Stars and Stripes on Screen: A Comprehensive Guide to Portrayals of American Military on Film (review)

The War Genre

As a preeminent military-film historian, Dr. Larry Suid, a gregarious scholar, writer, and lecturer, has never fallen asleep at the switch. How could he? His many books, articles, television interviews, newspaper notices, and public appearances clearly explain the on-again, off-again, symbiotic shenanigans between high-ranking pentagon officials and the Hollywood moguls, detailing how these two sides—the warriors and the capitalists—jockey for position on the inside rail. Clearly, Dr. Suid's motion picture research, especially the war genre, has set the record straight many times.

Now, he has teamed up with his longtime editor, Dolores A. Haverstick, and, after a one-year stint in the Library of Congress, they have compiled an impressive 419-page motion picture guide, Stars and Stripes on Screen, providing over 1,400 entries highlighting Hollywood's portrayal of America's armed forces. According to Dr. Suid, these photodramas mirror a contemporary paradox: while most Americans profess their peaceful ways, in reality they actually love violence, at least from the safety of theater seats or living rooms. Since the war drama provides more vicarious adventures than any other film type, the Tinseltown entrepreneurs—always ready to please hard-cash customers—keep churning out one movie after another, pandering to those latent heroics that many red-blooded men wistfully crave.

To separate the different types of motion pictures, Dr. Suid has organized these titles into three categories—feature films, made-for-television movies, and documentaries—beginning as early as 1898 with a Spanish-American War docudrama short, Battle of Manila Bay, and ending with the 2005 World War II prisoner-of-war rescue trek, The Great Raid. In this 107-year period, he cites the title, director, producer, primary stars, year of production, running time, and—as the pièce de résistance—a subjective abstract, editorializing on the content or quality of each moving picture. Without a doubt, this commentary—a real gem—sparkles with academic clarity and dry humor.

For example, in analyzing the many inaccuracies of Michael Bay's 2001 soap opera, Pearl Harbor, goofs that included Florida mountains, Admiral Yamamoto appearing on the deck of the lead Nipponese vessel, the close formation flying of the Doolittle Raiders, and the wrong date on the Japanese calendar, Dr. Suid laments that this "fertile imagination" movie adds nothing to an understanding of the sneak attack and the rapid U.S. mobilization that followed. Or, in Steven Spielberg's Normandy Invasion extravaganza, Saving Private Ryan, a flashback mix-up and an incorrect time sequence scene, involving stateside death notification, undermines much of the screenplay's validity.

However, none of these problems diminish the war genre's popularity, and the two authors have gone out on the proverbial limb to cite the twenty-five greatest American military films, a daunting task that certainly will generate many arguments. Number one on the list: Zanuck's 1962 epic, The Longest Day; followed by Patton (1970), A Bridge too Far (1977), From Here to Eternity (1953),and Twelve O'Clock High (1949). To offer an antithesis to these subjective claims, another category, the worst titles, pours more fuel on the fire. Number one in this group: Terence Young's 1981 Korean War, MacArthur paean, Inchon; followed by Pearl Harbor (2001), Ice Station Zebra (1968), Memphis Belle (1990), and Battle of the Bulge (1965).

Overall, Stars and Stripes on Screen contains a wealth of information that will please any researcher, film historian, or movie-lover with its exhaustive listings, careful cataloging, and incisive commentary. As both writers have aptly pointed out, the Hollywood war motion picture—with all its flag-raising glories, John Wayne frontal charges, Tom Cruise blast-em-from-the-skies, and Jim Brown 100...