The Big Lift (1950) - Decent film about an important story. When the Soviets try to starve West Berlin in order to get the Western Allies (UK, USA & French) to withdraw from West Berlin, the only way to keep that part of the city alive is to fly everything in by air. The film suffers due to the use of actual US Air Force personnel who had participated in the Berlin Airlift to play themselves, so much of the acting is stiff. Montgomery Cliff does a decent job as do the other professional actors.
4/8
I rated higher but I really like Cliff and movies set in post-war recovery, that's my bias.
War movies made during the war. Maybe my imagination but I find these movies to be unexpctedly less rah-rah (not counting comedies) than post war movies. Two movies ranked well but I still consider under-ranked on imdb are Wake Island and Dive Bomber.
Wake Island 7/8, -1 for a bi-plane clip that somehow got inserted, repeatedly. It’s about the defense of Wake Island immediately after Pearl Harbor attack. Battles in the air and on the ground kept the stress levels high and they did not avoid the realities of war. Something I had expected for a movie made during the war. Lead Brian Donlevy was the Major and Macdonald Carey represented the civilian engineers caught on the island. I think typical of the times, a very serious movie will have vignettes of slap-stick. William Bendix (nominated) and Robert Preston do the honors. The Japanese were depicted honestly, not as stereotypes. The acting during battles is very under-stated. No yelling, “let’s get’em boys” kind of thing. The Americans under stress of battle could be very stone faced. It’s not “inspiring” but honestly, it is what I would expect to be “real” and focused but these depictions I speculate as the reason the movie isn’t higher rated.
A small powerful scene showed to ME this movie is being made for and shown to people who are presently experiencing the war as opposed to one made much later. People today, even the 70s asked about WWII would say it was between the US and Germany/Japan. People of the day, were aware the real sequence. The setting is just after word of Pearl Harbor. A pilot asks a mechanic with an accent, where he’s from. The mechanic replies “Poland.” The pilot winces. No big exposition or explanation, that audience doesn’t need it. They know the war in Europe has devastated Poland. They know what has happened to the people there. The mechanic implies the American could not know the effects of war like he does. The pilot says his wife is in Pearl Harbor. 15 seconds and these two understand each other perfectly. Amazing scene and the tension from that point on is intense.
Dive Bomber 8/8. Probably not an 8/8 but it’s about military surgeons tackling the problem of pilot blackouts in their dive turns and upper atmospheres leading into WWII and I really like all those topics so to me, it’s an 8. I don’t know how historically accurate it is but the technology of the times was real. Leads Errol Flynn (surgeon) and Fred Macmurry (pilot). Again vignettes of slap-stick involving a couple male nurses and one of their wives that would seem out of place in a post-Vietnam made WWII movie, but they keep the movie from depressing. I think that is the writers/directors recognizing that war is on and they have a role to play. Even though there’s not a single battle, it’s all stateside, the realities and costs of war are well realized.
Errol Flynn again impressed me. Before Operation Burma my whole opinion of him as foppish was generated by a clip of him in tights swinging on a rope as Robin Hood and I think his depiction in “The Aviator.” He did not chew scenery, shared the screen well. He was a very good actor. A comment in his wiki that he aged fast because of his life style is no joke either though, it can be seen in his movies.