"From Workers — To Warriors"
A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.
David Niven
Lieutenant Jim Perry
Stanley Holloway
Pvt. Ted Brewer
James Donald
Pvt. Evans Lloyd
John Laurie
Pvt. Luke
Leslie Dwyer
Pvt. Sid Beck
Hugh Burden
Pvt. Bill Parsons
Raymond Huntley
Pvt. Herbert Davenport
Jimmy Hanley
Pvt. Geoffrey Stainer
William Hartnell
Sgt. Ned Fletcher
A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.
David Niven heads the cast in this engagingly quirky tale that amusingly and poignantly depicts just how the British Army managed to fight during WWII. He is the officer in charge of a collection of men of all ages and from many different backgrounds as they are slowly, but surely, coaxed, cajoled and bullied into a fighting unit that has cohesion, loyalty and friendship. Their training regime would test the best of us, and is carried out with a decent smattering of whinging and groaning, but also with strong senses of humour and of purpose before they are eventually deployed overseas and meet up with bar-owner Peter Ustinov in North Africa as the rout of Rommel's Nazi forces nears it's completion. This has a solid cast - Raymond Huntley, Stanley Holloway, John Laurie, Sam Kidd and Leo Genn to name but a few of the characters who give this much more depth than many of the more propagandist efforts made in the UK (and the USA) during the latter stages of the War. Carol Reed and Eric Ambler have created a great story that showcases perseverance and courage as well as quite a considerable degree of humanity.
During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
A dramatization of the American general and his court martial for publically complaining about High Command's dismissal and neglect of the aerial fighting forces.
An American Army officer is recruited by the yet to exist Israel to help them form an army. He is disturbed by this sudden appeal to his Jewish heritage. Each of Israel's Arab neighbors has vowed to invade the poorly prepared country as soon as partition is granted. He is made commander of the Israeli forces just before the war begins.
A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
During World War II, a young man is called up and, with an increasing sense of foreboding, undertakes his army training ready for D-Day, June 6th, 1944.
During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.
A British Corporal in France finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed. He has to get them back to Britain somehow. Meanwhile, British civilians are being dragged into the war with Operation Dynamo, the scheme to get the French and British forces back from the Dunkirk beaches. Some come forward to help, others were less willing.
War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins Company C, 18th Infantry as this American army unit fights its way across North Africa in World War II. He comes to know the soldiers and finds much human interest material for his readers back in the States. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2000.
Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.