Everybody has that one favourite... the one film that inspired your nine year old self to rush upstairs and recreate the entire episode in miniature. I'll disclose my own personal Oscar winner later on and I hope you'll add yours, but let's have a look at some of my nominations.
Television in the UK in the 1970's wasn't the festival of choice you have today. We were literally restricted to just three channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Whilst the two main channels did have war films on from time to time, the leader was BBC2, with a regular routine of black and white war films from the 50's interspersed with newer colour films from the 1960/70s. As mentioned in previous blogs, my dad was the guardian of the TV remote and Sunday afternoons were strictly reserved for the weekly war offering. Saturday mornings were also a good time to quench the thirst, particularly if recruitment to the ranks at the local toy shop was not possible that day.
If you asked me today what makes a good war film, I would certainly include a sophisticated and detailed storyline, with a character background leading to the main action. However, my childhood form would immediately dismiss any film that concentrated on plot rather than action and my flame of interest would only flicker when the battle started! This meant that classics like "Ice Cold in Alex", "Where Eagles Dare", "Guns of Navarone","Von Ryans Express", "The Eagle has Landed" etc (the list is endless) whilst absolute favourites today, were never top of my list at the time.
One genre that did particularly appeal was the cavalry charge. Errol Flynn's historically outrageous "Charge of the Light Brigade" prompted massed ranks of Timpo 7th Cavalry and Britains Deetail Napoleonic Hussars and Cuirassiers charging headlong against a line of Turks and Arabs and into a barrage of projectiles fired by Britains cannons. Like the writers of most of Flynns films, my battles were rarely period accurate!
The "American wild west" provided many scenarios for bloodshed on the carpet. Like many people of his generation, my dad had been brought up on cowboys and indians and it was his preferred genre. For me, the bog standard cowboy western didn't cut it, unless it included a massed attack on a fort or the 7th Cavalry in full charge. Flynns " They Died With Their Boots On" and the Duke himself, John Waynes "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" are suitable candidates for the best in this area, but my own favourite will be mentioned later! One of my fondest toys was a Timpo fort, scene of many an Indian attack by Deetail,Herald, Timpo and Airfix braves.
As for "historically accurate", there are two productions that stood out (and still do) for me, with both encouraging a frantic recruitment of boxes of Airfix 1/72 toy soldiers and sets. "Waterloo", probably one the greatest war films ever made, had Rod Steiger as the would-be conqueror of Europe matched against Christopher Plummer's rigidly British portrayal of the Duke of Wellington. The battle scenes were simply incredible, from the opening artillery rounds, through Neys disastrous cavalry charge, to the climatic last stand of the Imperial Guard. The Battle of Waterloo farmhouse set from Airfix was the first of many purchases of their range, with many more infantry, Hussars, Cuirassiers, Prussians and horse artillery added in huge numbers. The set itself included Hougoumont, with an accessory pack and a number of boxes of troops. At its peak, my Airfix Waterloo re-enactment consisted of around two thousand figures. On a more modern front, "The Longest Day" created another surge of dipping into Airfix's incredible range of products. The pontoon bridge, gun emplacement set and coastal defence provided a solid sea wall, defended by Airfix German Infantry, Paratroops and even Afrika Korps to repel the US Marines, British Infantry,Paratroopers and Commandos.
If you are still with me, we now come to both my favourite genre and also my choice of movie for the title of "Best War Film To Launch A Thousand Battles"! I like to call this group "Against All Odds" (yep, I'm a Phil Collins fan), with the storylines basically a smaller force of troops fighting against overwhelming odds to achieve either victory or immortality. "Zulu" would certainly be up there as a film itself, but the lack of toy soldiers of that era in my childhood meant stretching the Flynn-like historical accuracy even further! "55 Days at Peking", commemorating the Boxer rebellion against the foreign powers at the end of the 19th century was fantastic for allowing uniformed troops from different periods to come together to fight against a large army of literally anybody with a spear or sword. So I had Timpo and Deetail Legionaries fighting alongside 7th Cavalry, Napoleonic British and French, against knights,indians,arabs and others ( I did say many of my battles would not pass the accuracy test!). "The Magnificent Seven" led to many Timp and Deetail Mexicans against Cowboys ( although I think I ended up with a Magnificent 27).
Ok... drumroll please! My personal winner of the Oscar goes to a lesser known film from 1962. " The 300 Spartans" starring Richard Egan as King Leonidas, depicts the heroic Spartan stand against the vast Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae. I still remember the first time I watched this cinematic triumph, on a Saturday morning while still recovering from a bout of flu. Unlike the recent flamboyant movie depicting events, this film was a basic sword and sandal tale, typical of many that originated from the Mediterranean film industry during the 1960's. What I loved about this film was that the action came pretty quickly in the movie and carried on until the credits started rolling. The magnificent uniforms of the Spartans and the ensuing battle scenes just lit a spark in me that I have never forgot. A month later, I had amassed probably a hundred Britains Herald Trojans, through begging my dad and swapping with other kids ( I remember losing a particularly favourite Dinky US Jeep for 20 Herald Trojans). These figures were, in my view, some of the best plastic toy soldiers ever made. My personal favourites were the two sword and shield figures in action pose. As, like the Zulu period, Persian figures were pretty non existent, the Persian army to fight them consisted of virtually any figure with a sword or spear. I lost count of the number of times these Herald Trojans held a limited space between the sideboard and the table, until they were wiped out by vastly superior numbers ( just like the real thing, minus the table and sideboard). They are still to this day, my favourite toy soldiers.
I'm sure you will all have your own personal favourite film and battle memories, feel free to share them in the comments!