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

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

Visit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.
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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 facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Visit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Visit us at facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 facebook.com/WarMovieTheatre or on Bluesky and Twitter or at our website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.