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Chris Kelly

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War Movie Marathon

Posted: 05/28/2012 2:55 am

"Facing the truth is hard to do, especially the truth about ourselves. So Americans have been sorely pressed to come to terms with the fact that after 9/11 our government began to torture people, and did so in defiance of domestic and international law. Most of us haven't come to terms with what that meant, or means today, but we must reckon with torture, the torture done in our name, allegedly for our safety.

"It's no secret such cruelty occurred; it's just the truth we'd rather not think about. But Memorial Day is a good time to make the effort. Because if we really want to honor the Americans in uniform who gave their lives fighting for their country, we'll redouble our efforts to make sure we're worthy of their sacrifice; we'll renew our commitment to the rule of law, for the rule of law is essential to any civilization worth dying for."

-- Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, "On Memorial Day Weekend, America Reckons with Torture"

"Try as we might to ignore it, the fact that we tortured and did nothing about it will periodically raise its head -- in a failed prosecution, a foreign court judgment, or a terrorist incident inspired by images from Abu Ghraib. And even when it does not manifest itself so dramatically, the fact that the president of the United States was able to order torture, boast about it in a best-selling book, and walk way scot-free will fuel a deep vein of worldwide resentment. Torture and its after-effects will be with us until we are willing to confront them head-on."

-- David Cole, "Obama's Torture Problem" The New York Review of Books

"Where the devil am I? I keep coming and going."

-- Dana Andrews, Johnny Reno

The North Star
After Nazi doctors torture the people of his village, a Ukrainian bomber pilot (Dana Andrews) deliberately crashes his plane into a column of German tanks. (Damian: Farley Granger)

The Purple Heart
Captured by the Japanese after his bomber crashes, and accused of a crime they didn't commit, an American pilot (Dana Andrews) and his crew (Farley Granger) resist torture and tell their captors nothing.

The Best Years of Our Lives
After World War II, a bomber pilot (Dana Andrews) tries to adjust to civilian life, but is tormented by recurring terrible nightmares about something awful that happened.

Daisy Kenyon
A career woman (Joan Crawford) has to choose between two men (Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews) one of whom has terrible nightmares about something awful that happened during the war.

Battle of the Bulge
Before crashing his plane, an Army intelligence officer (Henry Fonda) disagrees with his superior (Dana Andrews) about how to interrogate a group of captured Germans.

The Ox-Bow Incident
A lynch mob captures a drifter (Dana Andrews) and accuses him of a crime he didn't commit. He refuses to confess, and they hang him anyway. Later, one cowboy (Henry Fonda) feels pretty bad about the whole thing.

Wing and a Prayer
A carrier pilot saves his ship and his friend (Dana Andrews) by deliberately crashing his plane into the path of an oncoming torpedo.

My Foolish Heart
Based on a short story by J.D. Salinger, a free-spirited woman's first love comes to a tragic end when the father of her unborn child (Dana Andrews) blows up in his bomber.

December 7th
After Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor, a graveyard full of dead pilots (voice of Dana Andrews) see their unborn children and call out for vengeance from the afterlife.

Where the Sidewalk Ends
A detective (Dana Andrews) beats a suspect to death during an interrogation, and then tries to frame an innocent man for the crime.

Curse of the Demon
A psychologist (Dana Andrews) inadvertently kills a mental patient during an interrogation, and is pursued by a demon.

In Harm's Way
Not accused of a crime he did commit, Commander Paul Eddington deliberately crashes his plane into a Japanese super battleship. (Eddington: Kirk Douglas. Admiral "Blackjack" Broderick: Dana Andrews)

The Fearmakers
After years of torture in a Chinese prison camp, Captain Alan Eaton (Dana Andrews) returns to America and sees sinister conspiracies everywhere. Is he losing his mind?

Zero Hour!
When food poisoning incapacitates the crew of a commercial airliner, the lives of the passengers are in the hands of a former fighter pilot (Dana Andrews). The problem? He's still haunted by the time his whole squadron crashed during the war.

Airport 1975
A 747 collides with a small plane piloted by Dana Andrews.

The Crowded Sky
A Navy pilot accidentally crashes his jet into a commercial airliner piloted by Dana Andrews.

The Pilot (AKA Danger in the Skies)
Pilots confront drinking problems, with Cliff Robertson and Dana Andrews

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
A novelist (Dana Andrews) faces the death penalty after he frames himself for a crime that he did, didn't, did, didn't, did commit.

Laura
A detective finds himself falling in love with a dead woman, and Clifton Webb warns him, "You'd better watch out, McPherson, or you'll finish up in a psychiatric ward." McPherson: Dana Andrews.

Johnny Reno
After killing a man for a crime he didn't commit, a US Marshall (Dana Andrews) defends the man's brother from a lynch mob, who want to hang him for a crime he didn't commit, either.

Good Guys Wear Black
A trail of murders leads Chuck Norris to a guilt-racked former diplomat and the cover-up of a decade-old battlefield crime. Former Diplomat: Dana Andrews.

Edge of Doom
When Farley Granger is accused of crime he didn't commit, a crusading inner city priest (Dana Andrews) tells the police to charge him or let him go.

The Twilight Zone: No Time Like the Past
Wanting to fix things, a scientist (Dana Andrews) builds a time machine and tries to warn the people of Hiroshima that they're about to be bombed. No dice.

The Frozen Dead
Wanting to fix things, a scientist (Dana Andrews) tries to bring German soldiers back from the dead. It just makes things worse.

Crack in the World
Wanting to fix things, a scientist (Dana Andrews) fires an atomic bomb at the center of the earth. Nope.

A Walk in the Sun
Under the command of Dana Andrews, an American infantry platoon captures a pair of Italian deserters. Asks them a few questions, gives them some food and lets them go again.

Fade out.

 
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"Facing the truth is hard to do, especially the truth about ourselves. So Americans have been sorely pressed to come to terms with the fact that after 9/11 our government began to torture people, and ...
"Facing the truth is hard to do, especially the truth about ourselves. So Americans have been sorely pressed to come to terms with the fact that after 9/11 our government began to torture people, and ...
 
 
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
David Durham
Just a guy who tries to stay informed and stand fo
12:30 PM on 05/29/2012
It was movies like these that created in my mind as a kid the idea that we were the 'good guys'. They tortured prisoners, we didn't. That was a crucial difference between the 'bad guys' and us. Now people like Dick Cheney have made us just like them. And he's proud of that fact. It's all a part of his 'hard-bitten realism' approach to 21th century conflict. But if 'we' are made to be just like 'them' what are we really fighting for?
HUFFPOST PUNDIT
realitytrumpsbull
Two 'alves of coconut!
08:04 AM on 05/29/2012
Hopefully, they'll keep the waterboarding around, especially when it seems like there's some kind of discrepancy between claimed standards and practices, and demonstrated results in the area of state/federal finance. How many of our states are in hock 'for good', and how did they get that way, and how many dark, dirty little secrets lie buried on the road to insolvency? Waterboarding, though controversial, could be the key to truth and honesty on budget, at local, state, and the federal level, too.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
bbarnezz
Round up the usual suspects
07:54 AM on 05/29/2012
So if asked, we generally say we dislike the idea of situational ethics. We believe in the concept of right and wrong. Yet when faced with a moment of fear, we act like scared children, and destroy the concepts that we say are most important to us. We abandon principle for the illusion of safety, and we take action against our own First Amendment and the international rule of law.

We refuse to even acknowledge that we can act badly, and make excuses for our failure to uphold our values. We demonize the "bad guys" so we can feel OK about how we treat them, or we simply close our eyes to the consequences of what we do. We could have shown the world just what freedom and conscience and morality means to us, instead we have shown we are no different from the rest.
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jimtpat
Hell's Pretty Pink Bells
07:34 AM on 05/29/2012
What about 'Hot Rods to Hell'?

A traveling salesman (Dana Andrews), traumatized in a car wreck, uproots his family from Boston and moves them to a motel in the boonies, fighting teen punks along the way.

I hear Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino talk about growing up and seeing fantastic movies every week. I could afford maybe one movie a year and this is what I picked for 1967. Talk about a REAL wasted adolescence!
03:36 PM on 05/29/2012
I remember Hot Rods to Hell. I'm surprised Tarantino hasn't made a remake, just so he could use that cool title. In any event, consider yourself lucky: your one movie of 1967 could've been Dr. Doolittle!
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
David01
texan Badges, I don't got no badges. I don't need
01:21 AM on 05/29/2012
Huffington Post blames Obama for future global resentment for Bush torture policy.
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WI Patriot
Defending the Constitution.
12:41 AM on 05/29/2012
This is what happens with a volunteer military I guess. Random civilians creating war stories via movies.
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
motoGpifupleez
watching with amusement
11:41 PM on 05/28/2012
It would seem that Chris Kelly is a major Dana Andrews fan.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
mudshark12
Now who are you jiving with that cosmik debris?
01:23 AM on 05/29/2012
You noticed that too.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
FearlessFreep
A radical leftist with a JS Woodsworth avatar.
10:49 PM on 05/28/2012
DAISY KENYON's an entertaining melodrama. Joan Crawford marries Henry Fonda but essentially admits to him that it's Dana Andrews she loves. Fonda just says, "Let it grow." In the end she decides she loves Fonda after all.

ZERO HOUR was the basis for the spoof AIRPLANE!

AIRPORT 1975 had an overnight flight going westward! (They go eastward.)
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
zanderofnola
09:54 PM on 05/28/2012
"torture does not work, but the fear of torture does" - Robert Hawkins - this would be consistent with what some Vietnam vets said of battlefield interrogations.
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Catriona
Wha daur meddle wi me?
07:48 PM on 05/28/2012
This list wasn't serious? Was it? Do these movies actually exist? Surely not.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
memito
12:36 AM on 05/29/2012
The Ox-Bow Incident is considered a classic and it aired on TCM about two weeks ago.
Instead of just dismissing the article; why don't you do some search on Google and find
out whether they exist or not?
03:42 PM on 05/29/2012
The Best Years of Our Lives might be the most moving film ever to come out of Hollywood.
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Catriona
Wha daur meddle wi me?
05:33 PM on 05/29/2012
I've heard of some of them, but others seem too weird to be true.
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
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PRONESE
Somewhat Opinionated Curmudgeon
06:00 PM on 05/28/2012
Some other choices might be:
Stalag 17 - (1953) Written and Directed by Billy Wilder and starring William Holden
Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046359/
*
In Love And War - Written by James Stockdale and Carol Schreder starring Jane Alexander and James Woods. The true story of Medal of Honor Recipient ADM James Stockdale.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093249/
*
Remembering today those who served in the U.S. Armed forces and gave the ultimate sacrifice for the United States of America.
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R/ PRONESE
05:35 PM on 05/28/2012
bill maher, enough said.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Stanley Bonk
"mad, bad, and dangerous to know"
04:40 PM on 05/28/2012
I tend to be a moral relativist. I look for excuses, mitigating factors, that sort of thing. This, though wasn't a problem for me in the least. Torture. An American President ordering torture. The President, the Vice-president, and other high level White house Administrators condoning and ordering torture. A dozen or more lawyers writing briefs to justify the use of torture. This is easy for me. I don't need to think about it much at all.

A gibbet should await them all. So long as one of them breathes free air, we're a nation soiled, dishonored, and diminished, not so much in the eyes of the rest of the world, but in our own inner estimation.

We once held trials in Nuremberg. Where are they now? We did that, we held them up to the world's scrutiny, and saw to it they received judgement for their actions. Where are we now? Where is the tribunal that will bring them to justice? Where will we find the water that can wash this filth off of us?

Half the country thinks these walking examples of moral garbage are heros. What have we turned into? When did we go from being the example of courage and moral rectitude and turn into a nation of cowering cravens, so frightened of a couple dozen extremists that we threw away every moral principle we ever had in a desperate bid to claw our way back to a sense of security?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Katherine Schock
Over the hill,liberal,organic gardener
08:13 PM on 05/28/2012
Hear! Hear! Fanned for one absolutely correct post, I couldn't agree more!
08:21 PM on 05/28/2012
With respects, sir – although I find no argument with your post – I submit you are perhaps missing a larger point, viz, what you (and we) are witness to is nothing less than the decline and demise of the American Empire. It happened to the Mongols, the Romans, the British et cetera, and really should come as no great surprise. It is as sad as it is inevitable; the Romans poisoned themselves with lead in the glaze of their dishes, the British fell prey to the silly delusion of the ‘white man’s burden’ as justification for colonial theft, and you Americans (I’m a Brit) have for the most part allowed yourselves to believe your own press. What can one say finally about a nation more captivated by, and captive of, religious psychosis than Iran; what can one say about a nation which elects Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush… twice each?
There is really nothing to say beyond R.I.P.
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07:04 AM on 05/29/2012
I believe there is still hope, as the younger generation seems to be less in the thrall of religion, but you may well be correct. I have found my British friends to have a much better grasp of history - well, probably a much better grasp of history AND science - than we do here. It truly saddens me.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
JPETERB
04:01 PM on 05/28/2012
Thanks. This needs to be excised by justice and prosecution of those who ordered and those who carried out the crimes. They know who they are. They avoid leaving the country secure in their persons and in denial of the horror of their hollow positions and high crimes. We need to remind them, the entire world's worth of moral and sane and law abiding persons, who we are. Good people and good Americans do not torture or kill for political party, false patriotism or calculating fear.
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LMPE
I connect the most dissimilar things
02:46 PM on 05/28/2012
It's too bad that "24" made torture look good.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
JPETERB
04:22 PM on 05/28/2012
Unless you think it 'good' that you, your wife or your children could be tortured to protect us Americans, "24" was not really watchable, much less entertainment. Talk about Pentagon/CIA domestic propaganda, "24" was effectively MIC programming for the New World Order.