Why haven't they...

[macwilkin]

I wasn't impressed by The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp myself - it was based upon the cartoon character created by David Lowe in the pre war 1930s as a satire on the establishment and didn't transcribe into a good war movie.

Colonel Blimp wasn't a traditional war movie in that sense, but I'm afraid you've missed the point -- Powell and Pressburger, though Clive "Sugar" Candy, were trying to tell the British people that Herr Hitler and Co. could not be defeated by the traditional ways; Candy learns, thanks to the young subaltern of the Loamshires, that the only way to defeat the Nazis was to engage them in total war. It, like Mrs. Miniver, was a call-to-arms.

And anyone who couldn't be moved by Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff's speech about how he left Germany while his Nazified children stayed behind simply has no heart.

Horses for courses, but INMHO, Colonel Blimp is one of the best movies I have seen.

T.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I confess I had not heard of these others you cite but after investigation they are clearly NOT war movies and the trailer for The Mortal Storm even says as much - "A tale of love and sacrifice NOT war." They are both set before WW2 and even before the Anschluss involving individuals and not nations.

Unfortunately, films are about people and ideas. To be about "nations" I think you'd be talking about documentaries, rather than narrative cinema. When you say these films are set before WWII I presume you mean before Britain entered the war in September of 1939. When I say "before the war" I'm referring to the events prior to 7 December 1941. I have been digging through my notes looking for the details of a very good film made about the destruction of Czechoslovakia, and the resistance to the Germans, that was lensed in (I think) in 1939. I want to say that the title was Forced Landing, but that's probably not it.

I am not trying to be deliberately obtuse (oh yes you are! ) but I am still waiting for an American made movie that fits your original claim about occupied Europe as none of these qualify being about Germany alone before it got expansionist.

Without resorting to my teaching notes, I'll offer They Met In Bombay a 1941 film staring Clark Gable as a jewel thief in India who ends up fighting the Japanese in China! Only Hollywood could come up with something like this... but wait, it's not occupied Europe. And it's probably not a "war film" by your definition.

Trefor, I think you should go back and re-read my comments in Post #37-- I didn't mention anything about "war films"-- perhaps I was being too subtle, or expecting a less interpretive reading of what I wrote. My point, and obviously it was missed, was that Hollywood was making films that were pro-war and anti-axis several years before the US entered the conflict. No where did I say they were making "traditional" war films. But there's the rub. What, exactly is a war film?

I think we'd probably both agree that Saving Private Ryan is a war film. But how about Schindler's List? Or Breaker Morant? It's my view on the subject that just because a story is set during a war, it isn't necessarily a "war film". Off the top of my head I don't recall any battle scenes in Waterloo Bridge but the story definitely takes place during the war.

[McClef]

Unfortunately, films are about people and ideas. To be about "nations" I think you'd be talking about documentaries, rather than narrative cinema. When you say these films are set before WWII I presume you mean before Britain entered the war in September of 1939. When I say "before the war" I'm referring to the events prior to 7 December 1941. I have been digging through my notes looking for the details of a very good film made about the destruction of Czechoslovakia, and the resistance to the Germans, that was lensed in (I think) in 1939. I want to say that the title was Forced Landing, but that's probably not it. Without resorting to my teaching notes, I'll offer They Met In Bombay a 1941 film staring Clark Gable as a jewel thief in India who ends up fighting the Japanese in China! Only Hollywood could come up with something like this... but wait, it's not occupied Europe. And it's probably not a "war film" by your definition.

I appreciate that views on dating will be different in that the US would see September 1939 to December 1941 as a European War.

You originally talked of "occupied Europe." The Nazis did not occupy anywhere else for the first few years of their regime until Austria and then the Sudetenland of Czechloslovakia. The claim was that they were simply uniting the German homelands and peoples and they got away with it. Only when they invaded Poland when such a claim could not be justified did Britain and France declare war. Then of course they invaded and occupied many other countries after that.

I will check up on your latest examples very shortly.

Trefor, I think you should go back and re-read my comments in Post #37-- I didn't mention anything about "war films"-- perhaps I was being too subtle, or expecting a less interpretive reading of what I wrote. My point, and obviously it was missed, was that Hollywood was making films that were pro-war and anti-axis several years before the US entered the conflict. No where did I say they were making "traditional" war films. But there's the rub. What, exactly is a war film?

I think we'd probably both agree that Saving Private Ryan is a war film. But how about Schindler's List? Or Breaker Morant? It's my view on the subject that just because a story is set during a war, it isn't necessarily a "war film". Off the top of my head I don't recall any battle scenes in Waterloo Bridge but the story definitely takes place during the war.

A war film does not necessarily have to show fighting but it must be set in the period when a war is going on. So Schindler and Morant would qualify there.

[macwilkin]

A war film does not necessarily have to show fighting but it must be set in the period when a war is going on. So Schindler and Morant would qualify there.

As well then Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale and Mrs. Miniver.

T.