TWO WOMEN (1960)

               ”Two Women” was co-written and directed by Vittorio de Sica (“Bicycle Thieves”). It was based on the novel The Woman from Ciociaria. It was originally to star Anna Magnani with Sophia Loren playing her daughter. Magnani did not want to play mother to Loren and backed out. Loren was recast as the mother although she was only 25 years old at the time. This means she would have been 13 when she gave birth. Her performance was lauded and she became the first actress or actor to win an Oscar for a foreign language film. Jean-Paul Belmondo was cast because French investors insisted on a French actor playing a prominent role. His voice was dubbed for the Italian release. The film was a big hit.  

               The film starts in Rome in 1944. The Allies are nearing the capital. It is coming under increased air bombardment. Cesira (Sophia Loren) is a war widow who runs a shop. She decides to leave with her 12-year-old daughter Rosetta (Eleonora Brown). The walk to Cesira’s hometown of Ciociaria which is in the mountains. Along the way they are strafed by a plane, but the town is a calm in the storm. She meets the local intellectual. Michel (Belmondo) falls in love with Cesira. He is a pacifist, but will be dragged into participation with tragic results. The war finally comes to the idyllic town and the two women decide to return to Rome, which has been liberated by the Allies. That rape scene that the movie has been forewarning about will occur on this journey.

               “Two Women” is a dominated by Loren. She is outstanding in what may be her best performance. She won 22 international awards, including the best performance award at Cannes and the Best Actress award at the Academy Awards (an event she did not attend because she feared she would faint when her name was called). Belmondo and Brown are fine. The film is best enjoyed as an acting showcase. It is very much a woman-oriented war movie. Cesira represents all the women impacted by war atrocities. In particular, Italian women who were commonly subjected to rape by both sides. You also get a taste of civilian life in war-torn Italy. In this respect it is a companion to “Rome, Open City” and gives the rural perspective.

               The movie is appropriately titled because it is the story of the relationship between two women and how they are impacted by war. Cesira and Rosetta are very close, so you dread what is coming for them. It is clear that something is going to happen to them because the movie is strongly anti-war. You just don’t know when the trauma is coming or how it will occur. In fact, aside from two strafings, the two manage to avoid the war until deep into the film. When it happens, the movie takes a jarring turn. The two women react differently to the trauma. One theme of the film is the loss of innocence as portrayed by the Rosetta character.

               Although not a true story, the movie is based on the Maroccinate. This term applies to a series of mass rapes by Moroccan Goumiers. They were French colonial troops who developed a reputation for horrible atrocities against Italian civilians, women and men. The most infamous incidents occurred after the Battle of Monte Cassino. In the aftermath of the battle, the Goumiers took the harshness of the battle out on villages in the vicinity. The movie comes nowhere near the incredible debauchery committed by these undisciplined soldiers. While possibly exaggerated, the atrocities undoubtedly occurred. The movie gives no context to its rapes. It appears to be a wrong place at the wrong time situation. I theorize that the French investors were not keen on financing a movie that emphasized atrocities by French troops. But black French colonial troops…

GRADE  =  B-

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (2025)

                 The eagerly awaited documentary series “The American Revolution” premiered tonight. It has been long in the making. Directed by Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, it covers the American Revolution starting with the British actions that led to the rebellion. The shooting lasted 165 days and took place in 150 locations. 100 new maps were created. The largest replica of a redoubt in America was built. The series is narrated by Peter Coyote and has an all-star roster of voices including Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Jeff Daniels, and Ethan Hawke.

                 The first episode is entitled “In Order to Be Free”. It starts off shaky by trying to link the Iroquois confederation with the Revolution. Ben Franklin did use it as a template for his urging the creation of a union. While true, it’s a stretch to link the Iroquois to the American republic. It comes off as an attempt to force Native Americans into the series. And yet, when it covers the French and Indian War nothing is said about most of the Indians siding with the French. However, it does focus on the anger of colonists when the British government prohibited settlement west of the Appalachians. This was one log on the fire that will become the revolution. Having taught the Revolution, I would not put relations with the Indians high on a list of causes of the Revolution. The series takes a similar approach to slavery in the colonies. This of course is used to up the irony that the colonists were fighting for liberty and yet they allowed slavery. That is certainly inexcusable, but I do not view it as a cause of the Revolution. This information would have been better placed in the discussion of the Declaration of Independence, specifically its reference to “all men are created equal.”

Early in the series we are introduced to George Washington. He will obviously be a central figure in the series. It will be interesting to see how many negative aspects of his personality and actions will be covered in the series. Most Americans will learn for the first time that Washington started the war and later came close to being killed with Braddock’s force in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. Washington’s bitterness about not being offered a commission in the British army is used to foreshadow his participation in the rebellion. Washington will be one amongst many key figures that are quoted in the series. Burns has managed to find some common people who left primary source material. I think we will see these individuals pop up occasionally to give a different perspective. I predict Joseph Plumb Martin will be a frequent source for what Continental soldiers went through.

The first episode covers from 1754 to 1775. It is outstandingly educational and covers all the greatest hits like the Stamp Act, Boston Massacre, and Boston Tea Party. It concludes with Lexington and Concord. This segment is excellent as it blends Burns’ famous location shots with reenactors. But the real strength of the series is the paintings that play the role photography played in the Civil War series. The paintings include portraits of all the historical figures. I did not realize that you can find numerous paintings for a power point on the Revolution. Another strength are the maps. The effort put into them is clear. The maps are animated with arrows showing movement. They are great.

The series will not disappoint. (Unless you are British.) So far it has not been overly patriotic. In fact, it has emphasized some negative aspects of the Revolution. It is not interested in making the British the villains. So far, I have not noticed any link to our current political situation. The series does not make a great case for the rebellion. Taxation without representations get a shout out, but the episode does not debate the causes. Perhaps this will come in the Declaration of Independence segment. Based on the coverage of Lexington and Concord, I look forward to the other battles.

GRADE = A

STALINGRAD (1990)

 

                       “Stalingrad” was written and directed by Yuri Ozerov. It was co-produced by the Soviet Union and East Germany. Ozerov directed the “Liberation” series as an answer to “The Longest Day” which he felt short-changed the Soviet contribution to victory in WWII. “Stalingrad” is a sequel to his film “Battle of Moscow”. In 1965, he was awarded the Honored Artist of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). Warner Brothers agreed to help finance the film if the American actor Powers Booth was cast. Many of the extras were Soviet soldiers.

                       The movie starts with Hitler telling Gen. Von Bock about his plan to take the Caucusus. They will be the first of many famous WWII figures to appear in the film. The plot is going to jump between German command decisions to Soviet ones. Stalin (Archil Gomiashvili) meets with his generals, including Zhukov (Mikhail Ulyanov). The movie was made during Perestroika, so it was safe for Ozerov to accurately portray Stalin as not believing the Caucusus was the target of the German summer offensive. There is some combat between the headquarters scenes. There are plenty of tanks roving the countryside. Maps with arrows provide background.

                       The movie is basically a series of vignettes about the battle. Some of these include a Spanish soldier serving with the Red Army receiving a medal and breaking into a song. Stalin compliments a general for bayonetting 22 Germans. He tells him “Cruelty is a necessary quality for a front commander.” (I have seen a lot of Soviet movies and I can tell you this is not the way saintly Soviet officers are depicted.) Khrushchev’s son kills a comrade when trying to shoot a bottle of his head. Churchill visits Moscow. Hey, where’s the second front? Germans cross the Don River. The action is epic, but lame. Every time a tank is destroyed it is from an explosion in its rear. There are also a lot of buildings that get blown up. Naked Soviet women soldiers are sprayed. Full frontal nudity in a war movie. I guess that was glasnost.  Stalingrad is bombed by very fake-looking planes which makes sense since the city is a model. Powers Boothe is Gen. Chuikov! The Russians make an anti-tank minefield by planting Molotov cocktails that are then shot when the tanks get near. Hey, AI. Russian infantry make frontal attacks against machine guns to patriotic music. A German pilot is given to civilian women. This will not end well for him. A German tank runs over a statue of Stalin. (Very gutsy, 1990 Soviet filmmaker.) Pavlov’s House gets a brief shout out. House-to-house fighting. Zhukov launches the counteroffensive. Goering’s air supply effort fails. Manstein fails to break through to the Germans trapped in the city. German prisoners march by. Stalin refuses to trade Von Paulus for his own captured son. A narrator criticizes Stalin’s tyranny and cult of personality!

                       “Stalingrad” is educational for those unfamiliar with the battle. It covers the battle from preliminaries to the end. It does this by covering commanders as well as some common soldiers (not any Germans). The film does a good job depicting the German perspective. This was probably to attract a German audience. It is the rare WWII movie that portrays Stalin, Hitler, and Churchill. The acting is nothing special and surprisingly, Boothe takes the trophy. He is good as Gen. Chuikov and he gets to say: “Well fuck their soul into God.” The combat is brief in the first half, but picks up in the second half. It is marred by silly deaths. It turns out that real soldiers do not know how a soldier dies. It’s not just an extra problem. There is a subplot involving spies that goes nowhere.  

                       The movie is one of several movies about the Battle of Stalingrad. It is somewhere in the middle of the pack. It’s fairly accurate, but it does throw in some head-scratching stuff like the Molotov cocktail minefield. It get Stalin right, so if you hate him, this movie is for you. The movie did not do well probably because by 1990, Stalin was not looking so bad. Or maybe because the film is not very entertaining. Here is my ranking of them:

1.   Stalingrad, Dogs Do You Want to Die?

2.  Enemy at the Gates

3. Stalingrad (1993)

4. Stalingrad (1990)

5. Stalingrad (2013)

GRADE  =  C

DESTINATION GOBI (1953)

                       “Destination Gobi” is a film by Robert Wise (“The Desert Rats”, “Run Silent, Run Deep”, “The Sand Pebbles”). It was based on the article in Colliers magazine entitled “Ninety Saddles for Kengtu” by Edmund G. Love. Ernest Borgnine claimed that his character in “McHale’s Navy” was named after Richard Widmark’s character in this movie. It was very loosely based on the Sino-American Cooperative Organization which worked with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). It set up operations in the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia. It provided meteorology reports which were important for the US Navy operating in the Pacific. It also monitored Japanese aircraft and gathered intelligence.

                       The film opens with: “In the Navy records in Washington, there is an obscure entry reading "Saddles for Gobi." This film is based on the story behind that entry, one of the strangest stories of World War II.” It is 1945 and CPO Sam McHale (Widmark) is looking forward to returning to the USS Enterprise. How would he like to do exactly the opposite thing? He does not volunteer to go to a desert, but he is ordered to go to the Gobi Desert. McHale works under Lt. Commander Hobart Wyatt (Russell Collins). They come into contact with local Mongolians led by Kengtu (Murvyn Vye). Wyatt enlists the tribe by giving them saddles for their horses. Training montage! Unfortunately for the Mongols, the friends of our enemy are our enemy, so Japanese planes bomb the Mongol camp. This ends their weather forecasting and their alliance with Kengtu. Or does it? McHale has to lead his crew 800 miles to the coast. They have not seen the last of the Mongols or the Japanese. It’s an odyssey that includes a prison camp that they escape from and a Chinese junk that is chased by a Japanese destroyer. Spoiler alert: they use powder from bullets to fire a cannon to sink the warship.

                       “Destination Gobi” is a trifle that has understandably been forgotten. It tells the story of an operation that did not deserve coverage. I suppose weathermen consider it to be a must-see movie, but for the rest of us, it lacks suspense. And that is after the movie clearly greatly enhances the actual story of the unit. Surprisingly, while the screenwriter tries to add action to an otherwise boring story, he avoids the cliché of unit dysfunction. Only one American complains a lot. There is a bit of a twist involving Kengtu which involves the small world that Hollywood characters live in. This all leads to a battle with a Japanese warship that is one of the most ridiculous naval combats ever to grace the silver screen. On the plus side, Richard Widmark stars in the movie.

GRADE  =  C