FAYE
The Ottawa Military History Club
History on Film Nights
Associated with the Ottawa Military History Club are History on Film Nights. The group hosts bi-weekly military related film nights highlighting excellent but lesser-known military related movies, some from decades ago.
“Join us at Branch 314 Manotick Legion when we set the clock back to give you an experience of a night out at the theatre during the Second World War before the dawn of the television age. War Savings Certificates drives, Public Service Announcements about actions to take in the event of an Enemy air raid, Canadian Army or British Pathe Newsreels about our troops overseas, War Time Cartoons, Previews of Coming Attractions, Cigarette Ads encouraging you to buy a pack at the concession stand, an homage to King George VI, it's all here in one glorious night. Come relive a great night out with your friends and family.”
Attendance is free, but donations to the Homeless Veterans fund are appreciated.
Breaker Morant (1980)
The film concerns the 1902 court martial of Lieutenants Harry (The Breaker) Morant, Peter Handcock and George Witton—one of the first war crime prosecutions in British military history. Australians serving in the British Army during the Second Anglo-Boer War, Morant, Handcock, and Witton stood accused of murdering captured enemy combatants and an unarmed civilian in the Northern Transvaal. Lord Kitchener commanding the British Army in South Africa, who ordered the trial, hopes to bring the Boer War to an end with a peace conference. To that end, he uses the Morant trial to show that he is willing to judge his own soldiers harshly if they disobey the rules of war. Though there are great complexities associated with charging active-duty soldiers with murder, Kitchener is determined to have a guilty verdict, and the chief of the court supports him. But what if the accused Australian Officers were following an order which they say came directly from Lord Kitchener himself?
The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
The year is 1943. The course of the war is changing with the Afrika Corps defeated and the Allies invading Sicily and Italy. Germany is teetering on the brink of defeat. An increasingly unhinged Hitler, following the successful rescue of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, orders a mission to have British Prime Minister Winston Churchill kidnapped and brought to Germany. The plan seems ludicrous in the extreme, but a message sent from a German spy in the Norfolk, England countryside makes one German officer realize that such a mission may just be feasible. "Operation Eagle" involves German Fallschirmjägers (Paratroopers) dressing as Polish paratroopers to infiltrate a quiet English village where Churchill will be passing through. The Fallschirmjägers' aim is to capture Churchill, with the help of IRA agent Max Devlin, before making their escape by a captured motor torpedo boat.
Captains of the Clouds (1942)
After the 1940 Battle of Britain, Great Britain needed to train more pilots and in a location where the training airfields couldn't be bombed by the Luftwaffe. In early 1941, RAF and RCAF Stations started to spring up all across Canada in a program known as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Trainee Pilots, Navigators, Gunners and ground support personnel arrived from all corners of the British Commonwealth including Canada to begin training. This training was captured in Captains of the Clouds for release as a propaganda film for the general public. "At last! The screen tells the story of Canada's Heroic Airmen...The Pilots of the RCAF. Packed with power...loaded with thrills...the story of the men who fly against the Luftwaffe...for Canada."
The film stars James Cagney (Brian MacLean) and Dennis Morgan (Johnny Dutton) as Canadian bush pilots who volunteer to join the RCAF during the Second World War. However, in true 1940s movie fashion, there is a love triangle with Dutton's fiancé.
They Shall Not Grow Old (2028)
"They Shall Not Grow Old" is a 2018 documentary film directed and produced by Peter Jackson who brought us the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. It was created using footage of the First World War held by the British Imperial War Museum (IWM), most of which was previously unseen, and all of which was over 100 years old by the time of the film's release. Much of the footage was colourised and restored using modern production techniques for its use in the film, and sound effects and voice acting were added to the silent footage. The film's narration was edited from interviews with British WWI veterans from the collections of the BBC and the IWM.
Movie Trailer:
(3) They Shall Not Grow Old – New Trailer – Now Playing In Theaters - YouTube
Battle of Britain (1969)
" Battle of Britain" picks up where the movie "Dunkirk (1958)" lets off. The British Army has left its weapons, equipment and many dead or prisoners on the Dunkirk beaches in June 1940. All that is left is the British Royal Air Force who now has to fight a desperate battle to prevent the Luftwaffe from gaining air superiority over the English Channel as a prelude to a possible German invasion of the United Kingdom.
Young Winston (1972)
The film covers the early years of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, based in particular on his 1930 book, My Early Life. The first part of the film covers Churchill's unhappy schooldays, up to the death of his father. The second half covers his service as a cavalry officer in India and the Sudan, during which he takes part in the cavalry charge at Omdurman, his experiences as a war correspondent in the Second Boer War, during which he is captured and escapes, and his election to Parliament at the age of 26.
Movie Trailer:
Young Winston || Modern Trailer
The Silent Enemy (1958)
"The Silent Enemy" tells the extraordinary true story of the Royal Navy Divers in the Mediterranean. During the 1941 Italian manned torpedo raid on Alexandria, two British battleships, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant, are severely damaged. The Italians start using underwater chariots to mine the undersides of allied ships. The British are worried that this new tactic will afford the Italians naval supremacy in the Mediterranean and the ability to strike their primary target, the Royal Navy base at Gibraltar. Even more worrying, it seems likely that the Italians are secretly using neutral Spain across the bay as their key base
To counter this threat, bomb-disposal expert Lionel Crabb is posted to Gibraltar. He organises a small team of divers to intercept the Italian attacks and defuse the bombs. Meanwhile, from Algeciras in neutral Spain, Italian expert on underwater operations Antonio Tomolino is secretly watching the British base in Gibraltar and planning new attacks.
Stalingrad (1993)
"Stalingrad" is a 1993 German anti-war film that follows a platoon of German Army soldiers transferred to the Eastern Front during the Second World War where they are thrown in to the fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad, Russia. The film begins in August 1942, where German soldiers on leave in Cervo, Liguria, Italy, are decorated for their participation at the First Battle of El Alamein and then board a rail transport to the Eastern Front. Unteroffizier Manfred "Rollo" Rohleder and Obergefreiter Fritz Reiser are introduced to Leutnant Hans von Witzland, their inexperienced new platoon leader. Witzland's platoon is thrown into the Battle of Stalingrad under the command of Hauptmann Hermann Musk. Musk's company suffers heavy casualties in an assault on a factory.
This list of films is a work in progress. Standby for updates.