Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Religious Zionist. Republican. Movie fanatic. Gun owner. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Peter O'Toole

10 Must See War Movies

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Alas, not a single Myrna Loy film shows up here. But I just can’t resist posting this uplifting photo of Loy serving coffee to American sailors in the Hollywood Canteen during World War II. Lucky guys.

There is no subject as well suited for the movies as war.

In war there is conflict, love, and of course lots of action. Movies, said Hitchcock, are just like life, but with the boring parts cut out. Thus, movies about war delete the incredible boredom of most war-time experiences in favor of the hyper-drama that characterizes training, combat, and the bursts of romance and friendship that invariably help define characters within a blasted landscape.

Seraphic Secret would like to draw your attention to ten spectacular war movies. Each film seethes with a specific national and regional point of view. And yet war and man’s experiences in war are universal, and each film left yours truly horrified, enlightened and deeply moved.

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In Memoriam: Peter O’Toole, 1932 – 2013

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Peter O'Toole prepares for his role as Lawrence of Arabia, 1961.
Peter O’Toole prepares for his role as Lawrence of Arabia, 1961.

 “I woke up one morning to find I was famous. Bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum. Nobody took any f—ing notice, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.”

—Peter O’Toole on his sudden fame and fortune after Lawrence of Arabia.

Faye Dunaway once told me that playing the notorious outlaw Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (’67) was the greatest gift, and the greatest curse, of her legendary career. Bonnie’s character, said Faye, most closely resembled who she was. “Playing her was not a great stretch. I just dug deep.” “And of course,” continued Faye, “I was young. I thought that great roles come along all the time. Which, of course, they don’t.”

I pointed out that her role in Network (’76) was great, and her work as the heartless, TV exec, was brilliant. Faye agreed that the role of Diana Christensen was spectacular. But, Faye insisted, no film, no performance, will ever equal the personal and professional tsunami that was Bonnie.

When I heard that Peter O’Toole died, I immediately flashed back to my conversation with Faye. Like Faye, O’Toole’s Lawrence of Arabia was a brilliant film with an incandescent performance that made the young Irishman an international star. Like Faye, O’Toole’s subsequent career existed under the endless shadow of his Lawrence.

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