[Bionic Manaus]

Battle of the Bulge (1965)




Directed by

Ken Annakin


Writing credits

Bernard Gordon (front Philip Yordan)

John Melson




Genre: War / Action / Drama (more)


Tagline: The Epic Adventure of the Clash that Turned the Tide of World War II (more)


Plot Summary: In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent this occurrence..




Henry Fonda .... Lt. Col. Daniel Kiley

Robert Shaw .... Col. Martin Hessler

Robert Ryan .... Gen. Grey

Dana Andrews .... Col. Pritchard

George Montgomery .... Sgt. Duquesne

Ty Hardin .... Lt. Schumacher (fake MP)

Pier Angeli .... Louise

Barbara Werle .... Elena (prostitute)

Charles Bronson .... Maj. Wolenski

Hans Christian Blech .... Cpl. Conrad

Werner Peters .... Gen. Kohler

James MacArthur .... Lt. Weaver

Karl-Otto Alberty .... Maj. von Diepel (as Karl Otto Alberty)

Telly Savalas .... Sgt. Guffy

Steve Rowland .... Eddy (Sgt. Guffy's gunner)



Runtime: 167 min

Country: USA

Language: English

Color: Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix: Stereo

Certification: Finland:K-16 / Norway:15 / Sweden:15 / West Germany:16




The Vhs I have of it was upgraded to Dolby Surround, you have some fine actors in this movie a younger than most have seen him Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw the adversary of James Bond In "From Russia With Love". It's hard for me to understand that Robert Shaw was younger than I am when he died. This movie came out the same year I graduated from High school and what a picture on the big screen it was. The Ardennse and Germanies strongiest built diesel fueled Tanks blew the roofs off american sherman gasoline powered tanks and unlike Midway in the Pacific this was one of most strategic blunders of overconfident Allied thinking, only one thing saved them from moving the end of war back a full year. This movie deserves to be on a anamorphic DVD as it was shot in basic stereo.



Your *on* topic comments about this great movie IMHO?

 

[JohnR_IN_LA]

The Americans tanks never could hold up to a German tank in WW2, but the wonderful American airforce did just fine with dealing with the German armor


The Sherman tanks was lousey in "tank vs tank" battle, though the gasoline engine only was partly to blame. The archaic armor of the Sherman was not designed to withstand a high velocity anti-tank round. Also the Sherman had a lousey gun that was only capable of taking out German tanks if it got a lucky shot... it could not pierce their front or turret armor. Patton pleaded before congress for a decent tank. To be fair, the Sherman was reliable and a high quality vehicle, so it often got to the battle unopposed by the quirky German tanks which were more often broken down.


So the German tanks , when they got close enough to engage, usually were able to take out American/British armor, but there were not many German tanks by 1944.... the ones they had were technical marvels though, and beautiful to the military historian. Look up the Jagdpanther, the JagdTiger, the King Tiger, and the Panther..... These tanks all had high tech armor, superior guns, and look light years ahead of anything the Americans had, with the possible exception of the Pershing tank, which showed up basically too late for the war.


The Battle of the Bulge was not the turning point of WW2. The turning point was Stalingrad and Moscow. THe Battle of the Buldge was the last hurrah of the German army. It was more like the last voyage of the Japanese battleship the Yamato, still the largest battleship ever made.. The Japanese sent it towards the allied fleet without even enough fuel to get home.


Likewise The war was already decided by the Battle Of the Bulge, but the Germans decided to take their best equipment and troops left, and make a push to the Atlantic ports, in hopes they could sue UK and US for peace... The Germans armor, like the Japanese fleet, ran out of fuel, and got pounced on by the excellent American/British airforce.


Sorry, that was way off topic haha

 

[Jim S]

I don't know that I would characterize this film as "correct", although I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. There are other war films that provide a more faithful depiction of the events and context of battles. Just off hand I would point to The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, and Black Hawk Down as better examples of faithfully recreating battles (based on my military history readings anyway).


Don't get me wrong though, I've always enjoyed Battle of the Bulge ever since the time I watched it as a kid. However, if someone used this movie to develop an understanding of the battle they would not be getting a sense of the scale and events that transpired over several weeks.

 

[CptnRandy]

I'd also recommend "Band of Brothers".


And for an "after the war" movie, "The Best Years Of Our Lives"


Randy

 

[Cor]

Quote:

The Sherman tanks was lousey in "tank vs tank" battle, though the gasoline engine only was partly to blame. The archaic armor of the Sherman was not designed to withstand a high velocity anti-tank round. Also the Sherman had a lousey gun that was only capable of taking out German tanks if it got a lucky shot... it could not pierce their front or turret armor. Patton pleaded before congress for a decent tank. To be fair, the Sherman was reliable and a high quality vehicle, so it often got to the battle unopposed by the quirky German tanks which were more often broken down.

What the sherman had going for it was numbers. They just cranked those little buggers out till they outnumbered German armor by more than 4 to 1. If you had to waste 4 shermans to take out a Panther it was considered a bargain. (By the officers anyways... I'm not so sure about the allied tank crews.)

 

[JohnR_IN_LA]

Towards the end of the war they started putting a better gun on the Sherman, it was still inferior but... at least it had a hope ..


They made far more of the weaker Shermans though, which basically had no hope of taking out a German tank which was in the proper"hull down" position on a hilltop, as long as the German had ammo...


So what the Allies eventually did was make these Tank Destroyer vehicles, put a 90mm gun on them, and brought them up when needed. These were basically big high velocity guns on tracks (no turrets).


The Russians had much better tanks for tank battles, the Russian T34 tank had the Christie suspension, and could go 20 miles an hour, which was unheard of back then! It could run circles around the German tanks of the era. These tanks were sleek fast and low to the ground, and still had a decent gun.


Interestingly Christie was an American, who sold this superior tank design to the Russians only after the American brass snubbed him.


I still havent seen a satisfying movie about that brief period of human history when brave tank commanders turned the tides of battles ...

 

[Bionic Manaus]

Interesting stories but no input on when the DVD is coming out, yeah well

 

[Grubert]

Why is this a 'correct' World War 2 movie? If you mean historically correct, that is, ahem, incorrect. You'd think Henry Fonda defeated the Germans single-handed.


By the way, overlong teaser thread titles are not very nice.

 

[Bionic Manaus]

You said overly long teaser thread, the movie was made in 1965;how old were you at that time or were you born after 1965? If you are my age you would have been 19, if you were born in 1978 you would have age 3. Unless you knew or seen the movie you wouldn't have a clue and probably say what bulge is this about losing weight.

 

[Grubert]

Oh the humanity...


Your math is wrong but nevermind... You misread me: it's the thread title I object to. Instead, something like 'Battle of the Bulge' - when is it coming to DVD? would make people with related interest and/or information look at the thread.

 

[Bionic Manaus]

Grubert if my math is wrong take that up with Radio Shack they made the calculator, I'll make sure to word it just like you said no correct or incorrect titles just the titles.

 

[JohnR_IN_LA]

Bionic Manaus is our resident writing-challenged trucker, I find his thread titles just fine after I got used to his style.


My brother owns waterfront properties up and down the East coast, you should see his horrible writing, haha.

 

[Bionic Manaus]

John if you guessed I am *talking* not writing a letter your correct, as us rig drivers read newspapers, but we didn't proof read them. I talked to so many drivers who understood everything I said because of our lingo. Every thing was Jake (Jacobs Engine Brake) AKA OK, military would be that's a Roger. Air Force lingo Roger Wilco (Roger~yes__Wilco~will cooperate...Yes I will co-operate). The younger people who have not joined military are literary genious in writing styles, other wise if they were in, it would pass the F***ing Salt and get your face slapped by a parent.

 

[egrady]

The germans used gasoline engines in their tanks, the russians were the ones who used diesel engines.


While one can argue as to the turning point of WW II, I feel it was Hitler's completely senseless act of declaring war on the USA. While it can be argued that russian manpower and american industry crushed germany, it is quite possible that germany might have been able to stalemate russia and britain without our military assistance.


The best WW II movie I've seen is Das Boot. I prefer Battleground to the Battle of the Bulge

 

[Bionic Manaus]

I have "Battleground", Tobruk, and Das Boot~Directors Cut and now I want The Battle of the Bulge I am sick and tired of rewinding the long tape on my crummy Vcr. My most watched movie is DVD "Sink the Bismark", then Midway, Where Eagles Dare. These are all movies that I had in Vhs that I am replacing with DVD sailing the Vhs down the garbage chute for the garbage mens collection. They love it getting the cover art along with in good working order Vhs,I am glad i don't have to rewind it. I like having DVD changers 300 + 1 and no rewinding at all.

 

[kedelbach]

Well, a search for "Stalingrad" turned up this ony lonely topic, and even though it deserves it's own, who can resist reviving a typically wacky Bionic Hobaus thread? Obviously not me...


In a double feature custom made to give me nightmares, I watched German R2 versons of "City of God" and "Stalingrad" last night. 9.99€ each at a local supermarket.

All I had to do was tack on "Full Metal Jacket" and I probably would have died in my sleep, but having to listen to Portugeuse and read German subtitiles in COG, and struggling to translate the stressed out German dialog in Stalingrad saved me from concentrating too much on the horrific images.


Well known in Germany as one of the most anti-war films ever, Stalingrad lived up to the hype. You are dropped in the middle of the German soldiers during the siege of Stalingrad, and see them differently than ever before. Sure, in Das Boot (same director) the Krauts are humanized like in few American war movies, but here we see them as frequently disorganized, fearful, and often inept under the stress of battle. Strangely enough Hogan Heroes is also popular in syndication here...


In retrospect, its hard not to wonder how accurate this film, made by a German for a predominantly German audience, really is. Not in the massive scale of death and horror, but in the attitudes and behavior of the German soldiers. Surely they ran the gammut, but I can't help but think that this paints the German grunts as a fairly shallow, overconfident, borderline incompetant bunch, albeit one that matures and becomes dissillusioned quickly.


You can see where current films like "Saving Private Ryan" got some of their battle filming techniques. Stalingrad is not so slickly polished, and the version I viewed was FAR from reference quality (stereo, pre-special edition DVD, single RCA cable to low-contrast level LCD Proj), but that didn't matter.


Can't help but think how a films about the War on Afganistan and Iraq could parallel this one (in terms of the troops and their experiences and struggles) 10 or 20 years from now.


Stalingrad is an incredible, shocking film. Even if you are already anti-war, but have an interest in spending 2 hours of your life getting a feel for what both sides went through on the ground in Russia in the early 40's, get your hands on the movie, and have a couple shots of good vodka on hand to toast those tough Russian SOBs.


nasdrovia


Kurt


still not ready to discuss City of God...

 

[uzun]

The only "correct" war (not combat) movie in my experience would be Shame[1968]. The film in question, Battle of the Bulge has been showed in HD quite a bit lately on HDNet. It's a sometimes exciting, highly contrived, totally inaccurate story very loosely based on the Battle of Ardennes. I know we don't expect history out of Hollywood but in this case a history channel look at the actual battle would be far more rewarding than this film is, which introduces a number of changes in the name of bombast and at the expense of accuracy. In this case the actual history makes a far more compelling story than what's contained in the film.

 

[JeffKB]

I enjoyed watching this film as a kid, and I still do, but I have to agree that it's about as historically inaccurate as you can get. Just read a good book on the Battle of the Bulge and you'll understand what I mean. I always thought the most ridiculous scene was the large tank battle at the end. Nevermind that this never really happened, but the actual battle took place in wintry conditions and the tank battle at the end appeared to be filmed in a desert outside LA!!!

 

[FoxyMulder]

I thought Battle of the Bulge was due to be released on DVD this year, supposed to be out in February in the UK and April for America yet seems to have been delayed so i would expect later this year.

 

[rto]

Quote:

Originally posted by uzun The only "correct" war (not combat) movie in my experience would be Shame[1968]. The film in question, Battle of the Bulge has been showed in HD quite a bit lately on HDNet. It's a sometimes exciting, highly contrived, totally inaccurate story very loosely based on the Battle of Ardennes. I know we don't expect history out of Hollywood but in this case a history channel look at the actual battle would be far more rewarding than this film is, which introduces a number of changes in the name of bombast and at the expense of accuracy. In this case the actual history makes a far more compelling story than what's contained in the film.

I couldn't agree more with that assessment. My grandfather ( who died before I was born ) Was the commanding general of the 78th div. Artillery under Omar Bradley. I have a complete collection of battle maps showing the movements of all the forces involved through the entire German offensive and eventual retreat.