#wwii films

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"...AND I WILL SHOW YOU WHERE THE IRON CROSSES GROW."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on film stills to "Cross of Iron" (German: "Steiner – Das Eiserne Kreuz," lit. "Steiner – The Iron Cross"), the 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner.

“Germany. Do you think they will ever forgive us for what we’ve done? Or forget us?”

-- Feldwebel ROLF STEINER to his squad

Cinematography: John Coquillon

Screenplay: Julius Epstein, James Hamilton, & Walter Kelley

Source: https://darrenlinder.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/sam-peckinpahs-cross-of-iron-1977.

[movie--posters]

[jessubear]

Come and See, 1985, USSR/Belarus, Dir. Elem Klimov

[deforest]

September 8, 1942 — "HEDY LAMARR SPURS WAR BOND SALE! The glamorous star makes personal appearance before thousands of admiring fans in Newark, New Jersey, as drive, slated for the entire country, goes into high gear."

[romanceyourdemons]

the majority of the postwar american and japanese wwii film i’ve seen is like the real enemy is War Itself. the postwar chinese wwii film i’ve seen is like the real enemy is The Japanese, check out these war crimes. seriously look. i’m not going away until you do

[atomic-chronoscaph]

B-17 - Heavy Metal (1981)

[bettsfic]

okay so i saw The Bikeriders today and i knew i wouldn't be normal about this movie and even though my expectations were impossibly high it exceeded them. i was happy for it to just be a cool movie for the sake of being a cool movie, toxic masculinity ultraviolence whatever, and it was but with Jodie Comer's character narrating about what fucking idiots all these macho biker dudes are. it's like if a woman narrated Fight Club while constantly pointing out how stupid Fight Club is

also, most of it was filmed near where i live and it was so exciting seeing places i recognized! it's been all over the news for weeks

things i loved about it:

protective older woman/loose cannon younger man

lowkey romantic stalking

a relationship suspiciously close to a throuple, by which i mean protective older woman goes to war against possessive older man, re: their mutual intense love for loose cannon younger man. and that's not even subtext that's just text

hot sadboy who doesn’t talk much and is so cool he doesn’t know how cool he is

british people doing midwestern accents

NO PLOT, god bless. just stuff happening and a lot of gay tension building

accurate portrayals of the aftermath of the vietnam war

accurate portrayals of mid-century small-town life

accurate portrayals of men being fucking pathetic

things i did not love about it:

for the love of god please wear a helmet

idk man it's just a whole-ass movie about how vietnam changed the very definition of masculinity, and that awkward era between wwii and vietnam when guys were rebellious for the aesthetic, rebel without a cause shit, twinks in leather jackets manhood. the movie even points that out, like they're so against rules but then they make all these rules for their silly little biker gang because they're bored. and then allll these vets come home from a war nobody wanted and they're actually rebelling, full anti-establishment, and there's just no more honor anymore because everybody's broken. which is all to say, somebody please come into my ask and be insane about this movie with me.

anyway i'm seeing it again tomorrow and i have already started an ot3 fic goodbye

[fuckyeahhistorycrushes]

Tamara Wiszniewska (1919-1981) - Polish actress

Tamara Wiszniewska was born on December 19, 1919 in Dubno, Poland (now a region in western Ukraine) on the banks of the Ikva River. It was here that she spent her younger years during which she picked up dancing, which eventually led her to her career in film. In her 1981 obituary in the Democrat & Chronicle, it was reported that Tamara, at age 15, “Was a ballet dancer, when German film director Paul Wegener discovered her and gave her a role in the historical film, August der Starke (August the Strong)” which premiered in 1936. This German/Polish co-production is a biographical look into the life of Augustus II, ruler of Saxony and Poland-Lithuania from 1694-1733. Although Tamara played only a small role it marked her debut and eventual rise to fame within the Polish film industry.

Following her appearance in August der Starke, Tamara appeared in thirteen other films between 1936 and 1939, including Trójka Hultajska (The Trio Hultajska, 1937), Ordynat Michorowski (Ordinate Michorowski, 1937), and Kobiety nad Przepaścią (Women Over the Precipice, 1938). Wladyslaw (Walter) Mikosz, Tamara’s future husband, produced two of these films. In an interview, Tamara and Walter’s daughter, Irene, states that, "The two met because of their film careers, and were married [late that same year] in 1937".

Life for the Mikoszs was happy for a time. Tamara continued to pursue her acting career through 1938 and 1939 and had welcomed a new born daughter into the world alongside her husband, Wladyslaw. Unfortunately, these happy times did not last long as the Mikosz family experienced the rise of Nazi Germany and their occupation of Poland in 1939 during World War II. The following excerpt from an interview with Tamara in a 1974 Times Union tells how drastically their lives were changed:

"I always played a rich spoiled girl who had lovely clothes, and for a short time I lived that kind of life too. It was a short, beautiful life that ended when the Germans took over Poland in 1939. We were wealthy and the toast of the town then. We’d go to Prague and Vienna just to see an opera or to play in the casinos. When the Germans came, my intuition told me I should have something on me to exchange. I sewed my jewelry into my clothes. Later, it bought us passes to freedom and bread so we were never hungry."

The German occupation of Poland during World War II brought then “beautiful” life of the Mikosz family to an end. Gone were their illustrious careers in film and the rewards that such a life had brought to them. In a later interview, Irene mentioned that her mother "was preparing to sign a contract for a film career in Hollywood, but Hitler’s invasion of Poland derailed the plans". Sadly, Tamara’s last appearance on the silver screen was in 1939 prior to the invasion of Hitler’s Germany; she never again starred in any films.

Although her dreams had been crushed, Tamara and her family did not lose hope. They made the best of their current situation, and were able to survive by selling the fruits of their labors that they harvested during their days in the film industry; their lives had been consumed with a fight to survive rather than a dream to thrive. However, not being ones to live quiet lives, the Mikoszs volunteered for the Polish Underground, the exiled Polish government that fought to resist German occupation of Poland during World War II. As civilians with backgrounds in film, Tamara and Walter were most likely engaged in spreading Polish nationalistic and anti-German propaganda. Such efforts of the civilian branch of the Polish Underground was in support of what Jan Kamieński refers to as "small sabotage" in his book, Hidden in the Enemy's Sight: Resisting the Third Reich from Within: "In contrast of major sabotage, the idea of small sabotage was to remind the German occupiers of an enduring Polish presence, to ensure that they felt a constant sense of unease and generally undermine their self-confidence". While attending to these duties within the Underground, the Mikosz family was separated and shipped off to separate countries: Tamara and her daughter, Irene, to Czechoslovakia (where Tamara’s parents had been sent) and Walter to Bavaria. The family was not reunited until 1945, when they were sent to the same refugee camp in Bavaria. The Mikoszs remained in the Bavarian refugee camp until the year 1950, in which they emigrated to the United States of America. Tamara and Walter lived quiet lives in Rochester, NY after arriving from a war-torn Europe, and did so until they passed away.

Although they have long since passed away from this Earth, the stories of the Polish film star, Tamara, and her film-producer husband, Wladyslaw Mikosz, will live on so long as there are people around to tell it.

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

Dancing is for people who are free.

— Jojo Rabbit (2019)

dir. Taika Waititi

[wandalives]

There are two things about Oppenheimer and the time period it depicts that if you ignore them in your critique of the film I will absolutely not consider you a serious person, and they are: 1. Oppenheimer was a Jewish man motivated by the fear that the Nazis would make the atomic bomb before America did; and 2. Imperial Japan was just as bad as Nazi Germany. If you refuse to grapple with those 2 historical facts in order to make your “hot take” about the movie, you should probably just stop talking.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"WAR IS A CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY THROUGH OTHER MEANS."

PIC INFO: Resolution at 960x1629 -- Spotlight on a Greek-language movie/promotional poster for the WWII/anti-war film "Cross of Iron" (German: "Steiner – Das Eiserne Kreuz," translation: "Steiner – The Iron Cross"), directed by Sam Peckinpah, c. 1977. EMI Films (UK)/ Constantine Films (West Germany).

DIRECTOR: Sam Peckinpah

SCREENPLAY: Julius Epstein, James Hamilton, & Walter Kelley

BASED ON: "The Willing Flesh" by Willi Heinrich

STARRING: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, David Warner, & Senta Berger

CINEMATOGRAPHY: John Coquillon

EDITED: Michael Ellis, Tony Lawson

MUSIC: Ernest Gold

Source: https://posteritati.com/poster/49539/cross-of-iron-1977-greek-a3-poster.

[pedroam-bang]

Atonement (2007)

[deforest]

February 18, 1942: "Lana Turner Spurs Bond Sales! The lovely film star does a land office business for Defense, autographing every purchase . . . and for service men, a special dividend, a real Hollywood clinch!"

[evidenceof]

Suiting the Ex-Soldier for Collier's Magazine. January 27, 1945. An article I dug up a while back while researching for Make Do and Mend.

Snippets from a Collier's Magazine feature directed at soldiers bound for home after the war, recommending that they allocate half of their supposed savings to shopping for civvies. Some more observations on menswear after the war under the cut.

Cinched waists and emphasized shoulders became popular (thank you soooo much to the Ike jacket), similar to their pinks and greens. More (read: smaller) patterns became available—striped shirts were popular but the era introduced small checkers and dots. The article makes suggestions for color pairings (I imagine color must either be a relief or a shock after years of seeing olive drab) like thi

Socks should be at least as dark as the suit, never lighter, and they can be ribbed, striped or checked. If he wants contrast, wine shades look well with blue or gray suits, and green sets well with either gray or brown suits.

Ties were wider after the war and had room to have wackier patterns and slowly became a means for self-expression. The popularity of brown in men's clothing shot up after the war (1947-1949), while green continued to lose popularity. Tan was The Spring and Summer color for menswear. Unlike in the U.K., cloth wasn't rationed too much after the war in the United States. Some of the biggest changes they saw was swapping wool for worsteds, the former used to create uniforms for the war effort. Black tie events were a little looser, people pooh-poohing tuxedoes and opting instead for dinner jackets or sports/pea coats for events.

Some examples from different catalogues that I really loved:

[providence-park]

Liev Schreiber as Zus Bielski

DEFIANCE

2008 | Dir. Edward Zwick

[norashelley]

Actress Rita Hayworth receiving check for war relief from Buck-of-the-Month club members of Lockheed-Vega