the Sullivan boys. It's obviously heart-felt and not boil-plate. It's trite to say, but there are times when words, indeed, fail even the most eloquent statesman.

I know FDR wrote a letter to a 'future President,' requesting that the Sullivans' grandson be admitted to West Point. President Eisenhower was more than willing to accede to this request, but young Sullivan wanted to make it on his own--he did. I think, to this day, there is a The Sullivans ship in the U.S. Navy.

I'm not sure if there is still one on active duty. But there was indeed a retired USS Sullivans that is now moored at the Buffalo, NY Naval Park. Been on it many times, and the ship is rumored to be haunted.