One of the greatest screen biographies ever produced, Patton is a monumental film that won seven Academy Awards and gave George C Scott the greatest role of his career. It was released in 1970 when protest against the Vietnam War still raged in the States and abroad. Inevitably, many critics and filmgoers struggled to reconcile the events of the day with the film's glorification of US General George S Patton as a crazy-brave genius of World War II; how could a film so huge in scope and so fascinated by its subject be considered an anti-war film? The simple truth is that it's not-Patton is less about World War II than about the rise and fall of a man whose life was literally defined by war and who felt lost and lonely without the grand-scale pursuit of an enemy. George C Scott embodies his role so fully, so convincingly, that we can't help but be drawn to and fascinated by Patton as a man who is simultaneously bound for hell and glory. The film's opening monologue alone is a masterful display of acting and character analysis and everything that follows is sheer brilliance on the part of Scott and director Franklin J Schaffner, aided in no small part by composer Jerry Goldsmith's masterfully understated score. Filmed on an epic scale at literally dozens of European locations, Patton does not embrace war as a noble pursuit, nor does it deny the reality of war as a breeding ground for heroes. Through the awesome achievement of Scott's performance and the film's grand ambition, General Patton shows all the complexities of a man who accepted his role in life and (like Scott) played it to the hilt. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. comOn the DVD: The widescreen print of the movie (which was originally filmed using a super-wide 70mm process called "Dimension 150") is handsomely presented on the first disc, with a remastered Dolby 5. 1 soundtrack. [+]

Scorned by reviewers when it came out, Where Eagles Dare has acquired a cult following over the years for its unashamed and highly concentrated dose of commando death-dealing to legions of Nazi machine-gun fodder. In 1968 Clint Eastwood was just getting used to the notion that he might be a world-class movie star; Richard Burton, whose image had been shaped equally by classical theatre and his headline-making romance with Elizabeth Taylor, was eager to try his hand at the action genre. Author Alistair MacLean's novel The Guns of Navarone had inspired the film that started the 1960s vogue for World War II military capers, so he was prevailed upon to write the screenplay (his first). The central location, an impregnable Alpine stronghold locked in ice and snow, is surpassing cool, but the plot and action are ultra-mechanical, and the switcheroo gamesmanship of just who is the undercover double (triple?) agent on the mission becomes aggressively silly. -Richard T Jameson.

During the Second World War the Germans put many of the Allied prisoners-of-war (POWs) who had proved consistent escapees together in a maximum security fortress, the very name of which became a legend. Based on the book by Colditz escapee Major Pat Reid, The Colditz Story (1957) documents the further, sometimes successful, escape attempts of these extraordinarily brave, resourceful and indomitable men. Starring John Mills, Eric Portman, Bryan Forbes and Anton Diffring, and co-written and directed by Guy Hamilton, who later made The Battle of Britain (1969), this is a sober, even-handed account, that is gripping and informative, yet not without humour. Sterling performances from the cast of stalwart actors adds up to a British cinema classic. Such is the fascination of Colditz that in 1972-3 the BBC made a very successful drama series staring Jack Hedley, Bernard Hempton, Robert Wagner and David McCallum, while in 2000 Channel 4 offered a superb three-part documentary, Escape from Colditz. In contrast to the semi-documentary feel of The Colditz Story David Lean's classic The Bridge on the River Kwai, from the same year, is an epic and powerful account of POW life in barbaric Japanese prison camps. -Gary S. Dalkin.