War Movie Theatre | for Fans of Classic War Films and Cinema History

Errol Flynn! Olivia de Havilland! Horses! The only thing that's hard to understand about this swashbuckling 1930s epic is the decision to set a film about the most famous moment of the Crimean War in India. And to portray one of history's great military blunders as a strategic masterstroke. Just what was going on in Hollywood? Still, despite Rob struggling to process what he was watching, it's a wild ride. And Duncan learns how the poem of the charge of the movie might, conceivably, have changed the course of World War 2. Next week: The Hunt For Red October. Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What films do we wish were war films? What has most surprised us over the course of 100 war movies? Do British people watch different war films from Americans? Which battles really need a film?Yes, for one week only, we're answering your questions. Next week, normal service resumes with The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936).Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a war movie so classic that it informed much of what came after it, David Niven is given the job of turning raw recruits into fighting men. Released in 1944, The Way Ahead is like a Rosetta stone for understanding much of what came afterwards in British film and TV, from Dad's Army to, arguably, Are You Being Served? It was written by Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov, and directed by Carol Reed, a dream team that turns this army propaganda film into something special. Joining Rob to discuss it are Mark Wallace of the Total Politics Group and culture journalist George Cochrane.Next week, it's our mailbag episode.Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fan Service Month continues with a second look at a 1942 British film that was largely ignored at the time but has since come to be regarded as a stone cold classic. The inspiration for The Eagle Has Landed, it sees English villagers fight off Nazis disguised as British soldiers. Can there be anything more fun that watching Thora Hird pick up a rifle? We're joined by Prof Jonathan Boff of Birmingham University, to talk about what the film reveals about Britain, then and now.Next week: The Way Ahead.Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fan Service Month continues with the film that Winston Churchill said was worth its weight in battleships, Mrs Miniver was intended by director William Wyler to be propaganda, but good. Incredibly popular on release, it told America about the British home front from the point of view of Greer Garson's upper middle-class housewife. But the real Mrs Miniver's life was far more complicated, and Garson herself made a surprise bid for the Dam Buster's Dog Prize For Most Problematic Moment.Next week: Went The Day Well? - Again!Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As classic a war movie as classic war movies get! For what people are already calling "Fan Service Month", Rob and Duncan are parachuting into occupied France to help the resistance, in this much-loved retelling of the true story of Violette Szabo, who won a posthumous George Cross for her courage. The poem from the film became famous, but the real author was kept secret for decades. Will we be sobbing by the end?Next week: Mrs Miniver.Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Happy Birthday America Month draws to a close, Rob and Duncan take on the job of instilling discipline in a podcast that's got sloppy as they watch Clint Eastwood directing and starring in Heartbreak Ridge. The year was 1986, Reagan was in the White House, and audiences were ready to see their military kick some butt. They were rewarded with the stirring tale of the Marine Corp's against-the-odds invasion of - have we got this right? - Grenada. Has a bigger movie ever been made about a smaller war? Did the Marines hope to get a Top Gun recruitment effect? Had they misunderstood their appeal to young men? Next week, Fan Service Month kicks off with Carve Her Name With Pride. Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BONG! BONG! Three and a half decades after Tom Cruise felt the need, the need for speed, he was back with the best of the best, turning and burning through the canyons of an unidentified rogue state to take our breath away. The cameras were better, but what about the script? Was everyone missing Charlie? And what are we to day to the babies around the world named Maverick? As Happy Birthday America Month continues, Rob and Duncan are joined by Joe Twyman to discuss the return of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell.Next Week: Heartbreak Ridge.Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's an alien invasion, and they're not messing about. Happy Birthday America Month continues with a film so American that they could barely be bothered to show the rest of the world being blown up. BUT WE DON'T MIND. Joining us to watch the White House being destroyed is super-nerd Jonn Elledge, whose new book 31 Inventions That Built Our World explains quite a lot about the New York that the aliens destroyed. Learn about the alternative bit of casting that would have taken this film to a much less wholesome place, and marvel as we discuss whether the US would actually elect a war veteran as president. Next week: Top Gun Maverick.Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"I have no division." Happy Birthday America Month continues with a film about the greatest battle fought on US soil, as Martin Sheen's Robert E Lee tries to draw the Union army into a fight that will leave the way open to Washington. Has Duncan persuaded Rob that it's worth the four hours it takes to tell the story? Would Russell Crowe have been better than Jeff Daniels? And, um, are one side in this the baddies?Next week: Independence Day.Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! Yes, all July, we're marking 250 years of gratuitous Americans by watching the most gratuitously American war movies we can find, and no war movie is as gratuitously American as The Patriot, in which Mel Gibson oozes love of country from every pore. How is this film so long? How come Mel is running the one Southern plantation with no slaves? And do flags really matter that much? Join us for the answers to this and much more.Next week: GettysburgDrop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, an early Technicolor classic war movie. One of six - six! - adaptations of AEW Mason's 1902 novel of cowardice and courage, it stars Ralph Richardson in a competition with John Clements to have the stiffest upper lip ever.Covered in the episode: how much was this film influenced by TE Lawrence, and how much did it influence Lawrence of Arabia? How often did defensive squares break in the 19th century? And, somehow, more poetry. Next week: The PatriotDrop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 1945 film that exemplified stiff upper lips like nothing else, The Way To The Stars was written by Terrence Rattigan, based on his own experiences of the air war, and tells the story of the ground lives of a bomber station. Starring John Mills and Michael Redgrave but most of all Rosamund John, it's a tale that would have resonated with audiences at home who had lost friends and lovers to the war. It was recut and released as Johnny In The Clouds in the US. Most of all though, as far as Rob and Tom are concerned, it's a film that was shot in Bedale, jewel of North Yorkshire's market towns.Next week: The Four Feathers (1939)Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the World Cup, which means it's time for Rob and Duncan to Escape To Victory! Again! It's the only prisoner of war film to feature three different World Cup winners, and the only war movie to be decide by a bicycle kick. Michael Caine is too old and Sylvester Stallone knows too little about football, but thanks to a bunch of extras from Ipswich Town, the movie has become a classic. Particularly because it sees the Nazis organise a football match that is somehow less dodgy than anything FIFA touches. This week, they're joined by World War 2 historian Alan Allport, who spends his days trying to explain European history to Americans through football. Will he disappear at half time, or score a last-minute equaliser?Next week: The Way To The StarsDrop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Their egos writing cheques that their bodies can't cash, Rob and Duncan are joined by Top Gun superfan Marina Hyde to mark the 40th anniversary of the greatest film about naval aviators ever made. It's the movie that confirmed the status of Tom Cruise as a star, and also as a man who has no chemistry with his female co-leads. Is that because his real sparks were with Val Kilmer? Are Anthony Edwards and Meg Ryan the secret sauce? Plus Marina takes us through the five hottest men in the film. You may be surprised by who isn't in there.Next week: to mark the World Cup, we're going to Escape To Victory (again).Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the classic films of military misery, Jarhead is a tale of just how awful life can be if the US Marine Corps sends you to the desert. The true-ish story of one man's Gulf War I, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard, it offered a ho-holds-barred portrayal of the way that making people into killers can leave them struggling to find their way back. We're joined by Owain Mulligan, whose memoir The Accidental Soldier is a funny, moving account of his own time in Iraq with the British Army after Gulf War II. Next week: Top Gun, with special guest Marina Hyde.Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Short of ammo, short of water, and short of options, Humphrey Bogart is holding off the Nazis in this 1943 tale of wartime daring that was so popular it's been remade at least twice. Could anyone but Bogart have carried off the role? And is it really a parable about the future cooperation between nations? Next week: Jarhead, with Owain MulliganDrop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is there a more classic World War 2 naval story? The Royal Navy's hunt for the mighty Bismarck retold as a detective story, as Kenneth More, deep in the Admiralty, directs the chase. Did it help that the producer's father-in-law could lend the production some battleships? Were they unfair to the Nastiest Nazi? And can a man who blubs win the Stiffest Upper Lip?Next week, by popular demand (sort of): Sahara (1943).Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A classic tale of bravery, snobbery, heroism and idiocy, the first film in John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy cemented John Wayne as a leading man for Westerns. It's a tale of military life -- unless like Rob you skip the first half to get straight to the charging -- that also features one of Shirley Temple's final performances. But does Duncan know his Peter Fonda from his Bridget?Next week: Sink The Bismarck!Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Norway 1940: the Nazis are arriving. The government is paralysed. And one man needs to help a country decide its future. The amazing true story of how Norway faced the invader. Listen even if you haven't seen the film as we discuss a small hinge of history.Next week: Fort ApacheDrop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.comVisit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.