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

Definitely Not Vietnam Month comes to a frankly confusing conclusion with a movie that everyone thinks is about Vietnam, but which Duncan argues is actually about something else.

Apocalypse Now is Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 exploration of the madness of war. Making it turned into its own craziness, as costs spiraled, Martin Sheen had a heart attack and Marlon Brando was difficult even by his own high standards.

Joining us is Nick Dent of the Brisbane Times.

Next week: Duck Soup.

Definitely Not Vietnam Month rolls on with The Wild Bunch, a 1969 film so violent it had viewers throwing up in the foyer. Director Sam Peckinpah was clear that he wanted to bring the violence of war, especially the war in South East Asia, into cinemas, and if he had to fire live ammunition at his crew to do that, then he would. The film pioneered a wealth of new techniques, with fast cuts and slow motion evoking the chaos of combat. Is it a war film? Did it chance the course of a different 1969 Western? And will Duncan ever tell his friends about his podcast?

Next Week: Apocalypse Now.

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Definitely Not Vietnam Month rolls on with a film about a US force with superior equipment and training going into a swamp, upsetting the locals, and being killed them. Yep, definitely not about Vietnam. Is this the first time that Nastiest Nazi has been won by a piece of geography? And who exactly are the baddies here?

Next week: The Wild Bunch.

Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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Definitely Not Vietnam Month takes us to a galaxy far, far away as we discuss a 1977 film about a small resistance movement taking on and beating a powerful empire.

Joining us to explain that Darth Vader isn't actually in Star Wars is historian of the universe Chris Kempshall, while zipping by in his X-Wing with memories of the shoot is actor Jack Klaff, who played one of the pilots to take on the Death Star.

Rob wants to know whether anyone involved in the film understood what they were making, but Duncan's big question is about Imperial health and safety policies.

Next week: Definitely Not Vietnam Month continues with Southern Comfort

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Definitely Not Vietnam Month opens with one of the greatest films ever to be made that definitely wasn't about the Vietnam War. Robert Altman's 1970 debut M*A*S*H was the tale of the 4077th Army hospital in the Korean - repeat Korean - War. It defied cinematic conventions, with no story arcs, overlapping dialogue, and a cynical attitude to life right from the opening song. The studio didn't expect much, but it was a critical and commercial hit, spawning a long-running sitcom and putting rocket boosters under the careers of not just Altman but also stars Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould.

Duncan and Rob weren't sure how it had aged, but guest Joe Twyman, who spent three years as a "Fobbit" in Baghdad, argues that it's the most authentic portrayal of life on a military base that he's ever seen.

Next week, Definitely Not Vietnam Month continues with an obscure 1977 film called Star Wars.

Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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Near the top of any list of war films, Full Metal Jacket was Stanley Kubrick's bleak take on Vietnam. It gave us cinema's greatest drill sergeant, a script full of unforgettable lines, and an Asian country as it could only look if it had been filmed in an East London gasworks.

Joining us is Sarah Ditum, who's been fascinated by the film since growing up near a military base where all the dads loved the movie. Her book Toxic: Women, Fame and The Noughties is about misogyny in culture. Will this film's female characters offer a chance to discuss this subject? Her conclusions may surprise you.

Next week, Definitely Not Vietnam Month kicks off with MASH.

Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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A rogue Russian submarine, heading for the US coast: does the captain plan to defect or start a nuclear war? Based on Tom Clancy's bestselling technothriller, this was a Cold War movie released just as the Cold War ended. Gripping from the first scene, it was a masterclass in film-making, helped by a stellar supporting cast, including Sam Neill and Tim Curry, both taken from us this year.

Next week: Full Metal Jacket.

Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

Visit us at https://www.facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre/ or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

Visit us at https://www.facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre/ or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

Visit us at https://www.facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre/ or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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"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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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: Gettysburg

Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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 Patriot

Drop us a line! Send comments and suggestions to warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

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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 warmovietheatre@gmail.com.

Would you like to know more? See the list of films we'd like to do? Buy merch? Visit our website: https://warmovietheatre.com/

Visit us at https://www.facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre/ or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.

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