This article was originally written about programming for the TCM Now Playing newsletter in May 2018.
Throughout Memorial Day weekend, TCM remembers those who have served our country with a marathon of movies covering conflicts involving the U.S. The bulk of the films in our tribute are set during the World War II era, although we include two significant dramas from the American Civil War and one unusual film set during the Korean conflict.
John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage (1951) stars real-life war hero Audie Murphy as a private in the Union Army facing his first battle against Confederate soldiers. In William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion (1956), Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, and Anthony Perkins star as members of an Indiana Quaker family torn between their disapproval of violence and their need to support the cause of the Civil War. Anthony Mann, a veteran director of the Western and film noir, brought elements from those genres to Men in War (1957), in which a detachment of American soldiers are cut off from their division in Korea.
The WWII movies include such classic dramas as: William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), William A. Wellman's Battleground (1949), Henry King's Twelve O'Clock High (1949), Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity (1953), David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), J. Lee Thompson's The Guns of Navarone (1961), John Sturges' The Great Escape (1963), Ken Annakin's Battle of the Bulge (1965), Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Brian G. Hutton's Where Eagles Dare (1968).
Naturally, when it comes to films of WWII, John Wayne gets a subdivision of his own. The Wayne vehicles in our salute are: Edward Dmytryk's Back to Bataan (1945), costarring Anthony Quinn; John Ford's They Were Expendable (1945), costarring Robert Montgomery; Nicholas Ray's Flying Leathernecks (1951), costarring Robert Ryan; George Waggner's Operation Pacific (1951), costarring Patricia Neal; and John Ford's The Wings of Eagles (1957), costarring Maureen O'Hara and Dan Dailey.
Andy Griffith stars in two 1958 service comedies with a WWII background: No Time for Sergeants, a star-making vehicle for Griffith that's set in the U.S. Air Force; and Onionhead, in which Griffith's bumptious character serves in the Coast Guard. Other comedies set during wartime include the film version of the Broadway classic Mister Roberts (1955), directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy and starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, and Oscar winner Jack Lemmon; and Kelly's Heroes (1970), with Clint Eastwood leading an ensemble cast directed by Brian G. Hutton in a story about unruly soldiers serving in France.
Movies relating to wartime events but not focusing on military action include two that fall into the film noir category: Cornered (1945), directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Dick Powell as a flyer in the Royal Canadian Air Force who returns to France to investigate the murder of his French bride; and The Clay Pigeon (1949), directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Bill Williams as a former inmate in a Japanese POW camp who comes home to find he is accused or murder.
The wartime musical Thousands Cheer (1943), directed by George Sidney and intended as a morale-booster for U.S. troops and the folks back home, stars Gene Kelly as a U.S. Army draftee and features a roster of MGM guest stars including Judy Garland, Red Skelton, Lena Horne, and Lucille Ball.
Two 1943 entertainments, Hollywood Canteen and Stage Door Canteen, look at the servicemen clubs operated by, respectively, the movie and Broadway communities. The former featured guest appearances by Bette Davis, John Garfield, Joan Crawford, Jack Benny, Eleanor Parker, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Barbara Stanwyck, and others. The latter had cameos by such stage stars as Katharine Cornell, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Ray Bolger, Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, and Helen Hayes.
Join TCM for these and 10 more war-related films shown in our Memorial Day salute to our brave servicemen and women.
