Battle of the Bulge is a war epic based on the real battle which ranged across Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg during the Second World War. The movie was released in 1965 on the 21st anniversary of the battle. The movie starred Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Telly Savalas, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews and Charles Bronson. The Director Ken Annakin had reorganized the chronological events of the battle for maximum impact.
The movie begins with Lieutenant Colonel Riley and his fellow officer flying re-con over the Ardennes forest to check on German positions. Col Riley has his suspicions about a German counterattack and is not taken seriously. The war is dragging itself to the end and all the allied troops are in a complacent mood. When Riley produces pictures of a Tiger tank on the move it is deemed as a coincidence by his superiors, General Grey and Col Pritchard.
Riley, convinced that something is brewing on the German side leaves to collect evidence to the Siegfried line. Here he interviews some German PO W’s captured by Major Walenski and Captain weaver. He finds all the PO W’s are teenagers and feels that experienced German soldiers are withdrawn to prepare for the ultimate battle. Again his suspicions are dismissed by his superiors.

But actually German are undertaking massive preparations to mount an attack on the allied positions. This is led by Colonel Hessler who is heading to the town of Ambleve to see Gen Kohler to plan the attack. He is shown a massive contingent of Tiger tanks, arms and heavy ammunition. Gen Kohler tells him that he has all the fuel necessary for 50 hrs of battle after which they have no supplies. Hessler feels that he can decimate the allies with this fire power.
When the GI’s are asleep Hessler launches his attack and completely decimates the allied positions. Major Walenski tries to withdraw to the Belgium town to fight another day. But the SS troops are disguised as Americans and rearrange the signs dispersing a confused allies and in the end massacring the whole unit.
Gen Gray, Colonel Pritchard, and other officers are evacuated from the the head quarters and ask the men to fight till the last stand. Kiley meanwhile deduces that the Germans are low on fuel and devices a strategy to slow the attack so that the fuel is used up. In the mean time the Germans led by Lt. Schumacher are disguised as Americans and intercept these messages. Many Soldiers fight for their loved ones decimated in Ambleve, and Hessler in his desperation attacks the fuel depot. In this ultimate battle scenes you find an injured Riley and a host of other officers defend the depot. They use barrels of gasoline as burning missiles and hurl them down to the advancing Tiger tanks. The American tanks are pounded but they stand their ground and retreat slowly, hastening the burning up of fuel by the Germans. A desperate Hessler tries to go it alone and launches an attack on the Germans and his tank is blown up by the gasoline maelstrom.
With their fuel completely used up and their arms rendered useless the Germans abandon their positions and the battle is won. In the last scene the German loss is shown with Hessler’s Man Friday Conrad disgusted with the battle and its cruelties throwing off the gun and heading home on the Siegfried line. There are lot of historical inaccuracies but the movie is a brilliant portrayal of the battle where the allies were with their back up to the wall, but still rallied to win. Good watch for action movie buffs.

In Harm’s Way is a 1965 American epic war film produced and directed by Otto Preminger and starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Carroll O’Connor, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Burgess Meredith, Brandon De Wilde, Jill Haworth, Dana Andrews and Henry Fonda.
This is an epic war film released in 1965 and is one of the last John Wayne movies which is in black and white. After this movie the color era really begins. The title of the movie is derived from the quote by American revolutionary hero John Paul Jones “I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.”
The central character is Rockwell Torrey played by John Wayne who is a second generation naval officer and a navy academy graduate. After a disastrous campaign against the Japanese in which his ship is torpedoed he is shunted out to a desk job. During the fag end of the war he is promoted to the post of Rear Admiral and given a crucial job aboard a cruiser. He is involved with a pretty naval nurse and yearns for an emotional anchor in his life after his divorce. His son is an ensign with the navy and is estranged with his father.

Another important character is Captain Paul Eddington (played by Kirk Douglas), a wayward officer, taken to drunkenness because of his wife’s infidelity. He resigns from the cruiser and returns to surface navy as an officer in charge of warehouses. And then his wife is killed during the raid on Pearl Harbor while she was having a romantic tryst with another officer. This tragedy further brings down Paul Eddington until Torrey reaches out to him to be a part of the mission. Tom Tryon, a junior grade officer, just out of the naval academy, presents a complete opposite of Paul Eddington.
He has a loving wife, a stable marriage and has every emotional support which Torrey and Eddington crave. As the story progresses, Eddington, in his drunken fits, rapes Torrey’s son’s fiancée’, nurse Annalee Dohrn. She commits suicide by consuming sleeping pills. But Torrey feels his need for the mission. Eddington sort of redeems himself by giving advance warning of the huge Japanese fleet and thus sacrificing himself for the success of the mission. This movie is considered as a classic World War epic and in a side role, indicts all the bureaucratic wrangles and political manipulations that a servicemen face while doing duty for the nation.
This movie was nominated for the Oscar for the “Best Cinematography” in the year 1965. It is mostly noted for John Wayne’s understated performances and he is said to have been diagnosed with lung cancer during the making of the movie. Actress Patricia Neal was awarded the “Best Actress” citation at the BAFTA awards for this movie.

Alistair MacLean is a Scottish writer who specialized in writing thrillers and crime stories. He was third son of a Scottish minister and joined the Royal Navy during the world war two. He was a senior torpedo operator at the height of his career. He was in the thick of the war theater during the world war and saw action on many fronts especially the arctic north. After retiring he started penning his novels based on the war he saw and many of them became best sellers. Maclean never looked back as a writer until his death in 1987.
Because of his war experiences, his novels are also high on the action content. The emotional and the romantic angle is not very much touched upon by Maclean. His characters are highly cynical men who are always part of the high octane action and push themselves against all odds with out any thought for their safety. The elements also play a very important in MacLean’s writings. Most of the time his men are pitted against harsh unforgiving surroundings which brings out the innate nature hidden inside, be it a devil or a hero.
This book is inspired by the Hungarian revolution and its aftermath. This marks MacLean’s foray in to the genre of Espionage thrillers.

Micheal Reynolds, the hero is a British under cover agent who is cool and calculative. He unlike James Bond does not have any fancy gadgets to defend himself but relies mainly upon the power of his gray matter. He is sent to communist Hungary to rescue British ballistic expert Professor Jenkins. He meets a wide array of people and secure unlikely allies, like Jansci, alias erstwhile major General Alexis Illyurin who is a revolutionary leader, a master of disguise “the Count” and the strong and loyal Sandor.
Each of these characters are wanted by the Russians and hunted by the secret police of Hungary, AVO. Jansci is disillusioned with communism but has not lost his feelings of empathy with the fellow Russians. He has a sad past in which his wife was arrested and sent to a concentration camp which makes it impossible for her to be traced. His daughter Julia would not escape without him and his wife. The Count acts as a double agent but is working for the revolution and has only one love in his life, his child.
One thing about this book is the high dose of philosophical dialogues between the principal characters, Jansci and Reynolds. For Reynolds all the ills plaguing the world is because of communism , but Jansci is a non violent apostle talks about communism as – “remains only as a myth, an empty lip-service catchword in the name of which the cynical, ruthless realists of the Kremlin find sufficient excuse and justification for whatever barbarities their policies demands.”He feels that the fear of the traitors for their downfall is the cause of all pogroms.
Apart from these highly thoughtful dialogues, the book is just another MacLean adventure. Reynolds is captured, tortured and is helped by others to escape with the Professor with Julia in his arms. All the ingredients of brutality, torture, chemical warfare, nuclear arsenals and a feeble love story make up this story.
Now that communism has faded you can find the echoes of these dialogues in other “isms” like terrorism and fanaticism. A good book which makes you wonder at the world.

Fail safe is a film released in 1964, starring Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau and others. It is about a fictional cold war scenario which escalates to nuclear war and is adapted from the book of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler; the ultimate horrors of a nuclear exchange and the quest to avoid a suicidal war.
The strategic Air Command or SAC notices a suspicious aircraft heading to America from Europe. American bombers are deployed to counter the plane. According to the routine, six fighter planes are deployed around strategic points called the fail safe points around the Soviet Union. If the attack is innocuous the bombers are recalled back to the fail safe points.
Due to a technical transgression the attack code CAP 811 is transmitted to the six fail safe planes. The planes are the vindicator bombers with nuclear war heads commanded by Colonel Grady. Colonel Grady gets the code and tries to confirm it through radio. Since the frequencies are routinely jammed by the Soviets it fails to get through and he puts the attack in motion. Accordingly the bombers are dispatched to bomb Moscow.
According to the attack procedure, once the bombers are cruising towards the target they refuse to accept any audio alterations to their mission. It is felt that the enemy may use impersonators to distract them from their mission.

In America the whole establishment is in a tizzy. The president calls on the Soviet Premier to make him understand the accident. General Black, the Air chief fears that if Moscow is bombed the Soviets may launch nuclear missiles on America. To make them understand the sincerity of American operations six planes are deployed to shoot down the planes. But due to fuel constraints these planes fail and are lost. American President assures the soviet Premier that all of it was an accident and if Moscow is bombed he himself will order the bombing of New York. The Soviets are thus convinced of his sincerity.
Initially the Soviets refuse American help but turn around to ask for assistance. Americans help them to shoot down the plane. Five bombers are shot down and the President through the radio asks Gray to desist from the bombing. But Gray following orders says that he cannot take audio orders anymore fearing it to be an impostor. Soon the soviets detonate nuclear bombs in the air to avoid being hit, but Gray passes through and detonates the bomb over Moscow. When Moscow burns the American Ambassador’s phone melts giving a shrill tone.
The Soviet Premier tells the President that he acknowledges that it was an accident and he does not blame anybody. Both the heads of state promise not to depend overtly on machine controls anymore. However, there is a price to be paid to avoid a nuclear war.
The President orders General black to bomb New York City as he had promised the Soviet Premier as a show of solidarity. The First Lady and Black’s family are in New York, putting them in harm’s danger. Black bombs new York city and commits suicide. The last haunting scenes are the lively scenes of New York City, all to be incinerated in the back drop of the shrill sound of the melting phone.
A classic and haunting film highlighting the cost of distrust.