What WWII film would you like to see remade?

Thanks and the same here about Mitchum-and Charlton Heston for that matter. If I recall? I think Glenn Ford was also in Midway. I seem to recall he had a great scene with Mitchum-when he was hospitalized because of a rash."Oh and, ill see to it that they cut down that tree."

 

Hi A/ I admit Midway could have been done better but-what a hell of a great cast it had. I have always enjoyed that movie as well as Battle fo the Bulge mainly because of all the great actors in them. As far as accuracies in both go-well, I look the other way on that issue and just sit back and relax and enjoy those movies because of the star power in them ;-)) Mainly for that reason-is why I cant ever call either film a bad film.

One movie I think NEEDS to be remade is-Thin Red Line. The original sucked and the remake sucked.

 

I like Battle Of The Bulge, but if they remake it, Christian Bale or Edward Norton as Col. Joachim Peiper is a must.

 

C.E., I love your posts, but "Midway" is pure hollywood crap. I saw this film the day it came out in NYC and I'll tell ya...A good cast does not a good film make. "Midway" suffered the same problem that "A Bridge Too Far" (which was a better film) suffered from...they both suffered from "The Longest Day" envy. Both were written and cast to be "blockbusters", both failed. "Midway" had an awful script, a so-so cast (Fonda, Halbrook, Mitchum and Ford were true "actors", Heston was a "Movie Star" and Wagner and Selleck shoulden't even be mentioned in the same sentence with these "greats"), almost no character development, a god awful subplot and used too much stock footage from other war films. Ever since "TLD", Hollywood has been trying to recapture the War Movie Blockbuster. They hit a homerun with "Patton" but as I said "ABTF" and "Midway" came up waaayyyy short. I do give the nod to "ABTF" but even that film suffered from bad casting and overacting. I wanted to literally strangle Ryan O'neil and Dirk Bogard. But it's still a better film than "Midway". The sub-plot with Heston and Edward Albert as his son was laughable and unnecessary. Even the actors seemed at times wishing they were somewhere else. Fonda seemed tired (he did a much better "Nimitz" in "In Harms Way"), Heston (while more of a movie star than actor) seemed out of his element, Holbrook was too overthetop, Mitchum was wasted in his role and Ford was underused.
A good idea on paper that should have had much better treatment.

Buzz

 

Gromit, you may be on to something. I wouldn't mind seeing "Sink the Bismarck" given the "Das Boot" treatment. Maybe a joint U.K.-German film. Has possibility!!

Buzz

 

I wouldn't have a problem with "BotB" remade just so long as they did a complete script re-write and made sure there was better casting. As far as Bale and Norton, as much as I am a fan of their work, I would rather have a German speaking actor (or a least one who could pull off a good accent) in the role of SS Col. Peiper. Now that it's easier to do mockups, I would love to see some Tiger II's rolling through the Ardennes.

Buzz

 

Seriously, how can they call Pershing tanks, King Tigers !

 

Totally agreed! But lets hope his German accent has improved a wee bit!

 

Why would he have to have a German accent? Germans don't speak English with German accents, they speak German. That's just a Hollywood thing that everyone is hung up on. I'd rather have them speak German with subtitles in English.

 

I'm having second thoughts about "The Devil's Brigade". For the life of me I cannot think of an actor that could fill William Holden's shoes. Holden was 50 when he played Lt. Col. Frederick. I can't think of any actor in that age group that has W.H.'s stature. Cliff Robertson was 44 and Vince Edwards was 40 when they played Maj's Crown and Bricker. It's hard to imagin anyone else playing those roles. Any thoughts?

Buzz

 

Col. Robert T. Frederick was 35 when he was given command of the First Special Service Force in 1942, not 50 like William Holden portrayed him in the movie. So maybe someone a bit younger should be considered. Any suggestions? My preference would be Aaron Ekhart, but he's in his early 40s now, and a bit "old for Col. Frederick".

I liked the movie as a kid who didn't know any better about the FSSF, but as I learned more about them later, I felt as if the veteran's legacy was short-sheeted by the movie. That would make a great 10 part HBO special, if they do it right.

 

The guy that was the kid in Empire of the Sun that grew up to be Batman would be a good choice.

 

Yeah, I forgot about Christian Bale. He's 36 now, and would be in the right age/time frame of Col. Frederick. Too bad we're not producers, directors and screen writers....

 

That's the kid.....he was fierce in Rise of the Machines

 

I meant in the spirit of the original movie, but with a better kind of acting, I mean I enjoyed all of the classics but when you see those movies that have the Germans all having strong British accents. I think Ed could do a German accent quite well, especially when you consider how he could mask his own in enemy at the gates.

 

I'm sure most actors could pull it off, the accent thing that is with language coaches that is. Most of the Russian charactors in "Enemy At the Gates" had British accents. There were almost no identifiable accents in "Valkurie" that I can remember, and I didn't think that was a deal breaker in the movie. When Kevin Costner's "Robin Hood" movie came out in the 90s, most of the lead charactors had American accents, and the movie was well received in England. I prefer period movies with strict attention to period detail (ie, uniforms, vehicles, units, speech patterns, colloquisalisms, behavior, etc) than accents, but I do understand what you mean.

 

I like the films where the characters speak the actual language, and translated in subtitles. There's no substitute for the realism of it. Films like Battle of Britain, Longest Day, Tora Tora Tora, and Das Boot were awesome.

When I went to see Midway when it first came out, and the Japanese were speaking English, I knew then and there I'd wasted my money.

 

Ive said this several times in several threads about the movie: Battle of the Bulge. "Could you have found a Brigade of real and working Tiger tanks to use in that movie? In other words, was it expected that the producers of said movie to have a Brigade of Tiger Tanks in their back pocket? Ise thinks nots. So, being that the majority of the target audience for said movie back in 1965 or whatever year it was released? would not have known or cared, that Pershings were used as a substitute for Tiger tanks. At least they had Gen von Lauchert as a technical advisor for the movie. But I guess he wasn't good enough as they might have expected the Producers of said movie-to have used Gen Heinrich von Luttwitz, (as tech advisor) and the men under his command in the 47th Panzer Korps-to be used as the Germans in the movie.

Who could they get these days?

 

Well, look what they were able to mock up with Kelly's Heros. The T-34 "Tiger" would have worked just fine.

 

C;
Did you catch the Avatar movie? I think Hollywood just proved that they can do ANYTHING with computer generation. The Battle of the Bulge would really be no problem and with a degree of realism and mass previously impossible.
JeffinMNUSA