This inspirational 1980 film stars Robert Urich as standout Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rocky Bleier and Art Carney as Steelers owner Art Rooney. Considered too small and slow to play in the NFL, Bleier proved the critics wrong by making the Pittsburgh Steelers roster. While in his rookie season, he was drafted into the Army, served a tour of duty […]
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Question: My father was in the Army during World War II and had these on his uniform. What do they mean?Answer: Those are “ribbon bars” and they serve as a colorful shorthand resume of the wearer’s military career. The ribbons pictured were custom-made in the post-WW II era and sewn on your father’s uniform, unlike the standard “pin back” version […]
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An Alfred Hitchcock thriller, this 1942 film taps into a very real fear in wartime America: sabotage! Robert Cummings plays Barry Kane, a defense worker in California falsely accused of setting fire to the aircraft plant where he works. He escapes the authorities and sets off on a cross-country journey to track down the real saboteur. In the process he […]
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Drafted in 1958, Elvis Presley had just spent two years in the Army, mostly in Germany with the 3rd Armored Division, when he filmed “G.I. Blues.” The musical comedy was his comeback film and the first chance fans had to see him in action in a long time. Presley is cast as a guitar-playing GI named Tulsa MacLean who also […]
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Based on the novel by Irwin Shaw, this 1958 feature was nominated for three Academy Awards and features an all-star cast including Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin, Maximilian Schell and Hope Lange. It begins in pre-war Germany, with Brando playing ski instructor Christian Diestl. We later find ourselves in New York City as Michael Whiteacre, a show biz personality […]
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This 1951 classic starring Van Johnson tells the true story of the U.S. Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team during WW II. They were the most decorated unit of its size in the history of the U.S. Army, a remarkable feat considering the unit was comprised entirely of Japanese Americans, many of whom came directly from the internment camps set up […]
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Called “an ingenious thriller” by The New Yorker, this 1965 film is based on the premise of an American intelligence officer being kidnapped and drugged by the Nazis in 1944, six days before D-Day. He is spirited to Germany, where he is made to believe he is recovering from amnesia in an American military hospital in 1949, after the war […]
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This isn’t the famous, fictional “From Here to Eternity,” it’s the fascinating, real-life story of WW II Marine Guy Gabaldon. A Mexican-American kid living on the streets of East Los Angeles, Gabaldon was taken in by a Japanese-American family who helped turn his life around. As World War II exploded, the nation turned on its residents of Japanese descent, forcibly […]
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This 1948 romantic comedy explores the stark reality of post-WW II Berlin. Directed by Hollywood legend Billy Wilder and starring Marlene Dietrich, John Lund and Jean Arthur, the film revolves around a congressional fact-finding mission to investigate the morale of the 12,000 U.S. troops occupying the city, who are described as “being infected by a kind of moral malaria.” A […]
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This 1952 movie is realistic, stark and unsentimental, but gripping and absolutely worth watching. It was filmed in the German cities of Wurzburg, Nuremberg and Mannheim, amid actual destruction and bombed-out buildings that remained from World War II. This also resulted in unparalleled accuracy in the uniforms, equipment, weapons and vehicles used, as most, if not all, were original and […]
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