"Movies that feature veterans of the conflict depicted?" Topic

How many movies feature actors "who were there"?

An obvious one is D-Day, with Richard Todd.

I have read that there was a Zulu movie that featured Matabele vets.

It would be interesting to see how many there are, and how the Wrong Tank Syndrome guys feel about them.

Audie Murphy comes to mind. I haven't seen it, but he starred in "To Hell and Back." He also starred in "The Red Badge of Courage."

John Agar was a WW2 vet and was in " The Sands of Iwo Jima"

"Battleground" features actual footage of soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge, but I don't think that's what you are looking for.

"Act of Valor" cast real-life Navy Seals trained as actors, rather than actors pretending to be navy seals.

I thought several of the 1920s movies about WW1 especially the air combat ones used veteran pilots.

There were several movies in the 1950s and late 1940s that were noted as being done wit hthe cooperation of a particular DoD branch. Those would have vets.

I know that Green berets had veterans in it. It was shot at Ft Benning and had US veterans playing the part of VC troops.

Pretty much any WW2 war film made before 1980 would have veterans involved somewhere, well unless they starred John Wayne of course.

"Theirs is the Glory", about the Battle of Arnhem.
Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune in "Hell in the Pacific".
"Act of Valor", SEALs depicted by actual operators.

A twist on the OP's question – IIRC, in a conversation
years ago, a well-known rules author, then serving in
the USMC, told me that he was in a unit tapped for a
WWII film – fairly common in the 50's.

Due to his stature, he (and others) was asked to play
the part of a Japanese soldier.

Interesting, no ?

the big lift 1950 imdb.com/title/tt0042249

of the US forces depicted
only Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas were actors

everyone else were US servicemen as themselves

The subject on whom the film "Lone Survivor" is based plays an unimportant character in one of the early scenes.

dirty dozen

per imdb:

Lee Marvin (Marines), Telly Savalas (Army), Charles Bronson (Army), Ernest Borgnine (Navy) and Clint Walker (Merchant Marine) Robert Ryan (Marines) and George Kennedy (Army) all served in World War II.

Adolphe Menjou
1890 – 1963

Menjou an American actor. He was a Captain in the American Ambulance Corps in WW1. He may be best remembered for his role as the uncaring French officer in Paths of Glory.

Strategic Air Command: Jimmy Stewart

He served in the Army Air Corp during WWII. His official record shows 20 missions. He enlisted in the Air Corp in March 1941. He rose from Private to Colonel in four years. He retired from the Air Force Reserve in 1968 and was later promoted to Major General by President Ronald Reagan.

Tim

A Bridge Too Far:
Dirk Bogarde served on Browning's staff during the battle. Denholm Elliot was in the RAF in WW2 (and was shot down and spent years in a prison camp)
Wolfgang Preiss served in the german army
Gene Hackman was a marine post WW2
Michael Caine served in Korea

Platoon: Dale Dye, Oliver Stone, and the sergeant who is killed in a cameo in the final battle all fought in vietnam.

Randolph Scott
served in ww1 as an artillery spotter

had an uncredited roll in 1929's "the black watch"

Eddie Albert was at Tarawa,"Fireball Forward"movie.Clark Gable pilot w/the American eagles in Britain was in a the movie " Bomber command",Curt Jurgens in the Wehrmacht WW2,was in "The Enemy Below"and "Battle of Britain"and I think "The Longest Day " Also Humphrey Bogart served Navy WW1,and was in the movie "African Queen".

In Korda's version of THE FOUR FEATHERS many of the extras portraying the Khalifa's forces at Omdurman were veterans of the battle.

link

Richard Todd, who played Major John Howard, leader of the British Airborne assault on the Pegasus Bridge, took part in the real bridge assault on D-Day. Todd was offered the chance to play himself but took the part of Major John Howard instead. In the film, shortly after the British have captured the Orne bridge (later renamed Horsa Bridge), one of the soldiers tells Todd, playing Howard, that all they have to do now is sit tight and await the arrival of the 7th Parachute Battalion, to which Todd's character replies dismissively: "the Paras are always late". This was a private joke, Todd had been the adjutant of the 7th Parachute Battalion on D-Day.

From the same Wikipedia article, apparently President Eisenhower was offered the role of General Eisenhower, and he was willing, but he looked too old.

"Clark Gable pilot w/the American eagles in Britain". Unfortunately not so. Already 40 in 1941 he nonetheless wanted to enlist in the Army Air Corps and serve as a gunner. He was diverted to Officer Candidate School and commissioned a 2nd Lt. He did go to aerial gunnery school and finally flew several combat missions as an "observer-gunner" on a B-17 as a 1st Lt/Captain (gunners at that time were of course enlisted). On at least one mission his plane was pretty well shot up. He eventually was discharged as a Major.

As above, loads of Ww2 films made in the 50 years after the war had people who'd fought in it. David Niven of course starred in The Way Ahead while he was still fighting it…

More unusually, The 1936 version of The Four Feathers featured some Sudanese veterans of Omdurman.

Donald Pleasence was in RAF and spent time as a PoW in Stalug Luft 1, then played a role as a PoW in 'The Great Escape'

The first Four Feathers movie I believe had actual Mahdists in it.
Rudy Reyes played himself in Generation Kill.

I nominate. OFM. For the cogent question of the month award. Well done, interesting question and great answers.

"Donald Pleasence was in RAF and spent time as a PoW in Stalug Luft 1, then played a role as a PoW in 'The Great Escape'"

I was going to mention him. As the story goes, he approached the director with an offer to help with authenticity, was rebuffed initially… then when it became known that he had indeed been a POW, his input was given more credit.

Apocryphal? Hopefully not :)

Chalfant

Classic is Peter Butterworth, who auditioned and failed to get a part in 'The Cockleshell Heros' as he didn't look right, which is odd as he was in the reserve kyak that wasn't launched that night…

making of great escape
donald pleasence interview

at 4 and a half min
YouTube link

James Stuart was the Glenn Miller Story and this documentary I found.

link

How about anything Captain Dale Dye(R), founder of Warriors Inc. and decorated Vietnam vet, has either advised on and/or played a role in? Platoon, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Born on the Fourth of July, Starship Troopers, Falling Skies just to name a few.

Many of the supporting actors in "Battleground" were veterans of the 101st:

Twenty veterans of the 101st were hired to train the actors and appeared in the film as extras. Lt Col Harry Kinnard, who had been the 101st's deputy divisional commander at Bastogne, was the film's technical advisor.

link

Just to clarify the references to Sudanese veterans of Omdurman appearing in the 1939 Alexander Korda remake of
"The Four Feathers,"--they didn't.

That is to say, the combat footage shot on the original Omdurman battlefield which did have at least some number of veterans involved was actually from the Merrian Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack 1929 version of TFF.

Korda simply took the 1929 combat and most location footage, laboriously hand tinted it to match the Technicolor used in all the "new" footage shot in the UK studios.

Credit for the actual location footage and huge numbers of Sudanese extras actually goes to the earlier production by the same two men who would only a few years later give the world "King Kong."

TVAG

Christopher Lee was in WWII, serving first in the RAF and then with SOE (the "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare"). To this day he isn't allowed to talk about what he did with SOE, so certainly there isn't a movie about it.

In a slightly different course:

Corporal 'Frenchie' Lebeau, from Hogan's Heroes:
Robert Clary, born in Paris 1926, spent 42-45 in german concentration camps, as did 12 of his immediate family.
He was the only survivor. He is also the last living principle cast of member of that show, and spent years touring speaking about the Holocaust.

- I can't imagine, in '65, what it would be like agreeing to play a prisoner in a german camp for a TV show. As light-hearted & funny, as Hogan's Heroes was, it still had to be a very weird experience for this actor…

BTW:
Werner Klemper/'Colonel Klinks' family fled german to the US in 1935 (he was 15 at the time), and John Banner/ 'Sergeant Shultz' was performing in Switzerland when Austria was annexed in '38 (he was 28), and also fled to the US.

Klemper, Banner, and Clary were close friends, it is said.

Generation Kill

Rudy Reyes – (the guy who ran around the camp in a gas mask) played himself, Sgt. Rodolfo 'Rudy' Reyes.

Eric Kocher – he was part of the unit shown but did not play himself. He played Gunnery Sgt. Rich Barrett. He was also one of the key military advisors for the mini-series.

He are some of his quotes if you are interested:

link

"Adolphe Menjou
1890 – 1963

Menjou an American actor. He was a Captain in the American Ambulance Corps in WW1. He may be best remembered for his role as the uncaring French officer in Paths of Glory.?

He was also in A Farewell to Arms (1932 film) which was about ambulance drivers in Italy during the Great War. He was Italian doctor. This is pretty close to the posed question.

Ernest Borgnine, a standard fixture of many WW2 B movies, served in the USN during WW2. By all accounts a good shipmate, unlike some of the characters he portrays!

Theirs is the Glory as mentioned above, featured many vets of Arnhem, and had many more involved in the direction of it. Makes it a really moving film, I defy anyone to watch it without getting moist eyes!

About Klemperer, Banner in Hogan's Heroes: both men were Jewish, playing German servicemen in the Nazi Reich. As also, I recall, the actors who played Maj Hochstetter and Gen Burkhalter. According to his IMDB entry, Werner Klemperer only agreed to the role of Klink because the character was a buffoon.

No one mentioned R. Lee Ermey for Full Metal Jacket? He is a Vietnam vet.

As someone whose wife and daughter are professional actors, I have always found it interesting the number of veterans who either were actors prior to or after their service.

I remember meeting the late Dennis Farina in Bosnia, who was on a USO tour, and I asked him about acting and police work. He said half of being a beat cop was being a good actor.

So, if you ever watch "Mildred Pierce", the HBO series done by Todd Haynes, my daughter Morgan plays "young Veda" and has more screen time than Evan Rachael Wood…

Hopefully, she will be able to use all of her work to pay for college.

Eric

David Niven was a commando; his batman was Peter Ustinov.

Sir John Mills served in the Royal Engineers during the early part of the war. Strangely, most of his war films seem to have involved the sea.

Arnold Ridley, fronm Dad's Army (an iconic UK comedy series about the Home Guard) fought in both World Wars and also served in the Home Guard. His military career was quite interesting:

'He saw active service in the First World War, sustaining several serious injuries: his left hand was left virtually useless by injuries sustained on the Somme;[4][5] his legs were riddled with shrapnel; he was bayonetted in the groin; and the legacy of a blow to the head by a German soldier's rifle butt left him prone to blackouts.[6] He was medically discharged from the army with the rank of Lance Corporal'

' Ridley rejoined the army in 1939.[6] He was commissioned into the General List on 7 October 1939 as a second lieutenant. He was given the service number 103663.[7] He again saw active service with the British Expeditionary Force in France during the Second World War, but was discharged on health grounds.[6] He relinquished his commission as a captain on 1 June 1940.[8] He subsequently joined the Home Guard.[6]'

From link

Most other members of the cast had also served during the war.

"Werner Klemper/'Colonel Klinks' family fled german to the US in 1935 (he was 15 at the time)"

[OT] Werner Klemperer's father was Otto Klemperer, a famous conductor who worked with Gustav Mahler. And re-emigrated back to Germany after the war.

Not a combat film (and so slightly off-topic) Brigadier General Chuck Yeager made a cameo appearance in The Right Stuff (dir. Philip Kaufman, 1983).

Ron

Does Get Smart count? If so, then Don Adams.

Similarly Mel Brooks for The Producers

Alex Guinness --Bridge on the River Kwai He served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II, serving first as a seaman in 1941 and being commissioned the following year. He commanded a landing craft taking part in the invasion of Sicily and Elba and later ferried supplies to the Yugoslav partisans.

"Theirs is the Glory" 1946 about Arnhem.
A co-production between Rank and Army Film and Photographic unit.
Filmed on the battlefield with Paras and war correspondents who were at the battle.
Great movie, but in those days they did not know much about PTSD.
Cheers,
Bertie

Ian Carmichael – The Colditz Story and many others; was my Grandfather's Troop Commander in the 22nd Dragoons during the Normandy Campaign.

David Niven was a commando; his batman was Peter Ustinov.

Not according to his autobiography. He was mostly used to make movies ("The Way Forward") and as a staff officer. From Normandy until the end of the war he was in the "Phantom" reconnaissance unit, which kept the higher-ups informed of what was actually happening on the ground. For example, when the Irish Guard liberated Eindhoven, a Phanton detachment would have reported that fact in real time to XXX Corps and higher commands.

There's also Jame Doohan of "Star Trek" fame, who was in the Canadian artillery and landed at Juno Beach.

Some of the Marines in the group of guys on leave in the classic Hail the Conquering Hero with Eddie Bracken were vets from the war. And what about Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives? He lost his hands in a training accident but he was still a vet.

I am amazed that no one has mentioned "A Walk in the Sun", Virtually the entire cast were WW2 vets, many of them having served at Salerno. It's also one of the finest films about low-level combat in WW2.

And then there's Victor McLaglen (Sgt. MacChesney in "Gunga Din" and Sgt. MacDuff in "Wee Willie Winkie"), who served with the Royal Munster Fusiliers in Mesopotamia during WW1. In 1934 he played the Sergeant in the talkie version "Lost Patrol", set in the Iraqi desert. Oddly, his brother Cyril had played the role in the earlier silent version. In 1919 he later served as Provost Marshall for Baghdad. I have seen at least one source that claimed he thoroughly enjoyed the bar fight scene with the Highlanders in Gunga Din, claiming he'd always wondered what such an affray was like from the other side.

Battle Of Britain had veterans from the war as advisors and characters in the movie. link

Lone Survivor had several SEALs as advisors and played background characters of SEALs in the movie. Marcus Lutttrell had a cameo. marcusluttrell.com

Movie Stars who served in ww-II. link

I'm trying to find the link and name of a B&W movie set in Germany right after ww-II. The producers asked for german veterans to be in the movie and to bring their uniforms. They also wanted SS and Gestopo veterans with their uniforms. What I recall few showed up cause they thought it was a trick to draw them out of hiding. But several regular army veterans were in the movie. One scene they go to a german army units reunion hall (?) Several german veterans are in the hall drinking and socializing. Really good movie but haven't seen it on TCM in a few years.

The OFM would be an obvious choice is a movie is ever made about Ramses II at Megiddo…