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Those who fought in World War II are considered the Greatest Generation. And executive producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman paid homage to these young men who risked life and limb during the global conflict in their award-winning 2001 HBO series “Band of Brothers” and 2010’s “The Pacific.” And now they’ve taken to the not-so-friendly skies in their latest World War II series, Apple TV +’s “Masters of the Air.”

Created by John Shiban and John Orloff, “Masters of the Air” is based on the 2007 book: “Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the War Against Nazi Germany,” the series starring Austin Butler focuses on the 8th Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group stationed in England. It was known as the “Bloody Hundredth” because of the high causalty rate.

Watching the series, one can’t help but remember the numerous bombardier films produced by Hollywood...

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By Doug Oswald

Errol Flynn leads a group of American paratroopers into WWII Burma on a pre-invasion expedition in “Objective, Burma!” released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection. The mission for the paratroopers is to parachute into Burma behind enemy lines, destroy a Japanese radar station and meet up at an old British air strip to be picked up and returned to their base in India. Everything goes as planned and they succeed in destroying the radar installation with no casualties. Mission accomplished. There wouldn’t be much of a movie if things ended with a successful mission and rescue. Naturally, the Japanese are at the airfield ready to destroy the soon-to-arrive C-47 transport aircraft. Flynn orders the aircraft to leave them rather than risk their destruction and he takes his men to a more defendable position in the jungle.

Errol Flynn goes to war! One of the last major direct-combat pictures to come out of Hollywood during the war, Raoul Walsh’s finely-crafted ode to the jungle fighters in Burma lets loose a powerful, almost frightening blast of anti-Japanese rage. Errol Flynn earned his pay slugging it out through the swamps, George Tobias provides the Brooklyn humor and Henry Hull the outrage over combat atrocities. And the English were none too happy either, claiming that the movie made it look as if America had done the heavy fighting in what was largely a Brit field of battle.

Objective, Burma!

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1945 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 142 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Errol Flynn, James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias, Henry Hull, Warner Anderson, John Alvin, Mark Stevens, Richard Erdman, Anthony Caruso, Erville Anderson, Hugh Beaumont, Douglas Henderson, William Hudson, Rodd Redwing, George Tyne.

Cinematography: James Wong Howe

Art...

Updated with latest winners: The Peabody Awards revealed its complete list of winners for its 81st edition, recognizing the year’s most compelling and empowering stories in broadcasting and streaming media, topics that in the year 2020 included Covid-19, racial equality, immigration and social justice.

Joining the list of winners that has been rolling out since Monday is Steve McQueen’s anthology series Small Axe, which rounded out this year’s list of Entertainment honorees that include HBO’s I May Destroy You, Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso, CBS’ The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Netflix’s Unorthodox, Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird and Shudder’s Guatemalan folk horror movie La Llorona.

A total of 30 awards were handed out this year for the Peabodys, presented by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. There were 60 nominees this year, with winners selected by 19 jurors who considered 1,300 entries across TV,...

It’s smart, it’s funny, it has a touch of romance… it’s Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett’s entertaining espionage thriller set between the battle lines of the North Africa campaign. Franchot Tone must impersonate a double agent, when the command staff of General Rommel (Erich von Stroheim!) takes over a half-bombed hotel run by the forlorn Akim Tamiroff. Anne Baxter is the French maid desperate to make a deal, with whichever side will help her get what she wants. Even the title of this winner has a clever special meaning.

Five Graves to Cairo

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1943 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Street Date September 29, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Akim Tamiroff, Erich von Stroheim, Peter van Eyck, Fortunio Bonanova.

Cinematography: John F. Seitz

Film Editor: Doane Harrison

Original Music: Miklos Rozsa

Written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett from a play by Lajos Biró...

The war’s just begun, we’re definitely not winning, and your assignment is to make a movie about a tragic defeat that could be the first of many tragic defeats for the U.S.A.. Paramount’s careful morale-building war drama doesn’t exaggerate or over-sentimentalize the brutal fall of a tiny island in the Pacific. John Farrow directs a fine group of actors who knew the film ‘had to say the right things.’ It stands as a fine example of filmmaking reaching for hope in the face of disaster.

The first WW2 Hollywood combat film based on an actual battle is the beautifully made Wake Island. It’s even more beautifully conceived to achieve multiple public relations aims in a time of great crisis. Until 1941 Wake Island had been little more than a stop for Pacific-hopping Pan-American clipper ship airplanes; Japan bombed it a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Arte Johnson, who won an Emmy for his memorable work on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and worked in TV and film for nearly half a century, died early Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, his family said announced. He was 90 and had battled bladder and prostate cancer for the past three years.

Johnson earned three consecutive Emmy noms for Laugh-In from 1969-71, winning the first year. He was part of the politically tinged NBC sketch series’ main cast from its launch in January 1968 until 1971, playing myriad characters in the show that launched the careers of such stars as Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and many others.

Among his most popular characters was Wolfgang, a cigarette-smoking German soldier who believed that World War II was still ongoing, as he scouted the show while hidden behind bushes. He would then invariably comment on the preceding sketch...

Raymond Massey ca. 1940. Raymond Massey movies: From Lincoln to Boris Karloff Though hardly remembered today, the Toronto-born Raymond Massey was a top supporting player – and sometime lead – in both British and American movies from the early '30s all the way to the early '60s. During that period, Massey was featured in nearly 50 films. Turner Classic Movies generally selects the same old MGM / Rko / Warner Bros. stars for its annual “Summer Under the Stars” series. For that reason, it's great to see someone like Raymond Massey – who was with Warners in the '40s – be the focus of a whole day: Sat., Aug. 8, '15. (See TCM's Raymond Massey movie schedule further below.) Admittedly, despite his prestige – his stage credits included the title role in the short-lived 1931 Broadway production of Hamlet – the quality of Massey's performances varied wildly. Sometimes he could be quite effective; most of the time, however, he was an unabashed scenery chewer,...

Sure, Ronald Reagan gave lots of frothy performances in many B movies, but he also earned critical acclaim for roles in "Dark Victory" (1939), "Knute Rockne, All American" (1940), "Desperate Journey" (1942), "Storm Warning" (1951) and "King's Row." Clearly, he was widely respected by his peers -- they elected him president of the Screen Actors Guild -- but was he ever nominated for an Oscar? That's one of the five questions in our latest Academy Awards quiz. Earn 100 points for every correct answer and compete to rise to the top of our contest leader board. "Emmy24" holds the perch position right now, but he's vulnerable. Earn additional points by taking our previous quizzes - click these links: Quiz 1: Who has won the most Oscars for acting (four)? Quiz 2: Who was pregnant when she accepted her Oscar? Quiz 3: Who won Best Actress Oscar for her film debut? Quiz 4: Who never won an Emmy?...

They shall beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks;

One nation shall not raise the sword against another,

neither shall they learn war any more.

Isaiah 2:4

War is a nation’s ultimate commitment of blood and treasure. As such, the stories a people tells about its wars – and don’t tell – and the ways it remembers its wars – or chooses to forget them – tells us much about the kind of people they consider themselves to be at different times in their history, as well as the kind of people they really were…and are.

For most of the 20th century, the war film was a Hollywood staple. From one era to the next, war movies documented the nation’s conflicts, reflected the national consciousness on particular combats as well as on thinking going far beyond any one, particular war. They’ve been propagandistic and revisionist,...

It’s a WWII-fest, with five films starring the legendary Errol Flynn. These adventures from 1942-1945 are a solid showcase of not only the star, but era itself, and the DVD set adds to the effect with some great bonuses. With vintage newsreels, classic cartoons, and more, you can relive the experience of these films like never before.

From a unique period in film history, putting out war adventures with a unique derring-do perspective, and starring the unique screen charm of Flynn, this is a collection with a surprisingly varied appeal. Mostly directed by another legend, Raoul Walsh (White Heat, The Tall Men), the set also manages to deliver an effort of style, with Walsh generally aiming at some manner of art in his semi-pseudo-propaganda vehicles.

Taking a look at the Nazi menace from every angle imaginable, whether as an American pilot, Canadian mountie, or Norwegian villager, Flynn gets a...

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

I really could have done without the over-the-top violence, because I actually found the story behind Kick-Ass (Lionsgate, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 Srp) to be pretty damn good, adapted from the comic book of the same name that envisions what it might be like for a real-life teen to decide to become a superhero-styled vigilante. What elevates it, though, is an impressive cast - including Nic Cage...

“Just give him a sword and let him do his thing,” was the way Errol Flynn described the studio executive’s opinions of him. In his heyday, Flynn was known as the king of Hollywood Swashbucklers. He’s still best remembered today for his tights-and-fights adventures, such as Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, Don Juan, The Prince & the Pauper and most notably The Adventures of Robin Hood. But there was more to Flynn’s career than that.

From the late 1930s through the mid 1940s, the dashing Flynn was one of the two biggest action film stars in the world (the other being John Wayne). Aside from costumed adventures, he also made Westerns (Dodge City; They Died With Their Boots On) and War movies (Dawn Patrol). Although he may have seemed miscast as a cowboy, people accepted it because it was the beloved Flynn in the white hat. And when it came to war films,...

No doubt many prefer the swashbuckling stuff but Errol Flynn distinguished himself just fine in his less popular war films. There are so many special features here I'm just listing them straight from the site but no fan of classic cinema history or Flynn needs to be told to pick this up. 

Buy It Now 

Desperate Journey (1942)

Warner Night at the Movies 1942 Short Subjects Gallery: Vintage newsreel, Oscar-nominated patriotic short The Tanks Are Coming, musical shorts Borrah Minnevitch and His Harmonica School and The United States Army Air Force Band, classic cartoon The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall, trailers of Desperate Journey and 1942's Murder in the Big House

Northern Pursuit (1943)

Warner Night at the Movies 1943 Short Subjects Gallery: Vintage newsreel, wartime short The Rear Gunner, musical short All-Star Melody Masters, drama short Over the Wall, classic cartoon Hop and Go, trailers of Northern Pursuit...