Dargo2

That's pretty much what I was plannin' on sayin' in response to skimpole's comment too, Sepia. One of the things that makes Das Boot a superior WWII film is that Petersen expertly shows the effect the war had on the lowest ranks of those who served in the German Navy, and most of whom were not ideologues to their leaders' cause but were just doing their duty to their country. This would be similar to how Eastwood's recent Letters from Iwo Jima humanizes the combatants of our enemies' forces during this conflict, and steers clear of propagandizing the content of these films. Btw, if you've ever been inside a WWII-era submarine as I have(the retired USS Pampanito is docked and open to the public along San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf), it brings home the fact that unlike most WWII Hollywood submarine movies where it makes it seem reasonably spacious inside these things, Das Boot might have been the first film to more realistically show how very very VERY cramped and claustrophobic these boats actually were.

LOL Yeah, I suppose somethin' like that COULD scar a guy for life, huh!

LOL WAIT a sec here. This dude was servin' Japanese beef, and German beer and MEXICAN beer??? Well, as far as I know, our neighbors to the south were neutral in WWII, and so IF the guy wanted to keep a "theme" goin' on, shouldn't he have been servin' Peroni INSTEAD??? (...that's the problem with some guys, ya know...a lack of historical knowledge OR sometimes just a lack of "continuity", huh!)

Yeah, good point Sepia. But hey, look at it THIS way...Do ya have ANY idea how many good ol' American COWS gave THEIR all for all those BBQ'd hamburgers yesterday? Ever think about THAT??? (...yeah, yeah, I KNOW...I'm much too irreverent sometimes, huh...sorry)

>Did you upgrade your windows? I see they are doubled payned today! LOL Good one, James!

Yeah, and the funny thing is it LOOKS like it was set in the '60s!!! Nope, there was little attempt to create the "feeling" that it was set in the '30s, let alone the '50s! (...you know, kinda like all those westerns made in the '30s '40s '50s and '60s where all the cowboys are clean-shaven and have razor-cut "pompadour" haircuts!)

Wow, ginnyfan. I'd say if anyone ever epitomized John Milton's famous words, "They also serve who only stand and wait", it certainly would have been Jean here.

>Dargo, I read that link on Ty Hardin. Interesting post film career. Doubt that he voted for Obama. LOL Yeah, ya THINK, Tom?! Though, I'll betcha IF the guy were, say, 15 to 20 years older, AND was born in Germany, what dude sportin' a funny little mustache do ya think he would've been wholeheartedly votin' AND fightin' for during the war, EH?! LOL Ya know, I just "LOVE" hypocritical losers like this guy. Uh huh, and I'll tell ya why. This guy, who at one time according to this bio was an "ultra-fundamentalist evangelical preacher", epitomizes people who spout their little dogma about what they believe to be "the truth" and who in the world is and isn't "correctly acting" in accordance to this "truth", and YET this freakin' hypocrite had been divorced SEVEN times in his sad sad life. I mean, the know the guy was good lookin' and all, but c'mon now! SEVEN women shallow and dumb enough to fall for him before they figured out what a freakin' blowhard loser he IS??? LOL

Yeah, I suppose skimpole, but ya know there IS something you'd be hard-pressed to state the two films DON'T share. Uh huh..."the draining of precious bodily fluids"! (...yep, though in "Strangelove" of course that would be the paranoid ravings of a mad-as-a-hatter general, while in "The Loved One" it's...well...YOU know!!!) LOL

Btw, in this film when Ty Hardin's (probably best known as TV's "Bronco") character of Nazi saboteur Lt. Schumacher was introduced, did anyone other than me get a chuckle out of him maybe bein' perfectly cast in this thing??? LOL (...for those of you of whom I might have just vexed with this question, clicking on the below IMDb bio of the guy should explain all) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0362249/bio

Yep, good point too, FBT. Directors can only do so much with the scripts they're handed, huh.

Ya know TB, I'm not sure that that's bein' all that fair to Fred here. I mean, yeah yeah I know Fred is inclined to like the older, shorter and more "crisply paced" films made back when Louis B was runnin' the show out there in Tinseltown, BUT in THIS case I think his point is well taken. Annakin(no relation to Skywalker, I presume ) takes FOREVER to set this baby in motion, and even once he finally finds his pace in this thing, his directorial skills still pale in comparison to Wellman's...at least in THIS genre and THIS film, anyway.

Has anyone yet mentioned how well Gielgud affected that British accent in this thing? OR, how badly Morse's attempts were at it? (...heck, it EVEN made Dick Van Dyke as Bert the chimney sweep sound like a native born East End Londoner by comparison!) LOL Edited by: Dargo2 on May 27, 2013 10:27 AM

LOL Thanks for the confirmation.....I think.

Yep, I think you got him, heuriger. (...now please tell twinkeee Art looks more like Gig or Richard than he does Jean-Paul, if ya would!)

I guess I'll just have to prove it to ya then, twink my dear... Once again, the dude in question here... Gig Young... Richard Anderson... Jean-Paul Belmondo... And so, are ya STILL gonna sit there and tell me that the guy looks more like that funny lookin' Frenchman Belmondo than he does either Gig or Richard??? (,,,and yeah I know a lot o' people think Beldondo is "sexy"...okay then, MAYBE in that weird kinda French way that some people thought Gerald Depardeu was 'sexy"...yep, kinda like how the French think Jerry Lewis is a "comic genius", HUH???!!!) LOL

OOH...OOH! I think I know this guy! That's Gig Young's east Indian half-brother Raj Young-Patel. (...though that IS still just a guess ...I mean doesn't this dude look like Gig?...or, or maybe Richard Anderson...well, I THINK he does anyway..well, more than he does Belmondo, anyway!) Edited by: Dargo2 on May 26, 2013 10:31 PM

Oh yeah, Mimi. Plummer has been known to derisively refer to that film as "The Sound of Mucus" on more than one occasion.

Once again, I absolutely agree with ya on this, Fred. Wellman's "Battleground" and "The Story of G.I. Joe", are two of best WWII films from the perspective of the "Grunts" anyone will ever see. Maybe this is what's "wrong" with war flicks like "The Battle of the Bulge" and "Midway" and a number of other war films with this whole "big picture" philosophy? They seem to want to give us a "history lesson", but while doing this, they miss out presenting the "human factor" in the whole equation. (...btw, another very well made WWII movie which has this "human factor" in spades is "Go For Broke"...that one is also on my list of superior films made on this subject) Edited by: Dargo2 on May 26, 2013 9:06 PM

Gotta agree with ya here, Fred. The opening to this turkey IS a real yawner, alright. But then again, remember, Ken Annakin ain't no William Wellman, dude!!! (...oh, and to answer your question here, believe it or not, there's been a whole mess of well made flicks since 1965...though I know from past experience with you around here, you'll probably find this hard to believe!!!) LOL

>In talking about "dry" humor, what exactly is "wet" humor? Oh, I don't know, finance. Maybe THIS???... (...though remember this is just a guess...I ain't no lexicographer, ya know!)

>Nah, Dargo. I'm from "back east" I grew up in NYC, we asked for a "Coke" or "7UP". Never called it a soda pop. Hmmmm...not accordin' to THIS chart, anyway! Yep, it shows here that you New Yawkers and most of the rest of the northeastern seaboard are/were MUCH more likely to call the stuff "Soda" than us "laid back" California "dudes" and "dudettes"! And which also shows that the folks in the Midwest are prone to use the term "Pop"..."dontcha know"!

>I think this was your best post ever. No nonsense. No whimsy. Just a real honest personal point of view. Thanks for sharing. HEY now, TB! I LOVE MissW's "nonsense" and "whimsy", and are the very things that caused my havin' a mild crush on her, DUDE!!! (...but then again, I'll bet THAT doesn't surprise ya, huh!) LOL

Actually Fedya, this ol' native Californian here remembers mostly using the brand names such as "Coke" or "7-Up" when referring to or ordering a soft drink, back in the day. And, I seldom remember any of my neighborhood pals using the term "soda" or "pop" or even "soda pop", and pretty much referring to soft drinks in the same manner as I did, unless they were recent transplants from "Back East".

AND, let us not forget Fantastic Voyage ! I mean, in what OTHER movie could you find a scene such as THIS where Stephen Boyd is caught checking out his submariner boatmate's "finer points" like this, huh?! (...okay, okay...so there WAS that one short scene in Run Silent, Run Deep where it appears Lancaster is checkin' out Gable for a split second TOO, but THAT doesn't count!!!)