World War III

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

May 11, 2018 by Robert J. Avrech 5 Comments

“It’s no use talking to me about art, I make pictures to pay the rent.“
—John Ford

The Ten Greatest War Movies of All Time

September 14, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 23 Comments

myrna loy sailors — Confession: Not a single Myrna Loy film shows up in this list. But we just can’t resist posting this photo of Loy serving coffee to American sailors during World War II. Lucky guys.

Movies about war are ideally suited to the kinetic energy of motion pictures. The eternal themes of love, courage, and loyalty are given full range in the theater of war. Readers will immediately notice the absence of silent films and movies from Hollywood’s golden age. Yes, in spite of our love of classic cinema we are the first to admit that sound and modern special effects have rendered most older war movies tame and stylized.

We have also excluded war movies that treat war as “senseless killing” or set forth a pacifist narrative. As far as Seraphic Secret is concerned, a just war is the only method by which moral states can triumph over evil nations. War is too serious a business to be intellectually castrated by fuzzy minds who traffic in moral equivalence.

We concentrate on movies that feature intense warfare, yet whose narrative line does not neglect the more intimate, personal stories. We have eliminated home-front movies, fantasies of good Nazi soldiers ( Auf Wiedersehen, Das Boot), movies about Holocaust victims, tales of spies, and POW movies, sub-genres that—except for good-Nazi movies, historically suspect and morally loathsome—deserve and will receive ten best lists all their own.

As always, we invite our readers to list their own ten best war movies.

Books On My Night Table

February 24, 2016 by Robert J. Avrech 4 Comments

Opening sentences:

Ian Kershaw’s To Hell and Back: Europe 1914–1949: “Europe’s twentieth century was a century of war.”

David Niven, Ginger Rogers, and the Battle of the Bulge

December 17, 2015 by Robert J. Avrech 3 Comments

Lieutenat David Niven — Lieutenant David Niven

On the night of December 16, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, eight jeep teams made up of German soldiers fluent in English slipped through American lines.

Some carried vials of sulphuric acid to throw in the faces of American guards if they were stopped. Other groups cut communication wires and carried out minor acts of sabotage, such as changing road signs. One Nazi group managed to misdirect an entire group of infantry. [Read more…] about David Niven, Ginger Rogers, and the Battle of the Bulge

Holocaust Memorial Day: Death March to Dachau

April 16, 2015 by Robert J. Avrech 7 Comments

Sol Teichman survived the Holocaust and came to America as a penniless immigrant not knowing a word of English. In 1951, Sol was drafted into the Army where he served in Germany and then France. — Sol Teichman survived the Holocaust and came to America as a penniless immigrant not knowing a word of English. In 1951, during the Korean War, Sol was drafted into the United States Army. He served in Germany and then France.

One of my closest friends here in Los Angeles is Mr. Sol Teichman, a prominent citizen, businessman, philanthropist, and a Holocaust survivor.

Born on September 9, 1927, in the Hungarian town of Munkacs, Sol’s family were prominent and prosperous grain, bean and walnut merchants. The family lived in a lovely home in a quiet cul-de-sac and were known in the tight-knit Jewish community for their piety, charity, and close ties to the Belzer and Munkacs Hasidic dynasties.

Of course, the Nazi death grip descended on the Jews of Hungary, and by 1943, the Teichman home and business had been confiscated. The Jews of Munkacs were cruelly herded into a ghetto and then shipped in cattle cars to Auschwitz.

Sol, 17 years old, and his brother Steve, 14, survived the death camp, only to be sent on a death march to Dachau in August 1944.

Here is an excerpt from Sol’s privately printed memoir, The Long Journey Home, which I coauthored with Mr. Teichman, in which he describes hell on earth.