Hey all check this out
http://turnerclassicmovies.com/NowPlaying/Monthly/0,3598,45|46|10668|10670,00.html
(10bears edit) bbs isn't going to let me copy n' paste URLs for some reason.. you have to manual above addr to get to right page. (worth the read garrens)
DIRECTED BY WILLIAM A. WELLMAN
FRIDAY, MAY 24
8:00 pm (ET)/5:00 pm (PT) THE STORY OF G.I. JOE (1945)
Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle follows the fortunes of Company C of the 18th Infantry during their campaign in Italy. Meeting up with them periodically - at one point, during the climactic battle of Cassino - he observes the stress of combat take its toll on the men's psyches. Among the soldiers he befriends are: Lieutenant Walker, who gradually rises to the rank of Captain; Sergeant Warnicki, who wants nothing more than to find a phonograph to listen to a recording of his son's voice sent from home; and Private Dondaro, who fantasizes constantly about women and even carries a bottle of perfume with him to sniff periodically. The men live continually with the knowledge that not all of them will make it home.
The Story of G. I. Joe (1945) is at once an homage to Ernie Pyle (1900-1945), who captured the American imagination with his gritty story of the lives--and deaths--of ordinary infantrymen, and to the men whose stories he told.
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Director William "Wild Bill" Wellman was a World War I combat veteran, having served in the Lafayette Flying Corps of the French Foreign Legion, a team composed entirely of Americans. Before working on this project he had made several films centering on aerial combat, including the hugely popular Wings (1927) and The Legion of the Condemned (1928), which are still considered among the best of the genre. Initially, Wellman refused to direct the project; after the persistent requests of producer Lester Cowan and an invitation to stay with Ernie Pyle in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he finally relented.
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Although the film was shot primarily in the rocky deserts of Southern California and at the Selznick Studios, where the ruins of an Italian town were meticulously recreated, the producer Lester Cowan and director William Wellman went to great lengths to give the film the feeling of authenticity, even using many of the G.I.'s who actually participated in the battles depicted in the film. The result was considered the most authentic war film of the era. According to Wellman biographer Frank T. Thompson, "The War Department assigned 150 veterans of the Italian Campaign who were about to be shipped out to the Pacific. The soldiers were on a six-week "working leave" to do the film.
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Whoa cool..
Master raconteur Wellman describes the experience of working with the G.I.'s during the shoot: "There was one thing I will always remember about them. When they weren't working, you could always find them behind the sets throwing knives
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Hehehe
The Story of G.I. Joe was enthusiastically received upon its release. General Dwight D. Eisenhower went so far as to call it "the greatest war picture I've ever seen" and Wellman himself regarded it as the finest work of his career.
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Oh too cool I want to see this
In the course of many repetitions they take on full obsessional power and do as much as anything could do to communicate the terrific weight of time, fatigue, and half-craziness which the picture is trying so successfully to make you live through." While recent World War II films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998) may go further in depicting the visceral horrors of war, the artistic achievement of The Story of G.I. Joe is arguably more lasting: it portrays the camaraderie, courage and underlying fear of the ordinary fighting man without once resorting to easy sentimentality.
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Interesting... anyone seen this?
