T. E. Lawrence is a young maladjusted lieutenant in the British Army in North Africa during World War One. Unhappy with his current assignment coloring maps, he is ecstatic when he is offered a job as an observer in what is now Arabia. At this point, the story of his life becomes the stuff that legends are made of.
In 480 BC, the ambitious, cruel and merciless King Xerxes (David Farrar) of Persia invades Greece with his huge army to extend his vast slave empire. The brave Spartan army is the great hope to free and unite Greece, and king Leonidas (Richard Egan) promises to the council of the Greek Stats to defend the passage of Thermopylae, the only way by land to reach Athens. However, he is betrayed by the politicians of Sparta and stays alone with his personal body guard army composed of three hundred warriors only. Using courage and great knowledge of strategies of war, he defends Thermopylae until a treacherous goatherd tells King Xerxes a secret goat passage leading to the back of Leonidas's army.
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, the US, Britain, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day. The longest day."
During World War II, an Allied commando team, led by Major Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle), is assigned the perilous mission of sailing to the Greek Island of Navarone in the Aegean Sea. They must team up with local resistance workers to destroy two massive German guns that threaten Allied naval ships, and prevent the evacuation of 2,000 endangered British soldiers from the Island of Kheros.
Eleventh-century Spain is divided into Christian kingdoms and Moorish strongholds. The young Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar—dubbed El Cid by his followers—vows to see his country at peace, free from the invader. Vigorously brave and resourceful, the noble knight hates bloodshed and faces treason charges at court for the clemency shown to some emirs. His accuser, Gomez, father of his fiancée, Chimene, dies in the resulting duel. Chimene's avowed vengeance plot fails and Rodrigo is given her hand; the marriage is not consummated and she enters a convent. On Ferdinand's death, his kingdom is divided among his three children. Sancho challenges the decision and imprisons Alfonso, who is released by the Cid. The African war-lord, Ben Yssef, takes advantage of the quarrel by having Sancho assassinated. Alfonso now claims that throne, too, and exiles the Cid. Chimene realizes the nobility of her husband and joins him, but returns to the convent with their two children, when he goes into battle against Ben Yussef. The years pass, El Cid becomes a revered warrior, but refuses to aid Alfonso, preferring his own strategy. He lays siege to Valencia, catapulting food into its starving garrison; when the Valencians kill their evil ruler, Al Kadir, they offer the crown to the Cid. He sends it to Alfonso, who rushes, hysterically gratified, to his side. But the Cid has been hit by a stray arrow. Attended by Chimene, he hides the wound from his men and prepares a final bid to drive the Moors from Spain.
Grand Duchess Gloriana XII (Peter Seller), the ruler of the tiny European duchy of Grand Fenwick, convokes the Parliament and Prime Minister Count Rupert Mountjoy (Peter Seller) to discuss the coming financial collapse of their government. The economy, dependent almost exclusively on exporting their wine, Pinot Grand Fenwick, to the USA, is on the brink of bankruptcy as the State of California begins producing a cheaper version, Pinot Grand Enwick. The scheming Prime Minister comes up with the idea of declaring war on the USA, losing, and then accepting foreign aid.
Lieutenant Braden discovers that Sally, the woman he's been falling in love with, has actually been checking out his qualifications to be a U.S. Navy frogman. He must put his personal life behind him after being assigned to be smuggled into a Japanese-held island via submarine to photograph radio codes.
This is the epic story of courage, honor and the destructive power of war. Set in a Burma in 1943, the drama follows British prisoners of war who are ordered by Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), a remorseless Japanese commander, to build a railway bridge over the River Kwai. Under the leadership of the cool-headed Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), the prisoners are planning to sabotage the bridge. But all of a sudden Nicholson changes his mind and commands his men to build the best bridge possible as a symbol of British morale. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson's fortitude but then they are perplexed to discover that he slowly goes mad and becomes obsessed with building an ideal bridge. When American Major Shears (William Holden) escapes from the camp and informs the British commander of the operation, he is assigned to lead a team of commandos to the jungle so as to blow up the strategic structure.
In Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" war is viewed in terms of power. This mesmerizing, urgent film about a true episode in World War I combines the idea that class differences are more important than national differences with the cannon-fodder theory of war, the theory that soldiers are merely pawns in the hands of generals who play at war is if it were a game of chess. The result of this amazing film has been the emergence of one of the great talents in contemporary cinema, the master whose greatest work was yet to come.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon's forces controlled much of Europe. In Russia, one of the few countries still unconquered, the army prepares to face Napoleon's troops in Austria. Among the soldiers are Nicholas Rostov (Jeremy Brett) and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky (Mel Ferrer). Pierre Bezukhov (Henry Fonda), a friend of Andrei's and self-styled intellectual who "knows what's right but still does wrong," is not interested in fighting. Pierre's life changes when his father dies, leaving him a vast inheritance. He is attracted to Natasha Rostov (Audrey Hepburn), Nicholas's sister, but gives in to baser desires and marries the shallow, materialistic Princess Helene (Anita Ekberg). The marriage quickly ends when Pierre discovers his wife's true nature. Andrei is captured and later released by the French, and returns home only to watch his wife die in childbirth. During a visit to the country months later, Pierre and Andrei meet again. Andrei sees Natasha and falls in love, but his father will only permit the marriage if they postpone it for one year. While Andrei is away in Poland on a military mission, Natasha is drawn to Anatole Kuragin (Vittorio Gassmann), a scoundrel and libertine. Pierre tells Natasha of Anatole's past before she can elope with him. Napoleon (Herbert Lom) invades Russia. Pierre visits Andrei on the eve of the battle, and observes the battle that follows. Traumatized by the carnage, he vows to kill Napoleon himself.
The true story of airman Douglas Bader who overcame the loss of both legs in a 1931 flying accident to become a successful fighter pilot and wing leader during World War II.
True-life account of the military career of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in WWII. Native of Texas, he was placed in charge of his many younger siblings on the death of his mother and decided to join the military at the age of 18 to provide for them. His many acts of bravery and heroism during the US military advance through Italy, France and into Germany earn him increasing rank and responsibility as well as the respect of his comrades in arms. Eventually he receives two dozen of the highest medals the US and France can bestow, culminating in the awarding of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Set in East Africa in 1914, the adventure drama tells the story of Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), a gin-swilling ship captain who ferries supplies to a small village where British missionary Reverend Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley) and his maiden-lady sister Rose (Katharine Hepburn) live. When German troops invade the village and kill the missionary, Rose is forced to resort to Charlie's help to return to civilization. Despite their mutual dislike, the prim missionary and the daredevil captain set off on the treacherous waters to encounter different obstacles on their way.
John Marion Stryker is the ultimate Marine, a tough rifle squad leader who in 1943 is assigned a squad of new recruits saddled with three veterans and an old enemy of Stryker's from previous duties in the Far East. One recruit in particlar is a source of friction with Stryker, Peter Conway, whose father was Stryker's CO at Guadalcanal and who felt his son was too soft and cowardly to be a Marine. The squad grows more and more resentful at Stryker's increasingly brutal training regimen and his lack of sympathy for the varied personal problems of the recruits, but his determination to mold them into fighting men helps save their lives when the squad is landed at Tarawa in November 1943 and Stryker risks his life to blow up a Japanese bunker that has slaughtered Marines trapped at a log wall. The now battle-tested squad becomes more closely-knit and Stryker's relationship with the men warms as the squad eventually finds itself in the bloodiest island battle of the war, at Iwo Jima.
Welles and Del Rio together! as Terror Man vs. Leopard Woman--for possession of a mysterious stranger in the powder-keg Middle East...a man with a military secret worth more than his love and his life!...It's menace melodrama thrilled with mighty mystery and suspense...SEE IT!
L'ingegnere Graham e sua moglie stanno viaggiando attraverso la Turchia. Una notte subiscono un apparente attentato. Il colonnello Haki, capo della polizia segreta turca, consiglia ai due di lasciare immediatamente il paese. Sulla nave su cui sta viaggiando Graham incontra strani e misteriosi personaggi. Sfuggito a vari attentati alla sua vita, sfugge agli agenti nazisti e raggiunge la moglie. Banat, un agente nazista, vorrebbe uccidere l'ingegnere, ma Haki lo salva, lanciando il nazista giù dal cornicione del palazzo dove si sono scontrati all'ultimo sangue.
On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front. Myra stayed with him past curfew and is thrown out of the corps de ballet. She survives on the streets of London, falling even lower after she hears her true love has been killed in action. But he wasn't killed. Those terrible years were nothing more than a bad dream is Myra's hope after Roy finds her and takes her to his family's country estate.
Cecile B. DeMille brings you Gary and Jean in their grandest picture...the story of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, the hardest boiled pair of lovers who ever rode the plains...a glorious romance set against the whole flaming pageant of the Old West...
With the end of the North American Civil War, the manufacturers of repeating rifles find a profitable means of making money selling the weapons to the North American Indians, using the front man John Lattimer to sell the rifles to the Cheyenne. While traveling in a stagecoach with Calamity Jane and William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and his young wife Louisa Cody that want to settle down in Hays City managing a hotel, Wild Bill Hickok finds the guide Breezy wounded by arrows and telling that the Indians are attacking a fort using repeating rifles. Hickok meets Gen. George A. Custer that assigns Buffalo Bill to guide a troop with ammunition to help the fort. Meanwhile the Cheyenne kidnap Calamity Jane, forcing Hickok to expose himself to rescue her.
The reckless lancers sweep on and on - so that a woman's heart might not be broken! You're not fighting a single legion - you're fighting the entire British army, Surat Khan!
Major Vickers is an officer at the 27th Lancers in India 1856. When the regiment is on maneuver, the barracks are attacked by Surat Khan and his soldiers who massacre British women and children. This leaves an inextinguishable memory and Vickers promises to revenge the dead.
