Member Review The Red Badge of Courage

This was yet another case of a film being ruined by studio heads who took the product away from its maker (in this case director John Houston) and re-cutting or editing it to fit a time slot or other usually inappropriate motives. As I recall reading somewhere, it was thought it would be a flop anyway, so shorten it so it would fit on a bill as half of a double feature.
That's too bad. I can't stand hearing about things like that. I always wish they'd kept the full thing.
 
Yep. The good ole WWll. He was sooo proud of serving. He was with the 13th Army Air Force . 44th Squadron, and was primarily in Luzon, New Guines,Manila, Philippines until the war was over.
Shamelessly, I will post this pic of him in New Guinea 😁....
View attachment 399662
I sure do miss him...
The Greatest Generation. We should all thank our lucky stars for what they did and for their sacrifice.

Bill
 
I found it hard to read, not so much due to it being a"downer," but the dialogue seemed a bit too much. Modern attempts to get a dialect on paper err on the side of "less is more." The guy who really brings me down is Ambrose Bierce.

Read the novel "The Friends of Pancho Villa" by James Carlos Blake for a abrupt and interesting take on Bierce's, ah, disappearance. Read it anyway, it's a very good book.
 
Greatest? Note that they raised the most spoiled, self indulgent, delusional and hypocritical generation.
I'd opine that likely part of that was exactly because of their own experiences - I know that after living through both the Depression and WWII at least my mother and possibly my father too, had he bothered to actually think about it, wanted the best for their children and so spoiled my generation. I'll readily admit to the first two of your Four Deadly Sins, though I hope not quite so much the last two!
 
Greatest? Note that they raised the most spoiled, self indulgent, delusional and hypocritical generation.
Irishtom29,

James N's response is on the money. When I wrote my post my thoughts were about the hardships that the citizen soldiers as well as all of the Americans in support of the war effort went through to rally and defeat the Axis forces between 1941 and 1945 and that was about all. You raise a good point, and I while I mean to refrain from modern politics, does the current generation have anywhere near the metal as the forces raised in 1861 or 1941? Personally I know a good number of fine people who have served in recent years but I am concerned about the genuine level of support that they will receive from the Homefront. For me it has been a gift to have known so many WWII veterans and from personal experience they weren't all pushovers with their kids. Did they want a better World for their children after what they saw? No question.

Respectfully,

Bill
 
Irishtom29,

James N's response is on the money. When I wrote my post my thoughts were about the hardships that the citizen soldiers as well as all of the Americans in support of the war effort went through to rally and defeat the Axis forces between 1941 and 1945 and that was about all. You raise a good point, and I while I mean to refrain from modern politics, does the current generation have anywhere near the metal as the forces raised in 1861 or 1941? Personally I know a good number of fine people who have served in recent years but I am concerned about the genuine level of support that they will receive from the Homefront. For me it has been a gift to have known so many WWII veterans and from personal experience they weren't all pushovers with their kids. Did they want a better World for their children after what they saw? No question.

Respectfully,

Bill
BOTH my parents served in WWII - my father was a draftee who was lucky enough to have flat feet, saving him from the infantry and instead winding up with a cushy job as a photographer in the USAAF. (Despite his later tall tales, I don't think he was really an aerial photographer, more likely spending his time in England developing photos instead of taking them.) My mother essentially "followed" him to Wendover Field, Utah where had basic training and she became a Civil Service parachute-packer.
 
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My grandmother worked in parts factories during the war. She wasn´t ¨Rosie the Riveter¨ but the point is similar. She made M1 parts at one point. My grandfather was a foundryman making railroad wheels. He tried to enlist and couldn´t because he was in a war-critical job. Grandma worked alongside men, doing the exact same job for half the pay. Once, she was riding public transportation home after a shift and one of her co-workers said something like ¨I´m making so much money at this job that I hope the war never ends.¨ Another woman in the car, who was carrying a pie at the time and had sons serving, upset the pie over the opinionated woman´s head.
 
I own, but have not read this book. I must say, the posts and different opinions have been interesting to say the least. I do plan on reading it and it's on my list, but that list keeps growing.
That should be doable - as I remember, it's less than 200 pages long and should be a pretty quick read!
 
I've never read the book, but I asked for and got the movie for Christmas. It's short, far shorter than I expected, and I kept seeing actors that were in the Clayton Moore Lone Ranger turn up (the guy who played Butch Cavendish was one of the Union Generals for example, and I saw some other familiar faces), and that distracted me. There's also Andy Devine and the actor who played Riker's brother in "Shane" as the "tall soldier". Familiar faces aside, I very much enjoy how the story stays with the enlisted men, and we only see and know what they see and know. It also strikes me that the exact same story could have been told about a private on either side of the war. Audie Murphy was surely a good choice to play the lead and give the role some authenticity, given his experiences in WW2. Good movie.
 
The storyline in the 'Red Badge of Courage' was a bit light-on for me. However, I thought Audie Murphy had screen presence in the original movie adaptation.
 
That was the first Audie Murphy movie I ever saw as a child and I think it cemented my impression of him as my favorite actor! The movie has a number of scenes that I think were included to help make the connection with the WW2 generation, like the visual of the soldiers wading across the river. That´s not in the book, but the generation who saw the movie would identify with that kind of soldiering.
 
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