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Showing posts with the label Movies about World War II

Movie Review: 'Operation Crossbow'

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Operation Crossbow (1965) In the spring of 1943, Allied intelligence analysts noticed that the Germans were building what appeared to be launching ramps and rocket launch pads in various locations scattered around Nazi-occupied Europe, mainly in northeast France, Belgium and the Netherlands.  Though some thought they were “dummy” sites to lure American and British bombers and force them to waste bombs that would otherwise have been dropped on German cities and industrial targets, other analysts figured out that these German facilities were intended to launch what Adolf Hitler called  Vergeltungswaffen  (which means  vengeance,   revenge  or  retaliation  weapons in German) at strategic targets in Great Britain. There were even intelligence officers who, once they believed that the V-weapons sites were no ruse, feared the Germans might use the V-1 pilotless planes and the V-2 guided missiles to deliver chemical or biological warheads against British cities in retaliation for wh

Movie Review: 'A Bridge Too Far'

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Major Cast: Dirk Bogarde .... Lt. Gen. Browning James Caan .... SSgt. Eddie Dohun Michael Caine .... Lt. Col. J.O.E. Vandeleur Sean Connery .... Maj. Gen. Roy Urquhart Edward Fox .... Lt. Gen. Brian Horrocks Elliott Gould .... Col. Robert Stout Gene Hackman .... Maj. Gen. Stanislaw Sosabowski Anthony Hopkins .... Lt. Col. John Frost Hardy Kruger .... Maj. Gen. Ludwig Ryan O'Neal .... Brig. Gen. James Gavin Laurence Olivier .... Dr. Jan Spaander Robert Redford .... Maj. Julian Cook Maximilian Schell .... Lt. Gen. Wilhelm Bittrich Liv Ullmann .... Kate Ter Horst A Bridge Too Far , Richard Attenborough's ( Gandhi, Chaplin ) epic recreation of one of the most controversial battles of World War II, is one of those films that fall under the category of "glorious failure." Like the subject it vividly depicts (Operation Market-Garden), it was a well intentioned and daring endeavor, yet it failed to capture a receptive audience and was quickly forgotten