Were They the Best Years of Our Lives?

I picked up The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) off the shelf at the library a dozen or more years ago because I saw it had Myrna Loy in it, and I really like her. I love movies involving WWII, soldiers, and the 1940s, so I figured I’d give it a try. 

At that time, I mostly knew Loy from the Thin Man movies she made with William Powell, which are hilarious and snarky and fun. So I think I kind of expected that this movie would also be a lighthearted way to pass an evening on my night off from work that week. I didn’t expect it to surprise and awe me. I didn’t expect it to be a serious and soul-searching. I didn’t expect it to wow me. 

But, boy, am I glad it wasn’t what I expected. 

The Best Years of Our Lives follows three American servicemen as they return to their hometown after World War Two. Made in 1946, when some GIs were still returning from “over there,” it is an unflinching look at the frustrations, hardships, joys, and fears involved in reuniting fighters with families. 

Former Army sergeant Al Stephenson (Frederic March) comes home to his wife Milly (Myrna Loy) and kids Peggy (Theresa Wright) and Rob (Michael Hall). They welcome him eagerly, if a little awkwardly. It will take some time for them all to readjust to each other, they know. Al gets his old job at a bank back, but he doesn’t feel like he fits in either there or at home anymore. Everyone wants life to go back to being just as it was before, but he’s changed too much to feel that’s possible. He seeks solace in alcohol. Milly sees this and is worried, but stalwartly supports him however she can, helping him to work through his worries and doubts subtly and kindly. 

Former Air Force captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) comes home to his parents who live on the poor side of town and idolize him, and to Marie (Virginia Mayo), the wife he acquired during a quickie wartime marriage. She wants him to be the same heroic, charming, fun guy she married two years earlier, but he’s changed. They don’t call it this, but Fred suffers from PTSD. He has horrible nightmares and withdraws from his wife and others around him. Unable to get his old job back, he becomes a lowly salesman at a drug store. Marie constantly berates and demeans him for getting such a lame job, for being boring, for not throwing money and attention at her constantly. 

Former Navy sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) has it the hardest. He returns home to a loving family and his devoted fiancée Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell), the literal girl-next-door… but he returns home without his hands. Fiercely independent, and yet physically dependent on others for so many things, Homer chafes at the love, the pity, the kindness, and the stares that meet him everywhere. He doesn’t want Wilma to marry him because he thinks she deserves better. He even considers taking his own life so he won’t be a bother to those around him anymore. 

Played by real-life double amputee Harold Russell, who lost his hands in an accidental explosion during WWII, Homer Parrish is nothing short of inspiring. He has two artificial limbs with hooks on them that enable him to eat, drink, write, smoke, play the piano… but not stroke Wilma’s hair. Not button buttons. Not tie shoes. Not do a hundred everyday things that Homer thinks are important. 

As their lives and the lives of their loved ones weave together in a myriad tiny ways, Al, Fred, and Homer come to rely on each other for support, understanding, and encouragement. All three of them understand what it was like in the war, what it’s like to come home, what it’s like to want to fit in, but fail. Together, they work to raise each other above their problems and see that maybe the years they spent apart from their families weren’t the best years, but that maybe the years to come will be the best years, if they can only allow themselves to live them.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on September 7, 2019.)

My Ten Favorite New-to-Me Movies of 2024

Here we are again, ready to reminisce over all the movies we've watched in the past year and figure out which ones we liked best.  If you've done a similar post this year, leave a link in the comments so I can check out what your favorites were!

If you want to see my past lists, I've got ten years' worth at the bottom of this page.  Meanwhile, here are my favorite ten new-to-me movies that I watched last year!

1.  Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One (2024)  A variety of people have experiences in the Old West, many of them in or around the fictional town of Horizon.  It's a sprawling epic with lots of storylines and little or no closure to any of them, and I'm somewhat obsessed with it.  So much of it pleases me, from the authentic historical details to the filmography to the storytelling.  (I could do without the scene with nudity or the implied sex scene, though.  It's not a family friendly movie.)

2.  The Train (1964)  A bitter and disillusioned member of the French Resistance (Burt Lancaster) helps sabotage a train filled with precious pieces of French artwork that an equally bitter Nazi officer (Paul Scofield) is desperately trying to steal away from Paris before the Allies arrive.  My son is particularly pleased with all the very real train-related details, and I'm pleased by all the cool stunts Lancaster does.

3.  Murder on the Orient Express (1974)  Even though Hercule Poirot is not played by Peter Ustinov or Kenneth Branagh (my two favorite Poirots), but instead by Albert Finney (who gets a bit shouty), this is still such a fun time.  That's mainly thanks to the amazing cast: Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Perkins, Richard Widmark, Michael York... are you drooling yet?  What a lineup, huh?

4.  The Man from the Alamo (1953)  A Texan (Glenn Ford) is elected to leave the Alamo to warn the people of his town that something bad is about to befall them.  By the time he reaches the town, it's too late, and everyone assumes he ran away from the Alamo because he's a coward.  This makes him angry and vengeful, and the storyline took a few turns that surprised me, which I enjoyed.

5.  Emma (1996 -- Kate Beckinsale)  Yes, it took me this long to finally see this adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel.  I was surprised how much I liked it -- it's never going to rival the other 1996 version that stars Gwyneth Paltrow, but I liked it a lot better than the 2009 and 2020 versions.

6.  The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)  A bunch of military misfits are brought together to stop the Nazis during WWII.  Yes, that premise has been used oodles of times.  But this movie brings some fresh fun to it -- and it's based on a real people and real incidents, which bumps the whole thing up a notch.  I'm particularly fond of how Henry Cavill keeps trading up for better and cooler coats.

7.  Love Crazy (1941) A woman (Myrna Loy) suspects her husband (William Powell) is cheating on her and decides to get a divorce.  Her husband pretends to be mentally ill so she can't divorce him.  I'm not usually a big fan of screwball comedies, but I love Loy and Powell together, and this one never gets daffy enough to annoy me.

8.  Anastasia (1956)  A con artist (Yul Brynner) uses a mentally unstable young woman (Ingrid Bergman) to try to convince the world that the Russian princess Anastasia is still alive.  It's acerbic and twisted and melodramatic... and a lot more like the animated movie Anastasia (1997) than I'd expected.

9.  Christmas in the Air (2017)  A widower (Eric Close) who designs and makes toys hires a professional planner (Catherine Bell) to help him juggle his Christmastime family activities and work commitments so he won't disappoint his kids by forgetting anything important, but will also be able to help his brother land a big contract for their family-owned toy company.  Yes, it's a Hallmark movie.  Yes, I will willingly watch it again.

10. My Cousin Rachel (1952)  A wealthy young man (Richard Burton) becomes obsessed with his cousin's widow (Olivia de Havilland) because he's convinced she killed his cousin.  And then he's convinced she didn't.  And he loves her.  But he hates her.  But she loves him.  But she might be trying to kill him.  Come on, it's a very young and toothsome Richard Burton growling at a middle-aged and gorgeous Olivia de Havilland -- that's all you really need to know.

"The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" (2024) -- Initial Thoughts

You know what this felt like?  A 1960s-style WWII movie, but with 1970s-style levels of violence and language.

I really love movies where the director and actors are all having a really great time, and you feel like they're inviting you to just have fun and enjoy yourself alongside them.  That is absolutely the vibe this movie had.  Was it one of the most violent movies I have seen?  Yes.  But it wasn't dark and it wasn't eerie and it wasn't depressing.  And it contained that sense of camaraderie and the brothers-in-arms-who-will-die-for-each-other attitude that I absolutely love in true stories about WWII and the classic films about it. 

Also, there was really no shoehorning of modern sensibilities into this movie about real people and real events.  That's so delicious.  It was like Midway (2019) in that way.  These people FELT like they were 1940s folks.  Fantastic. 

Also, the film did not sidestep the issue of "Nazis hated the Jews."  In fact, it made it explicitly clear that the main bad guy decides to torture and kill someone not because he discovers they are a spy, but because he figures out they are Jewish.  And he is a completely evil character that the audience is never asked to sympathize with.  In our particular moment in time, that seems like a bold statement, and I appreciated it.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) is about a ragtag group of five Allied men and one women, each with their own very specific set of often unsavory skills, who get sent on a daring black-ops raid against the Nazis.  It's kind of like The Dirty Dozen (1967) or The Devil's Brigade (1968), but make it British.  And a true story.  Like The Monuments Men (2014), but with a higher body count and more gallows humor.

Did I mention it's a true story?  It is.  I've been doing some digging around, and I need to read some books on this whole heist raid thing, because it is amazing.  My library only has the audiobook edition of Damien Lewis's book that this movie is based on (so rude!), so I simply have to buy my own copy.  Also, I need the movie soundtrack, but it looks like that's only on mp3 and not CD (also rude), at least so far.  May have to get the mp3 version, I guess.

This really isn't a review so much as a rambling assortment of my thoughts about the film.  Sorry.  I've only seen it once, and I have a lot of things I want to say, but it's not really an easy film to straight-up review.  I'm simply going to have to go see this movie again.  

The cast is delightful, especially Henry Cavill and Eiza González and Cary Elwes.  It's always weird seeing Cary Elwes in anything besides The Princess Bride (1987), but I got kinda used to him by the end of this.  Honestly, I went to see this because WWII + Henry Cavill + Guy Ritchie sounded like it might be a good mix, and I was not disappointed!

This is not a family friendly movie, though.  There is some serious cussing, some innuendo, and a LOT of violence.  Not quite the level of a Quentin Tarantino movie (which I have just kind of quit watching because they started turning my stomach), but blood spatter happens, and a lot of death happens.  Also, the bad guy is a sadistic creep who tortures people for his own pleasure.  We do not see that torture, but we see a victim of it (not in detail), and we fear very much for another character when it becomes obvious he has Very Bad Plans for them.  There were several places where the film started tilting toward the dark and disturbing, then very nicely sidestepped that and forged merrily ahead instead, much to my relief.  It had the attitude of, "There are really bad things happening in this world because there are very bad people in this world -- but let's blow something up instead of talking about that too much."  If that makes any sense.

Do I recommend this to people who are adults and won't be bothered by the violence?  Absolutely.  It's a remarkably good time.

Oh!  And they had little things at the end before the credits, telling us what happened to the actual people involved in the story, later during the war.  I love it when movies do that.

But it's kind of unfair that Henry Cavill can be completely covered with a shaggy beard and twirly mustache and still be that attractive.  The repeated gag about his character stealing progressively cooler coats was one of my favorite random little things in the movie.

Movie Music: Alexandre Desplat's "The Monuments Men" (2014)

I think The Monuments Men (2014) is a lovely movie, if you can ever call a movie about war "lovely." It feels like a throwback to classic WWII films from the 1960s, like The Great Escape (1963) and The Guns of Navarone (1963). Alexandre Desplat's soundtrack also hearkens back to the movies of that era, and it has become one of my favorite scores to write to. 

The first track I'm sharing is "Basic Training." It's upbeat and cheery, one of those "let's all get working on something together" sorts of songs. And about 30 seconds in, it brings in the movie's main theme, which is endearingly jaunty and optimistic. 

"I See You Stahl" is completely different -- dark and foreboding, and with a sense of desperation. In the middle it gets very menacing before a calmer theme arrives to bring a sense of hope that leads back into the more can-do feel that pervades the movie. 

"Normandy" is a more thoughtful song, quiet and reflective, and yet ultimately also strong and confident. 

And, as a timely treat, here's a rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" that figures into the plot:

If you enjoyed those three short selections, you can listen to the whole soundtrack on YouTube here. I heartily recommend it.

(This review originally appeared here at J and J Productions on November 29, 2015.)

"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" (2023) -- Initial Thoughts

Well, that was a fun ride!  Not a brilliant movie.  Not a mind-blowing adventure.  But a really, thoroughly enjoyable movie.  Which is precisely what I want from an Indiana Jones movie.  I hope to manage to see it in the theater at least once more this summer!

The plot revolves around an actual artifact, the Antikythera -- I have actually watched a whole documentary about it more than once because my son was fascinated by it when he was a bit younger.  So when I discovered that's what this one revolved around, I was like, ohhhhh, he's going to enjoy this movie one day.

Anyway, back during WWII, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and his British friend Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) are trying to nab a different artifact from Nazi treasure hunter Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), and they discover he also has the Antikythera.  A thrilling trainboard chase sequence ensues.  I happen to be really fond of people running around on top of trains (blame my childhood spent watching westerns), so I really enjoyed that bit.  Also, the CGI they used to give Indy his 40-yr-old face was really, really good.  It did go a little uncanny-valley now and then, but not often.  Unfortunately, they didn't do as well on Mads Mikkelsen, but oh well.

The bulk of the story takes place twenty-five-ish years later, in 1969, when Indy is contacted by his friend Basil's daughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who wants to know if Indy has the Antikythera.  And it turns out Voller is now a NASA scientist, and he's got a bunch of henchmen who may or may not be working for the CIA, and they want the gizmo too.  So we have a lot more chase scenes.

I happen to like chase scenes, so I enjoyed those, too.

My favorite part of the movie was probably the deep-sea diving adventure that involved another old friend of Indy's, this one played by Antonio Banderas.  I have long dreamed of going deep-sea diving and exploring shipwrecks, and so I just was bouncing with glee all through that sequence.  Plus, Antonio Banderas!!!  

I also loved that the overall message of this movie went back to the roots of my favorite Indy movies: people are more important than stuff.  In the end, an object of historical significance, is just an object, and not worth trading a person's life for.  Loved that.

Also, the very end of the movie made me cry with joy, and I loved that too.  

I didn't realize that this is directed by James Mangold, but when I saw his name in the end credits, suddenly I noticed how similar this movie is to Logan (2017), and how I liked it for a lot of the same reasons.  You have an aging hero who is dismissed as an old geezer by the bad guys, but who proves to still be heroic.  Who stands up and says, "I may be old, but I will not sit idly by while you commit evil actions.  I will do what I can to stop you."  Man, I LOVE that kind of character.  Plus, you have a mentorship gone sour, and family relationships that have fallen apart but could be salvaged again.  And Boyd Holbrook plays a super annoying bad guy in both of them.  See?  So similar.

Anyway, yeah, I liked it.  

Is this movie family friendly?  It earns its PG-13 rating with jump scares, some icky stuff involving centipedes and eels and skeletons, some cussing, and lots of shooting and other violence (but it was non-gory).  No smutty scenes.

"Where Eagles Dare" (1968)

World War Two rages. The Nazis and their pals have conquered Europe and have made inroads into Russia. The Allies are finalizing their plans to invade France and begin pushing the bullies back where they belong… and then the unthinkable happens. 

General Carnaby’s plane crashes in enemy territory, and he’s captured by the Nazis. They don’t know it yet, but Carnaby knows all the plans for where and when the invasion will happen. It’s only a matter of time before they realize just how valuable this American general is. And everyone knows the Nazis will submit him to inhuman cruelties just to get his information. 

There’s only one thing to do: rescue him. 

The British military puts together a crack team of spies led by their best man, Major Smith (Richard Burton). Smith is terse, efficient, secretive, suspicious, and deadly. The rest of the team are British agents too, except one man: an American OSS agent named Schaffer (Clint Eastwood). He doesn’t know why they want him along, and the rest of the team don’t know why he’s there, but the word is Go, so they go. 

I’m a huge fan of both Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. Eastwood doesn’t get a lot to do in this movie except walk around looking confused and shooting people, but he’s nice scenery to have around, so I don’t mind. Burton gets the best role, convincing the audience he’s anything and anyone he says he is at the moment. Such is the power of his acting that a sneer or a monosyllable from him does more to develop his character than whole pages of dialog for others. 

The Nazis are holding Carnaby in an Alpine fortress you can only reach by cable car from the village below. It’s a massive, impregnable old castle filled with both regular Army and Gestapo troops. No way can anyone break in there. But they must. Can’t let the Nazis find out what Carnaby knows. 

From here on out, I will SPOIL a few things. This is a twisty spy thriller, and I need to tell you some twists. Can’t say I didn’t warn you. But I promise not to reveal the big suprises at the end. 

The team, and the audience, soon learn the truth: Carnaby is a fake. The British dressed up an actor who looks just like the real General Carnaby and are using him as a diversion. His mission is to feed the Nazis misinformation, but now the Allies fear the Nazis will figure out he’s a fake, so Smith and his cohorts need to rescue him before they visit unspeakable atrocities upon poor not-Carnaby. 

Smith, Schaffer, and the rest of the team parachute into the snowy Alps just outside the fortress. One of them dies, supposedly killed upon landing, but Smith doesn’t think so. Smith secretly meets up with a female agent sent to help him without the rest of the team knowing it. In fact, Smith does a lot of things in secret. Why? What game is he playing that he hasn’t invited the other men to join? 

The surviving members of the team disguise themselves as Nazis and prepare to infiltrate the castle. More of them die mysteriously, until the team is just Smith, Schaffer, and three other guys. The three other guys get themselves captured, but Smith insists he and Schaffer must try to finish the job. Schaffer’s a game fellow, and it’s not like he has anything else to do while stuck in the Alps in the middle of winter, so the two of them sneak into the castle. 

Remember those cable cars? Many feats of derring-do occur thanks to them, with people riding on top of them, jumping between one car and the next, and so on. The studio made Where Eagles Dare in 1968, right in the thick of Sean Connery’s reign as James Bond, and the action in this film is comparable to many of those classic 007 films. Lots of explosions, stunts, sneering bad guys, and the occasional kissing scene just because, gosh, if you’ve got male and female spies working together, why not have them kiss now and then? 

Smith and Schaffer infiltrate the castle. They find not-Carnaby and free him. And then the plot twists come thick and fast. Because it turns out that rescuing not-Carnaby was another ruse. The real reason they’re here is to find out some very important information of a different nature. I won‘t tell you what that is because that would spoil the fun. Go read the fantastic book by Alistair MacLean (who also wrote the screenplay) or watch the film for yourself! If you like spy stories, you’ll love this.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on April 13, 2019.)

What Makes Me Want to Watch It?

I recently posted a list of ten things that make me want to try out a book over on my book blog.  I had so much fun figuring those out that I thought I should do the same about movies.  What makes me think, "Yup, that is something I would like to watch?" about particular films?  I've come up with ten magnets that will always draw my attention.

1.  It's a western.  I will try basically any movie or TV show based solely on the fact that it is a western.  I don't have to know what it's about.  I don't have to know or care about anyone who's in it, the director, the composer, anything.  It's a western?  I'm there.  (With the obvious caveat that, if I learn it's skanky, I will either proceed with caution or skip it.)

2.  It stars someone I hold dear.  For a fairly large number of actors and actresses, not even remotely limited to my top favorites (actors, actresses), I will try nearly any movie or show.  Nearly -- I do have some standards, so even top favorites occasionally have made something I will pass on.  But the presence of someone I hold dear ties with "it's a western" for the top thing guaranteed to get me to watch something.

3.  It's set during WWII.  I mean, my top favorite TV show of all time (Combat! [1962-67]) is based in WWII.  That should tell you a lot.  A WWII-era setting, whether it's a war zone or the home front, will always grab my interest.

4.  It's based on a good book.  Bonus points if it's a classic book, but yeah, I love movies that are adaptations of books!  I often watch them first to find out if I like the characters and story, then go read the book if I do.  That makes the book feel like an expanded version of the story, rather than making the movie feel like a condensed version of a book I've read.

5.  It has heroes in it.  Yes, that includes superheroes, but it includes a lot more than that, too.  You throw words like "hero," "rescue," "sacrifice," and "courage" at me, and I am instantly paying attention.  I do enjoy superhero movies, but it's heroism in general that draws me to so many action movies, fantasy and sci-fi movies, and so on.  Westerns and war movies appeal to me because they so often involve heroes.

6.  It's film noir.  Got some gritty stories and mean streets and fatally attractive women and weary almost-heroes and murky shadows you could drown in?  I'm here for it.  Yes, heroes are thin on the ground in this genre, but they're there.  And antiheroes abound.

7.  It revolves around a platonic friendship.  If there are two characters who have or form a close bond of friendship, and that's the main relationship that the story centers around, I am interested right away.  So many of my favorite movies and TV shows revolve around either a pair of friends or a group of them!  "Found families" play into this -- group friendship bonds interest me just as much as a friendship between just two people.

8.  It's set in the 1960s.  My husband likes to tease me that I grew up in the sixties.  I didn't -- I wasn't born until the eighties -- but when I was growing up, most of the movies and TV shows we watched at home were made in the sixties because that's when my parents grew up, so that's what formed their taste.  And so, it's what formed my taste.  Whether a movie or show was made in the sixties or later on, if that's when it's set, I want to try it out!

9.  Someone I trust tells me I would like it.  I definitely will try movies just because specific people tell me I should.  My parents, my brother, DKoren, and two or three other people can get me to watch a movie on their recommendation alone.

10. It has a detective in it.  Yes, I love mysteries.  I particularly love to read them, but I enjoy watching them too.  Many of my favorite TV shows revolve around detectives solving crimes, and I like movies about them too.

So, basically, if it has a certain setting or specific types of characters, or simply stars particular people, I'm interested!  

Happy Birthday, Vic Morrow: "Dear Goon"

It's Vic Morrow's birthday today.  You know he's a favorite of mine.  You know I love the character he played on Combat! (1962-67), Sgt. Saunders, more than any other fictional character I've ever met.  You might even know that I have, for many years, co-maintained a fansite dedicated to Combat! that features all the fanfiction I've written for the show over the past 20 years.  I haven't written any for a couple years, but today, a friend shared a new story with me, and I'd been thinking a lot about Vic because it's his birthday, and, well... a story happened.

This is basically a first draft.  I wrote it after my kids finished school, ran over it once to find typos, and now I'm posting it.  If you've ever wondered what an unedited story from me looks like, well, now's your chance to find out ;-)

Happy birthday, Vic Morrow.  Thank you for everything.

"Dear Goon"

by Rachel Kovaciny/White Queen

Saunders turned the unopened letter over and over in his fingers, wondering.  He'd gotten hundreds of letters from home over the past few years.  His mom favored regular letters over V-mail, but she'd use the faster method if she thought she had things to say that needed to get to him quickly.  Never good things.  Getting V-mail from home usually meant a problem.  Something she thought he could somehow fix from the other side of an ocean.  Something that usually left him feeling frustrated at not being able to be two places at once.

Except this wasn't from his mom.

That wasn't her tight script spelling out his name.  And it wasn't her name in the return address section.  It was a loopy handwriting that said 'Louise Saunders.'  And that worried him.  What could his kid sister need to write him about?  She usually just added a line at the end of their mother's letters, maybe a joke or a funny remark.  She'd never written him a whole letter, much less sent him something on her own.

Saunders headed for his quiet spot in the corner of what had once been a greenhouse.  The platoon had set up their HQ in a bombed-out manor house, and they'd been there for almost three whole days.  Long enough for the mail to catch up with them.  He should be trying to grab some sleep that afternoon, resting up before tonight's patrol.  Night patrols were always rough.  But he'd never sleep until he knew what Louise needed.

Thinking her name brought a half-smile to his face.  Louise.  Such a grown-up name for a runny-nosed brat with skinned knees and pigtail braids and freckles.  No wonder he almost never used it.  Not to her face, anyway.  Maybe she'd grow into it one day.

He settled into the corner he'd cleared for himself, sunshine pouring through the glass above and behind him, good walls to his back, all approaches in clear view.  Half of the greenhouse was a twisted wreck, smashed when a bomb tossed a huge tree on top of it.  The other half had been cluttered up with junk and debris, but the panes of glass and metal framework holding them were still just fine.  And it was quiet.

Saunders knew he was just delaying the moment when he'd have to open the letter, read about his sister's problems, maybe see if he could write her back with a few words of... whatever she needed.  Advice, probably.  Didn't daughters and mothers sometimes butt heads?  Maybe she and their mom were on the outs. That was it.  Probably.

Unless there was some reason their mom couldn't write to him.  Chilling thought.

Unfolding the paper against his knee, he skimmed the letter through first, checking to make sure there wasn't any dire news.  No deaths, no illnesses.  She'd typed the whole thing, with occasional misspellings and X-ed out words.  Probably thought she could fit more words that way.  He went back and reread the whole thing slowly, once he saw there was nothing serious to worry about.  

Dear Goon,

I suppose I shouldn't address your letter that way.  Not on the outside, anyway.  Bet they wouldn't deliver something marked 'Sgt. Goon Saunders.'  Maybe they would.  Maybe I should say 'Dear Sergeant' here instead, too.  They read V-mail, don't they?  I guess they read all your mail.

I'm stalling.  Sorry.  I've got a problem.  This is so awkward, but I don't know who else to talk to.  My problem's name is Terry Dawes.  He's sixteen too, and funny, and he reads more books in a week than I read in a year.  I like him an awful lot.  I even asked him to the Fourth of July dance last week -- it was a Sadie Hawkins dance, so that wasn't awkward, me asking him to the dance.  That's not the problem.

The problem is, I mean it when I say I like him.  So much.  Have you ever been in love?  How do you know if you are?  I know you've had girlfriends.  I even liked some of them.  But you didn't ask any of them to marry you before you left for the war, so I guess you didn't love any of them.  And I don't guess you'll fall in love while you're fighting a war, unless you meet a nurse or something.

Stalling again.  Here's the real problem: what if I'm falling in love with Terry?  How do I know if he's a good guy?  I mean, a really good, solid guy?  My friends like him.  But they're all sixteen like me.  What do they know?  Mom likes him.  But what does that tell me?  She liked our dad too, once.  Look how that ended up.  And I don't want to end up that way.  I know I'm too young to get married yet, but it won't be long before I'm not.  I'll be seventeen next year, and eighteen a year after that, and then... 

I know you understand people.  I just wish there was some way for you to meet Terry and tell me what you think of him.  I want your approval.  Isn't that wild?  You're probably laughing your head off by now.  That's what you usually did when I asked you for help with something.  Glad I could amuse you.  But, after you'd laugh, you'd help.  You always did.

Don't worry, I'm not eloping with him or anything.  I've promised Mom to finish high school, and I will.  Maybe by the time I do, you'll be home, and you can meet Terry and tell me what you think of him, first-hand.  I don't even know why I'm writing you this.

Thanks for listening, Goon.  When you get home, can I still call you that?  Or should I start practicing saying 'sergeant' and 'yes, sir' and saluting?

Your bratty little sister,

   Louise

Saunders smoothed the creases and wrinkles in the paper against his knee, rubbing his palm over the letter. The Brat was sixteen?  The Brat had a steady boy?  When did that happen?  While he'd been gone, obviously.  Almost three years -- yeah, she would be about sixteen by now.

What had it been like to be sixteen?  He'd been sixteen when their dad left.  Sixteen was a lifetime ago.  What could he tell her?  Be careful?  Mom would tell her that.  Be sensible?  Maybe.  

Saunders leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.  What did he know about the kind of love a sixteen-year-old girl might be feeling?  Not that swift, aching desperation he'd felt a couple times the past year or so, that yearning for a private little oasis in the middle of a war.  Just two kids, pure and clean and sweet and happy, holding hands and dancing the jitterbug.  And thinking, maybe, this is it.  Asking a wise older brother for advice.  

Some wise older brother he was.

Sergeant Saunders, all out of advice.  Wasn't that a laugh.  Why did the words and the wisdom come easily when he had shells going off all around, or when he was pinned down in a firefight?  But now, nothing.

Who had he loved when he was sixteen?  Could he even push his mind back that far, past the war, past his jobs, past making sure his mom could make rent and his siblings could eat.  Sixteen.  A face teased him, taking its time coming into focus.  His high school sweetheart:  perky nose, red hair, little gap between her top front teeth.  Not his first kiss, but his first real sweetheart.  And he couldn't even remember her name now.  The Brat was right -- he'd never loved any of his girlfriends back home.

Be patient.  The Brat was never patient.  That's what she needed him to tell her.  Take her time, enjoy being sixteen, and let the rest come when she was ready.

Saunders opened his eyes.  It was better than nothing.  Maybe more words would come to him when he had those down.  He pulled out the pen and paper he'd stashed in his jacket's inner pockets, uncapped the pen, and started writing.

Dear Louise,

You can call me Goon as long as you want.  If I can still call you the Brat to your face.  What would your Terry think of that?

Listen, the thing I remember about being sixteen is, everything's happening all at once and you're in a big rush about it all.  Well, don't be...

The End

"Defiance" (2008)

Defiance (2008) is the true story of four Jewish brothers in Belarus who not only evaded the Nazis all through World War II, but also helped more than a thousand other Jewish people elude them as well.

Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Asael (Jamie Bell) Bielski are stunned when they discover their parents were murdered by Nazis at the family farm.  Their younger brother Aron (George McKay) has survived, and they're soon joined by oldest brother Tuvia (Daniel Craig).  The four brothers hide in the forest nearby, grieving and trying to figure out what to do next.  Tuvia gets a gun from a neighbor and executes the local man who led the Nazis to the Bielski farm, and then the brothers set out to survive in the forest.

It turns out there are other Jews hiding in the forest.  The Bielski boys all basically grew up in the forest, so they're excellent at hiding and surviving there.  The other people look to them for guidance and help, and Tuvia agrees to lead them.  First, he's helping a dozen people, then several dozens, and then hundreds.  Under Tuvia's direction, the people build a whole hidden village deep in the forest, with a school for children, organized food collection, and their own little militia. 

This sounds kind of idyllic, but it's not -- the Nazis are an ever-present threat who find the fugitives multiple times, forcing all the people to flee and set up all over again.  Hunger is also a persistent problem, as you can't exactly farm in the forest.  People die both onscreen and off, including Tuvia's and Zus's wives, who had not followed them into hiding.

Zus is the "wild" brother, and he grows impatient with Tuvia's emphasis on caution and hiding and survival over striking back at the Nazis.  Zus leaves to join a Russian otriad, or partisan group, and becomes an enthusiastic soldier.  Occasionally, the Russians and the Jews will work together against the Nazis, but sometimes, they come into conflict with each other instead.

Mixed in with all the war and death and fighting and fear is a little bit of romance.  Asael falls in love with a girl named Chaya (Mia Wasikowska), Zus gets involved with a fellow fugitive, and Tuvia takes a long time to realize/admit he's in love with the lovely Lilka (Alexa Davalos).  The romances are understated and quiet, and all three are quite different, which I appreciated, because no couple falls in love the same way as any other couple.

One of the little things I like best about this movie is how physically affectionate the Bielski brothers are to each other.  In grief and in joy, they reach for each other and hold each other close.  Over and over, they touch at random moments, with a pat on the back here, a hand on the shoulder there.  It really helped sell that they're brothers, as this is how many families I know relate, including my own.

This may be a spoiler, so skip this paragraph if you like, but since it's based on history, I will just go ahead and tell you that by the end of the war, there were more than 1200 Jewish people in the camp!  I love that the movie tells you at the end what happened to the Bielskis -- three of them survived the war and moved to New York City.  Aron is still alive today!

When I re-watched this movie last week, I realized that I very strongly identify with Tuvia Bielski.  He's quiet, and he internalizes a lot of things, which I also do.  He is a reluctant leader, but he also doesn't have a problem being bossy if people need bossing and no one else steps up to do the job.  He would rather do hard things himself than delegate them to others.  And he spends an enormous amount of energy and time caring for others, then gets all shocked when he needs care himself... and when someone offers to help him, he's reluctant to accept.  Yeah, there's a lot of me in the movie version of Tuvia.  I hadn't realized that before, but I'm sure that's a big part of why I like this movie so much.

The other reason I like it is, obviously, the casting.  I'm a longtime fan of Liev Schreiber, and he is fantastic as the mercurial, brooding Zus.  He happens to look extra awesome when he's scruffy, and he's scruffy for the entire movie, so that is a total bonus.  And he gets some very cool scenes at the end that involve a tank.

Daniel Craig spends most of the movie conveying a sort of repressed fury mixed with annoyance.  He plays Tuvia as a loner who doesn't want to have to lead and organize and counsel a bunch of strangers, but he realizes he has the necessary skills, so he does it anyway.  Also, Craig is great at conveying inner turmoil with just his eyes, and he has several scenes where his eyes tell you all the things he refuses to actually speak about what he's witnessed or done.

I really like the accents both Schreiber and Craig use; they sound very authentic to my admittedly thoroughly American ears.  My husband lived in Ukraine as a teen and speaks enough Ukrainian to understand a lot of the Russian dialog in the movie, and while we watched this, he kept telling me that the subtitles for the Russians were leaving out a lot of words and condensing things a bunch, which kept cracking me up.  Just little things like, "He didn't call him 'comrade,' he called him 'comrade commander, sir'" and things like that.

It was really cool to see a young George McKay in this, as I like him so much in Ophelia (2018) and 1917 (2019).  He was sixteen when they filmed Defiance, but his character looks and acts a lot younger.  I also enjoy seeing Jamie Bell and Mia Wasikowska together in this, since they also appear together in Jane Eyre (2011).

Is this movie family friendly?  No.  It has a lot of bloody violence, some very bad language, and a little crude and suggestive dialog, though nothing very icky.  There are no love scenes, but there's a scene where Tuvia and Lilka are both shirtless in bed together, mostly covered by a blanket and clearly having just shared an intimate encounter.  If those things would bother you, and you have a filtering service, this is a movie I would definitely watch using that, as it's a wonderful bringing-to-life of an important part of history.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there's also a scene at the beginning where you see a mass grave filled with naked corpses, getting filled in by Nazis.  You can't really see the bodies close enough for it to be a nudity thing, but it's pretty horrible when you remember this stuff really happened.  That's probably the worst scene in the whole film for me, and I had kind of blocked it out of my memory.

This is my second entry into the You Knew My Name: The Bond, Not Bond Blogathon hosted by Pale Writer and Reelweegiemidget Reviews!

"Imitation General" (1958)

I mostly love Imitation General (1958) because it feels like an extended episode of my favorite TV show, Combat! (1962-67).  I expect the characters from that show to just come marching up over some hill on the horizon and set about helping the people in this one fix their problems.  They never do, but I feel like they might at any moment.  There are just so many similarities between the two!

For one thing, Master Sergeant Murphy (Glenn Ford) carries a Thompson machine gun just like Sergeant Saunders (Vic Morrow) has on Combat!.  The sound effects for it aren't quite the same (not so smooth and purring as Saunders'), but oh well.  It's still a Thompson, my favorite weapon of all time.  (Shh, yes, even over a Winchester repeater or a Colt .45.)

Also, these soldiers are wandering around what's supposed to be the French countryside after D-DAY, but is obviously the rolling hills of southern California outside Culver City, exactly where Combat! filmed quite a few episodes.  

Not only that, but they even have fight off a German soldier played by Paul Busch, who appeared in thirty-five episodes of Combat! -- more than 1/5 of the episodes!  I mean, how can my beloved Second Squad be far away?  I don't think we even find out what outfit these soldiers are with, so I have headcanoned them into the 361st Regiment and figure they'll meet up with King Company sooner or later.

Actually, the Combat! episode "The Prisoner" has a lot of similarities to the plot of this movie, now that I think about it.

Anyway, Imitation General is called a comedy, and it does have a lot of funny parts.  But it's also a good war movie, with lots of action that's deftly executed.  And it's a pretty good character study too, looking at the way that responsibility affects people, how important leadership is, and so on.  The storyline is quite serious, it's just the way characters react to things that makes it funny.  Well, and a few sight gags, plus Red Buttons making a lot of amusing faces.  

Brigadier General Lane (Kent Smith) is touring near the front lines, boosting morale with his presence and getting a more accurate picture of how the war is going.  His driver, Corporal Derby (Red Buttons), worries constantly that they're all going to be killed, and keeps trying to convince the general to go back to headquarters.  His aide, Master Sergeant Murphy, does what he can to keep them all safe, ever vigilant and ready to defend the three of them when needed.

Unfortunately, General Lane chooses to protect his sergeant instead at a critical moment, and takes a bullet in his place.  Right about then, the Krauts make a big push and cut off the American troops in that area from the rest of the Allied forces.  Murphy and Derby hide in a half-ruined farmhouse, where they've dragged the general's body to keep it out of enemy hands.

A worried corporal named Sellers (Dean Jones) wanders into the farmhouse, convinced he's got shell-shock and should be in a hospital.  Really, he's just freaked out at discovering he's scared of getting killed, and once Murphy convinces him of that, he's pretty brave for the rest of the story.  But he thinks that Murphy is a general because he's holding General Lane's helmet, and Murphy uses that mistake to boost Sellers' morale.  And then Murphy realizes that, if everyone thinks he's a general, he can rally the troops and lead them in fighting their way out of the pocket the Krauts have sewn them into.  So he sets about doing exactly that.

The trouble is, there's this private named Hutchmeyer (Tige Andrews) who knows Murphy from earlier in the war and has a grudge against him.  Most of the funniest parts of this movie come from Derby's efforts to convince Hutchmeyer that Murphy is dead, and also keep him from discovering that Murphy is pretending to be General Lane.

Various exciting things unfold, like Murphy and Sellers taking on a bunch of Germans by driving straight at them a Jeep with half a metal water tower tied to the front.  There are also several tanks involved, including one driven by the aforementioned Paul Busch.  

And there's a local French girl, Simone (Taina Elg), that Murphy and Hutchmeyer both take a shine to.  Everything turns out okay in the end, I assure you, just like it would if it was one of the more light-hearted episodes of Combat!.

Is this movie family friendly?  Basically.  Simone takes a bath, so you get to see her bare shoulders and legs, as shown on the lobby card at the top of this post.  Soldiers leer at her, Hutchmeyer obviously wants to seduce her, and there's some dialog about soldiers missing/yearning for women.  At one point, a character pretends to be attacking Simone violently to convince another character to leave the premises, but it's a sham and the audience knows it.  The wartime violence is all non-bloody, like you'd expect from a 1950s movie.  I don't recall any cussing.  I would show this to my kids, and most likely will one of these days.

This has been my second contribution to the Glenn Ford Blogathon, which I'm co-hosting with Coffee, Classics, and Craziness this weekend.  Check out this main post to find all the other contributions!

Movie Music: Elmer Bernstein's "The Great Escape" (1963)

Here I am again to discuss some more awesome movie music with you. Today I'm focusing on an iconic score from one of the best WWII movies ever: The Great Escape (1963).

Of course, it's by the master of exciting, manly movie music from the '60s, namely Elmer Bernstein. He's my absolute favorite movie composer, so you'll be hearing more of his music in this series, have no fear.

If you've never seen The Great Escape, do yourself a favor and go watch it, cuz it's a classic war movie that blends caper films and prison escapes, and stars so many wonderful actors I get a little dizzy thinking of all that talent in one place. Steve McQueen. James Garner. James Coborn. Charles Bronson. Richard Attenborough. David McCallum. Directed by John Sturges! Based on a true story! Like I said, go watch it.

"On the Road" is one of my favorite tracks because it weaves together so many character themes, which means you get a really good taste of the range of this score in one three-minute chunk.  

But my favorite track might be "The Chase" because it starts out exciting, gets a little bright and happy, then pulls out all the excitement and builds tension up and up, really making us feel like someone is sneaking and hiding and racing toward freedom.  

I totally recommend getting the full soundtrack on CD, the version with 3 discs.  It makes for a wonderful background to your day!

(The bulk of this review originally appeared here at J and J Productions on June 15, 2015.)

My Ten Favorite Movies Featuring Fallen Heroes

Today is Memorial Day here in the USA, which means I'm taking some time to thank God for all the brave people who have laid down their lives in defense of our country and our freedom.  It's the sort of day when I'd like to pull a movie off my shelves that honors and memorializes such sacrifices.  I've put together a list of my ten favorite movies that feature an American soldier paying the ultimate price, just in case you're looking for ideas of something to watch today.

None of these films glorify war.  Instead, they show the terrible price paid by so many men and women to ensure that our freedom is kept safe, and to help free others around the world.

1.  Midway (2019)  

Historically accurate, dazzling, elegant presentation of the early Pacific Theater of Operations during WWII, from the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, through the Battle of Midway June 4-7, 1942.   One of the best movies I have ever seen.

2.  Hell is for Heroes (1962)

One small American squad (Bobby Darin, Steve McQueen, Fess Parker, James Coburn, Bob Newhart...) holds off a Nazi attack thanks to lots of clever ruses and some spectacular sacrifices. This was written by Robert Pirosh, who also created my beloved Combat!, and this whole movie almost feels like a long episode of the show.

3.  Operation Pacific (1951)

Commander Duke Gifford (John Wayne) leads a submarine crew on a bunch of adventures (most of them based on actual WWII events) and tries to win back his ex-wife (Patricia Neal).  This was my son's favorite movie when he was six.

4.  Captain Newman, MD (1963) 

Darkly tragicomic story of Captain Newman (Gregory Peck), an Army psychiatrist trying to help American soldiers deal with and overcome mental and emotional trauma they've sustained during the war.  Some, he helps.  Some, he can't reach.  Angie Dickinson and Tony Curtis play a nurse and an aid, while the troubled soldiers are played by people like Bobby Darin, Robert Duvall, and Eddie Albert.  Although there are no actual battle scenes, at least one soldier who is healed enough to return to combat is later killed, which lends a lot of gravitas to the story.  Important note: Bobby Darin received an Oscar nod for his role in this.

5.  The Longest Day (1962) 

The story of the D-Day invasion, told from many viewpoints, with one of the most impressive casts ever assembled: John Wayne, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Sal Mineo, Richard Todd, and a very young Sean Connery, to name a very few. Until we had kids and lost our big chunks of movie-watching time, Cowboy and I used to watch this together every D-Day.

6.  Gettysburg (1993)

The story of the battle that tipped the balance of the American Civil War in favor of the Union Army.  It's loaded with wonderful actors like Martin Sheen, Sam Elliott, C. Thomas Howell, and Tom Berenger.  This movie introduced me to one of my personal heroes, Colonel (at the time) Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels).

7.  The Patriot (2000)

A widower (Mel Gibson) refuses to take up arms in the American Revolution for a long time, but his son (Heath ledger) fights valiantly for the Patriot cause, and his father eventually realizes he must take his own stand for freedom.  I haven't been able to watch this since we lost Heath Ledger in 2008, but I'm hoping I'll be able to again one day.

8.  Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)

We get to know a squad of Marine recruits, led by Sgt. Stryker (John Wayne), as they prepare for the assault on Iwo Jima.  The recruits view Stryker as a cold-blooded bully, but when they actually hit the beach, they understand at last what he was trying to teach them.

9.  Mister Roberts (1955)

Mister Roberts (Henry Fonda) wants to get off the Navy cargo ship where he's assigned and onto a battleship so he can take part in WWII before it's over.  But his cruel captain (James Cagney) refuses to sign his transfer papers.  Other sailors, including Ensign Pulver (Jack Lemmon) and Doc (William Powell), have their own agendas.  This is kind of a dark comedy.  Lemmon won an Oscar for his supporting role.

10.  We Were Soldiers (2002)

The story of American forces preparing for and enduring their first major battle in Vietnam.  Mel Gibson, Sam Elliott, Greg Kinnear, and Barry Pepper all turn in unforgettable performances.

"Saigon" (1947)

Although Saigon (1947) generally gets classified as film noir, I'm really not sure why.  It isn't very dark, although it does involve crime and death.  I think it gets called noir because it pairs Alan Ladd with Veronica Lake, and the other three films they star opposite each other in (This Gun for Hire [1942], The Glass Key [1942], and The Blue Dahlia [1946]) ARE definitely noir indeed.  So I think people just assume this is too, since it was made in the '40s, stars Ladd and Lake, and has some really snarky dialog.  

I don't know... it just doesn't feel noir to me.  A little dark and cynical here and there, but whatever.  Maybe it's because this has never been released to VHS or DVD, so not enough people have seen it to know whether it is or isn't noir?  Which is a shame, because basically the only way you can see it is on TV, or via a grey-market copy.  Man, how I wish Universal would release it to DVD like they have so many of Ladd's other pictures!  Or maybe that nice company (I think the same Canadian company that put out his The Great Gatsby [1949]?) who's released a couple of collections of Alan's movies the last year or two could do another set and include this?  

Well anyway, now you know why this review is peppered with stills and promo pictures instead of my usual screencaps.  If it ever comes out on DVD, I will get all the screencaps my little heart could desire and either do a new post or just replace what I've got here, most of which I found on Pinterest.

ANYWAY.

(This is going to be full of spoilage, but I figure since you can't buy a copy to watch, you aren't going to care.)

Saigon opens in a doctor's office, with Major Larry Briggs (Alan Ladd) waiting for the doctor's report on a guy in his Air Force crew.  The doctor says he's terribly sorry, but Briggs's buddy, Captain Mike Perry (Douglas Dick), has a fatal (unspecified and vague) brain condition and only a couple of months to live.  Which IS a pretty dark way to open a film, I will admit.  Briggs begs the doctor not to tell Perry the diagnosis, saying he'd rather tell Perry in is own way.

Briggs then hustles off to meet up with another Air Force pal, Sgt. Pete Rocco (Wally Cassell).  He tells Rocco the truth, and insists that they're just not going to tell Perry he's going to die.  Perry has no family back home in the US.  (Oh, yes, we're all in... China?  Vietnam?  Japan?  Somewhere vaguely Southeast Asia.)  There's no reason to hurry him back to the states -- they'll just give him the best couple of months of his life and let him live in happy ignorance until one day, he's gone.

Rocco says Perry has the right to be told, but he's very used to obeying Briggs's orders, so he goes along with it.  They welcome Perry to the bar and set out to have a very good time indeed.

It seems they've all been mustered out of the Army Air Force now that the war is over,  (or the Navy?  This movie is VERY VAGUE on details -- but maybe that's because the year this was released is the year the Air Force became its own branch of the Armed Forces, and so they just left it vague because that wasn't quite done yet?).  But they've just been kind of hanging out over in Southeast Asia?  Or maybe they've been waiting for Perry to get a medical discharge?  I've watched this multiple times now and still haven't figured out all those pesky little details, so I think the movie just shrugs them off.  It has more important business to accomplish, like getting Veronica Lake's character on the scene so she and Alan Ladd can get those sparks flying.

So, anyway, Briggs and Rocco and Perry take on a job flying a Rich Guy (Morris Carnovsky) to Saigon from whatever indeterminate Southeast Asia place they're all in.  (I mean, it probably mentions it during the film and I just didn't catch it?  Maybe?)  They're going to get ten thousand dollars for this job, and that's not peanuts -- and the Rich Guy will even supply the plane!  Which, it turns out, is ancient and probably stolen and may or may not fly, but hey, for ten grand, they'll give it a whirl.  Especially since Briggs and Rocco plan to spend their share on giving Perry a last couple months of extreme happiness and fun.

They get the plane running and figure they can make it fly after all, but the Rich Guy hasn't shown up yet, just his "secretary" Susan (Veronica Lake), who has a bunch of luggage and a suitcase she insists on holding herself.  Everyone's ready for takeoff... but no Rich Guy.

And then, from not far away, there comes the sound of gunfire.  Lots of gunfire.  Many shots being exchanged from many firearms, some of which Briggs identifies from the sound as police guns.  Because he's cool like that.  He decides that they were paid to leave at a certain time, so up they will go whether the Rich Guy has arrived yet or not.  And takes off.  Much to the extreme consternation of Susan, who tries to grab the controls, jump out of the plane, or do anything else she can think of to get them to wait for her boss.  Nothing doing, though, and eventually, Rocco knocks her cold to stop her from crashing the plane.

Interesting aside: Veronica Lake actually knew how to fly a plane.  She got her pilot's license, and even flew her own plane across the country in 1948.  So if they'd let her grab the controls, she probably could've handled it.

Well, when Susan comes to, she's staring right into the eyes of the unknowingly doomed Perry, who turns out to be basically the American Good Guy personified, all friendly and cheerful and down-to-earth and NICE.  He's extremely gentlemanly toward Susan, and it's clear he's got a big crush on her.  As opposed to Briggs, who snarls at her and makes snide remarks and is as antagonistic as possible because The Powers That Be obviously had caught on to the fact that Ladd is never more swoon-worthy than when he's pushing away the woman he's secretly getting more and more interested in.  Works every time for him, that no one can deny.  So he keeps on riling her up whenever possible because... it works.  Whereas Rocco mostly makes wisecracks for her because he's just the sidekick and knows he'll never get anywhere with the female lead anyway.

And then the plane runs out of fuel and they have to crash-land in a rice paddy, because that's the only place you can ever crash a plane if you're in Southeast Asia.  They make such nice, exciting splashes, you know.  This leads to Briggs picking Susan up and carrying her through the water, grimacing in annoyance all the way because being nice to her just makes him crabby.  She fusses and fusses, and finally insists he put her down, so he does, about fifty feet from the end of the field.  That means she gets and wet and muddy after all, but hey, a girl has to have her pride!  You can't let crabby pilots carry you around everywhere!

Susan spends the next several scenes insisting she needs dry clothes.  This is her own darn fault and I feel no sympathy for her.  She could've waited to fuss at Briggs until he'd finished carrying her through the water.  Silly woman.

We all end up at this hotel, where the plot thickens, especially regarding how sappy Perry is getting about Susan.  Starry-eyed, love-struck, the works.  Susan just wants to get to Saigon with her briefcase, though, and merely tolerates his chivalry.  They all take a boat to Saigon, whereupon Briggs sneaks into Susan's cabin, finds her briefcase, opens it, discovers it's full of cash, steals the cash, mails the cash to Saigon, and then, when Susan discovers him sneaking around her room, tells Susan that Perry is dying of a brain cloud or whatever, so couldn't she please be nice to him?  To Perry, I mean, not to Briggs.  Briggs doesn't want Susan to be nice to him because then he might have to be nice to her, and that would Never Do because he's much too dedicated to flinging snide remarks at her.  Obviously.

Are you still following me?  Probably, because it's really not a very complicated movie.  Everyone gets to Saigon, and SURPRISE!!!  The Rich Guy didn't die in that shoot-out they heard before they left on the plane!  And now he's here in Saigon!  And he wants his money that Susan was carrying around in that briefcase!  But now the briefcase is empty!  And he thinks Susan took it!  And he thinks Susan is working with Briggs!  And then we all end up at this really fancy hotel, where Perry proposes to Susan, Briggs yells at Susan, the Rich Guy and his Henchmen shoot at people, Briggs kisses Susan, and Many Other Surprises Occur.

Also, the hotel has a gorgeous black-and-white checkerboard floor in this outdoor dining area that I really love, because I love checkerboard floors.  In fact, I have one in my kitchen.

Perry succumbs to his brain disease right on cue, leaving Susan and Briggs free to end the film walking away together into their unspecified future.  Also, the bad guys get stopped, and it turns out Susan really WAS just a secretary and is now reformed of her money-toting henchwoman ways.  But she and Briggs are still going to make snide remarks to each other because my goodness, why stop that fun just because they're in love now?

Is this movie family friendly?  Yeah, pretty much.  There's some shooting and some moments of people in danger, and Perry does die, and there's a very nice kiss.  No cussing or spicy bits, just some mild, flirty innuendo here and there, of the 1940s variety.  I'd let my kids watch it.