First war movie you remember seeing.

[Wayneb]

Brain fart tells me to ask this question...What was the first war movie you remember seeing as a kid?......
For me it was "The longest Day"........Second was Guadalcanal Diary which is older but my dad was there.
What say ye? ,If you can pull that out that out of the mental archives. Or are you too young to relate?

Wayne

 

[Babelfish]

The first one I remember seeing at the cinema was "The Battle Of Britain" not long after it came out. My Dad had already seen it when he was away on a business trip, and after he came home he took me & my Mum to see it as well. The first one I remember seeing on TV was "The Heroes Of Telemark".

I also have fond memories of watching a now largely forgotten TV show called "Garrison's Gorillas", which was kind of a poor man's "Dirty Dozen". As far as I know it was never repeated on UK television after its initial run in the late '60s, so I hadn't seen it literally for decades when I rewatched a couple of episodes on YouTube a few years ago. I found it incredibly cheesy now (a show very much "of its time"), but as a young kid it was a major highlight of my week being allowed to stay up and watch it on (I think) Saturday nights. Lots of shooting, stuff going BANG and plenty of nameless extras dying dramatic, sometimes acrobatic, but always largely bloodless deaths dressed as cannon-fodder German soldiers, with Our Heroes always emerging unscathed at the end of each week's adventure, their latest Vital Mission successfully completed.

- Steve

 

[NigelR]

Too old to relate.... I can't remember. I am old, so Sunday afternoons in the 1960s were frequently spent watching b&w war movies with my dad (who served in the Navy during the war). No idea what the first one was, but we watched loads of them, all the usual suspects like the Dambusters, Cruel Sea, In Which We Serve etc etc. They all stirred an interest in things military for me.

The first war film I remember waiting for with mounting excitement was Waterloo, released when I was 13. Went to the cinema to see it and was totally amazed by it.

 

[harrytheheid]

Hmm, difficult one.
On TV it must've been either "The Flying Tigers", which inspired these in 1/32 scale 40-years later...

...or "They Were Expendable", (no PT boat models as yet, unfortunately).

Cinema is easier as I distinctly remember my Mum taking me to see a double-bill of “Zulu” and "633 Squadron" at La Grande Palace.
Cheers
H

 

[PropBlast]

Battle of Britain, Attack!, All Quiet On The Western Front (Original), Das Boot.

 

[sd0324]

In a theater it was "The Green Berets" because Mom thought it would depict my Dad's experience in Vietnam. Lol.
On TV, it was "The Longest Day". Grampa Charles always watched that.


Steve

 

[marco55]

Can't remember movies, probably a John Wayne or Errol Flynn one. On tv maybe Rin Tin Tin, a FFL show and Combat.
Mark

 

[Mirofsoft]

Flying Leathernecks
https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2048960103

 

[arj]

My parents took their whippersnapper to see "To Hell and Back".
It stuck in the memory since it was in full colour.

Andrew

 

[harrytheheid]

Flying Leathernecks
https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2048960103

I was very young when this was shown on TV and remember being absolutely shocked when the pilot, who was caught up in the branches of a tree after bailing out, was shot dead by a Japanese patrol as he hung there in his parachute. After all, that's not what happened in the comic books!
I asked my Dad why they didn't take him prisoner? As a child, I couldn't really understand his response, but I think it was the first time it really dawned on me that he'd been in the RAF.

 

[Blind Pew]

Probably....(I'm struggling now) "Kelly's Heroes" on Saturday night TV in the early 1980s. Also "The Heroes of Telemark" might be in with a shout.

 

[Nap]

All Quiet on the Western Front ( original 1930's version ) ......and NO I'm not that old !

One of the favourites is Enemy at the Gates

Nap

 

[akaryu]

"Bridge over the river Kwai" , "Guns of Navarone" would have been the first colour ones as far as I can remember.

Some B&W ones about war in the Pacific, names long forgotten, all in the garrison cinema of Siegen Germany, where I grew up in the fifties.

Doesn't make us any younger, does it?

Cheers,
Pierre

 

[Bundook]

In the cinema:
"Kelly's Heroes" when it came out in 1970
"A Bridge Too Far" in 1977
All the old favourites got shown on TV every Christmas: "Battle of the Bulge", "Battle of Britain", "Bridge on the River Kwai", "Charge of the Light Brigade", "Zulu", "Zulu dawn" and so on.

 

[Dr Bison]

The first one I remember seing on telly: Laurel & Hardy "Bonnie Scotland"


...followed some years later by "The Longest Day" (1962) and "Die Brücke" (1959).
Not that many war films on German television or in the cinemas in the 1960s and 70s as far as I can remember.

I've definitely made up for that lack of films in the meantime

Karl

 

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

As a child I grew up on Guam and lived in BPM Camp #1. Every night there were free outdoor movies at the camp, not new, first run movies, oh no, so I saw a lot of old movies. The first war movie I remember seeing was "The Story of G. I. Joe" (not the toy).
Rick

 

[marco55]

As I've been thinking back it may have been Wee Willie Winkie with Shirly Temple.
Mark

 

[theBaron]

Good question, not sure. I was born in 1964, and the first war movie I saw was probably on TV. Maybe "Battle of the Bulge", very inaccurate but very entertaining. I watched a lot more monster movies when I was a kid, Saturday afternoons on Doctor Shock's show out of Philly. All the original Hollywood horror films, but also Godzilla movies, when who knew from the word, "kaiju"? We just called 'em Japanese monster movies.
I probably saw "Kelly's Heroes" in the early 70s when it first made it to TV, and the same goes for "Tora! Tora! Tora!"
Prost!
Brad

 

[harrytheheid]

As I've been thinking back it may have been Wee Willie Winkie with Shirly Temple.
Mark

I'm a huge fan of John Ford movies.
Perhaps despite the title, "Wee Willie Winkie" is actually a pretty good film of its time.
One of Victor McLaglan's best ever performances IMO.

 

[Mark S]

When recalling some of the great early war movies one mustn't forget "I Was a Male War Bride"
It was the first one I saw and I've never been the same since.