The Night Porter

There are many movies about World War 2, but few deal with its aftermath in such a strange way as The Night Porter. This intentionally slow drama explores the decadence and aftermath of Nazi Germany -- and its impact on two very different people.

In Vienna 1957 Max (Dirk Bogarde) has a job as a night porter at a hotel. He cleans up after people, sees to the needs of the guests, keeps after the staff, and generally behaves as a minor bureaucrat at a small job.

Max has a past, though: He was a Nazi commander at a concentration camp. Max's circle of acquaintances is made up of fellow Nazis in hiding, and they're preparing a "war crimes" trial for Max: Klaus (Phillippe Leroy) will act as prosecutor, they will present all the evidence against him -- and then destroy it. Hans (Gabriele Ferzetti) is a psychiatrist who sees this as theraupeutic, a way to leave the guilt behind. The decadent Bert (Amedeo Amodio), a Nazi ballet dancer with a crush on Max, tells him to embrace the trial. Max just wants to be left alone, but he's cautioned that not only are documents dangerous, but as little as one witness could expose him.

And such a witness appears. Lucia (Charlotte Rampling) is travelling with her husband, a conductor, and they check into Max's hotel. Lucia was a prisoner under Max, and they recognize each other immediately. However, at the concentration camp they began a sadomasochistic affair -- and after some initial trepidation on both their parts, Max and Lucia resume their affair in the present. Max fears that if the other Nazis discover Lucia;s role in his past they'll kill her, while Lucia represents a link that could expose them all.

The Night Porter is not a sensationalistic movie (despite the titillating poster) but rather an examination of the consequences of the war on people. Max went from being in command to a minor hotel employee, and resuming his affair with Lucia returns some of that power to him, despite the dangers. Lucia is haunted by what happened to her, but she is as drawn to it as she was in the past. Vienna is a bleak place, with the war present from the Nazis who create their own community while hiding to the people who don't want to get involved and risk their war pensions.

Director Liliana Cavani handles the material with a neutral touch, neither praising nor damning these characters forced together by their shared past. Dirk Bogarde makes Max a thoroughly neutral character, someone neither proud or ashamed of his past and seizing little opportunities of power where he can find them. Charlotte Rampling is excellent as a woman who doesn't question why she'd drawn back to such a destructive person, and the rest of the cast performs well.

The Night Porter may be a bit deliberate in its pacing, but this results in a drama that is original and thought provoking.

Overall grade: B+

Reviewed by James Lynch

Men At War, Book III, The Soldier Spies

We turn our attention, once again, to to the Men At War series by author WEB Griffin. Our regular readership will recall that I've recently reviewed book one of the series, The Last Heroes, and its followup novel, The Secret Warriors. This Men At War series focuses on the role of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II.

It's pretty obvious by this third novel, that this series is done before the more masterful works by this author. Like listening to a debut album of your favorite musician, or watching a high school game from a professional athlete, clearly the writer was still learning his chops. Much of the later formula is followed, but it is still getting developed here, and doesn't quite have the same smoothness found in The Corps or The Brotherhood series.

In The Soldier Spies, we have two basic plots intertwining. The first is the plan to nab a German scientist and his daughter that is involved in their jet engine production. They reasonably figure that if they grab their metallurgist, they can back work what they're using, and bomb the heck out of the factories and mines that produce it. This story is told from both the Allies and Axis side. At times it's a bit much as griffin insists on using the German ranks, ad nauseum, and I'm still not exactly sure what an Obersturmfuhrer is, for example (and I shouldn't need the Wikipedia to understand a novel). In later works, he uses footnotes liberally to explain this minutiae, and more than a few of them are an interesting read on their own. However, this time around, we're on our own.

The other basic plot involves the effort to destroy the German submarine pens. With concrete reinforced roofs, Allied bombs bounced off with little damage, and suffered heavy losses from Nazis fighters and antiaircraft fire. There was also the matter of "pilotless bombers," better known as missiles that were in their infancy. The Allies countered with a plan to develop remote controlled bombers that could deliver a larger payload of explosive to the target. Of note, Joseph Kennedy, Jr makes a cameo as being involved in this project.

Any Griffin novel always has a few side trips. In The Soldier Spies there are two that stand out. The first is when a senior naval officer goes along on a B-17 for a bombing run into Germany. While he is an observer, he has to step up to the plate and attempt to pilot this large bird home even when he has no multiengine flying time. The other is the talk about "General" Fertig. I put his title in quote because this guy was a Lt. Colonel in the Army Engineering Corps who after the Fall of Bataan in the Philippines didn't surrender, promoted himself to Brigadier General, and led a resistance against the occupying Japanese that not only proved General MacArthur wrong, but did influence the course of the war as the Japanese had to devote resources to dealing with this resistance. Fertig is a fascinating character, and he also comes up in another Griffin work, Behind the Lines.

Despite many parts of The Soldier Spies being good, too much of it isn't. The sum of the parts isn't any greater, unlike much of this author's works. I'd recommend that readers start with Griffin's other works first.

Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

You can read the beginning of the novel here.

Men At War, Book II, The Secret Warriors

After starting off the Men At War series with The Last Heroes, it was time to turn my attention to the second book in the series, The Secret Warriors. This chapter in the role that the OSS played during WW II pushed the plot along with most of the major characters returning for another tour of duty.

The book starts and ends quite strongly, with the level of action and intensity that this author is known for. Much of the plot focuses on obtaining the uranium needed for the first atomic bombs. I never really thought about it, but the ore needed for the uranium, at least suggested in this book, came from a mine in Africa. More specifically, it was from the Belgian Congo, and was swiped from under the nose of the Germans, and smuggled out on a cargo plane. It's quite an interesting tale to hear how this was accomplished, at considerable peril. There are also some interesting cameos along the way including Charles Lindbergh (an aviation consultant during WW II), and Joseph Kennedy, Jr.

The downside of The Secret Warriors is that it sags for much of the middle, with a confusing cast of characters that make you wonder who the main players even are at times. In addition, Griffin's writing style, a terse, newspaper one, doesn't necessarily add to the excitement at times. To the best of my knowledge, the first four books of the Men At War series were originally published under a pseudonym, and while it is recognizable as Griffin, it's hardly the author's strongest work.

Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

Men At War, Book I, The Last Heroes

Lest you were worried that I ran out of WEB Griffin books to read, have no fear! I've started 2008 off right with the Men At War series, and took a look at the first book, The Last Heroes. Let's see, Griffin has focused on Army life in The Brotherhood series, on Marine life in The Corps, so we're due for the Navy, and that is what The Last Heroes focuses on. However, before we start humming "Anchors Aweigh," it's more focused on the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the current CIA), and naval aviation, with sprinklings of lots of tales that we've touched on before.

The novel starts in the early summer of 1941. It appears that America's involvement in the war seems inevitable, and preparations are being made. These include President Franklin Roosevelt putting Wild Bill Donovan in charge of setting up the OSS (interestingly a lifelong friend, law school classmate, and diehard Republican). While each of the branches of the service would collect intelligence relevant to them, for example the US Navy's intelligence branch keeping up on the strengths and weaknesses of foreign navies, no one really had the entire picture of what was going on with enemy countries. Hence the need for the OSS.

Against this backdrop, Griffin writes a tale of the chosen service members that get involved with the newly forming OSS. In The Last Heroes, we get taken from Washington DC, to an American private air wing fighting the Japanese over China, to Morocco, and even a stop in the Philippines. Griffin manges to work in some info about General MacArthur that didn't make it into The Corps series. Another theme is collecting uranium for a nuclear bomb.

My criticism of this novel is that for the small size of the book, there's too much going on with too many characters. I can see plenty of groundwork being laid for future plots and relationships, but it ends up being a little confusing at times. Still, at this writing, there's 6 novels in the series, and with Griffin's son cowriting the last two, I'd expect this series to outlast the author.

Overall Grade: B

Reviewed by Jonas

Also reviewed:

The Secret Warriors, Men At War, Book II

TripleA

I know that at least a few folks that read this site will recall the study breaks in the honors lounge at our alma mater. Being a bunch of geeks, we didn't have that beer keg hidden in the back, and we certainly weren't inhaling anything (except the fumes of the organic chemistry lab). Rather, there were two popular board games that entertained us for years. One was Risk, and the more complicated one was Axis & Allies.

While both were fun, the downside was that the setup and clean up was a job in itself. Also, there were lots of little plastic pieces that were easy to lose, never to be found again (they're probably in between some sofa cushions somewhere). Anyway, it always seemed like the perfect game to put onto a computer adaptation. Not only that, but I recently stumbled upon it, and it's multiplatform for Windoze, Apple, and even Linux, and it's open source freeware. Cool!

You can jump over here for some more details and a screenshot, and where there is a link for download as well. I'm debating starting an email game, so feel free to weigh in on the comments either way. Hey, it's still an entertaining way to kill some time...

Overall Grade: B+

Reviewed by Jonas

Secret Honor (1999)

After reading, Honor Bound, and Blood and Honor, it was time to read Secret Honor which concludes the series, well kind of, but we'll get to that in a minute.

You may recall that the Honor Bound series, as the author refers to it, focuses around Clete Frede, and his efforts in the OSS in Argentina during WW II. Those looking for that aspect of the story do get it. We follow Frede, who has gotten Dorotea "in the family way" and needs a shotgun, no make that sooner rather than later, wedding ceremony to make things right. Money talks to the Church, and the usual year of mourning after the death of his father is waived as his family provides significant funds to the local Church. All in all, there was much description of the events leading to the wedding, so I was a surprised, and even disappointed that the ceremony itself was only briefly described.

In fact, only about half of Secret Honor takes place in Argentina. In typical WEB Griffin fashion, after getting us interested in one main character, he then focuses on another one. This time it's Peter, a decorated German officer in Argentina. After he comes under suspect after a German resupply mission goes bad, and he gets ordered back to Germany for an investigation. Interestingly, he really is an Argentinian sympathizer, and he shares his father's goal to assassinate Hitler. Apparently, at least a few German officers felt that the war was not just, saw the concentration camps for the atrocity that they were, and realized that the Axis was going to lose the war when it was all said and done. The two things they did about it were to stash money overseas (which came up in the previous novel), and to plot against their leader.

While Peter is in Germany, we do get some fascinating side trips. One is a trip to Hitler's secret bunker complex, where the decorating was all done with bomb proof cement. I've seen a History Channel segment on this, but it was great to read the author's descriptions as well. The other is a trip to the development facility of the Messerschmitt Me 262, the first jet fighter aircraft. The history of this plane is fascinating, as well as how its potential was not realized early enough during the war. Still, while this airfield makes for an intriguing pit stop, it really doesn't integrate well into the rest of the overall novel, or the series.

At the end of the novel, we kind of just stop. After several years, and no follow up, I think that we should consider the series complete. However, it just doesn't feel like it is. Perhaps the book sales were not as robust as planned, so Griffin turned his attention to more profitable projects. That said, compared to The Corps, or The Brotherhood series, the Honor Bound novels simply do not come together nearly as well as they did. While these novels are interesting, they really don't represent the author's best work. Keeping that in mind, Secret Honor is the weakest novel of the series as well.

Overall Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

Blood and Honor (1996)

After enjoying WEB Griffin's Honor Bound, I moved on to the second novel in this series of three, Blood and Honor. This novel continues the plotline in a highly parallel fashion. Once again, it is set in 1943, in Argentina at the height of WW II. The Germans are coming to the realization that they probably are not going to win the war, and are preparing for the worst- that there will be serious reparations like at the end of the first World War. The plan is to secretly smuggle out some serious cash, and hide it for later use.

The main protagonist is Clete Frede, the almost retired Marine who has a fortune in both the US as the heir apparent to an oil fortune, and in Argentina as the heir apparent to his father's fortune which includes sizable land holdings. Once again, the Germans are sending in a supply ship to aid their Southern Atlantic submarine fleet that has menaced British and American shipping (apparently both Axis & Allies were trading with the Argentinians for wool, beef, and other staple products during the war).

While much of the storyline sounds very similar, this is a completely different novel. In a major (WARNING: Plot Spoiler!) twist, Clete's father gets assassinated very early on, giving Clete a huge inheritance, and a struggle as he delves into his father's life and gets the know the man he barely knew. Also, his girlfriend, Dorotea, announces she is pregnant. Much of the middle of the novel focuses on the pomp, circumstance, and ritual surrounding the funeral, and the planning of the wedding (an interesting point/counterpoint of life and death). It turns out that the father was also involved in planning a coup d'etat, and this comes to fruition in Blood and Honor as well (it would appear that Argentina has more regime changes than most other countries...).

Don't think that this book doesn't have any military content. Clete still works for the OSS, and is involved with planning and executing the mission of finding the disguised sub tender. To that end, he needs a plane. In typical military fashion, the hardware he wants (this) isn't available, but he gets something "just as good," (this, which you can see is a lot bigger) which ends up presenting its own set of challenges as he has no experience in the larger plane, and it's too big for the improvised dirt runway. Finally, at the end, just when I expected the sinking of the ship, this novel goes off in a Godfather direction, and goes for revenge in a matter of fact way.

This longish novel did take me a while to get through. It's also a little confusing as there are several lengthy formal names both of Spanish and German derivation that did slow me down at times (especially the German ones). It is an enjoyable break from the traditional war novel genre, yet it incorporates some of the essential elements and quite simply defies a neat category.
The prose is especially strong, with crisp details that paint a descriptive picture in a concise fashion which is one of Griffin's signature items. This author also incorporates, in italics, the individual characters thoughts that combine in both the third person, and first person point of view simultaneously, which few other authors even attempt, and even fewer successfully pull off. At times I feel like this Honor Bound Series is like reading a script for a television mini series, and I can't wait to read the conclusion, Secret Honor.

Overall Grade: B+

Reviewed by Jonas

Honor Bound (1994)

Following a brief hiatus from WEB Griffin, it was time to delve into another of his series. After all, I had finished The Corps, and The Brotherhood of War, but still didn't want to get back into the Presidential Agent series. After finishing his longest series, it was time to look at his shortest series, Honor Bound.

Honor Bound starts with a brief look at the Marines on Gaudalcanal, and even uses a character from The Corps series, Colonel Dawkins, in a cameo appearance. The connection with The Corps quickly ends, and a Marine aviator ace, Captain Clete Frede, who should be on a war bond tour gets pressed into service. The plot focuses around this Frede character, and how he ends up in the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA that is a common thread that permeates many of the Griffin novels (and also the film, The Good Shepherd).

Interestingly, this OSS had jurisdiction throughout the Western hemisphere, including Latin America. Now, while my knowledge of WW II is pretty good, I can't say I'm well versed in what went on in South America during that war. Seriously, the last time I studied Argentina and Brazil, it was high school global studies class! The author, Griffin, winters in Argentina, so he's picked up some first hand knowledge, and it clearly shines through here. Even though Argentina was officially neutral, there was a significant Nazis involvement down way south. For the plot of Honor Bound, the Germans are running submarine supply out of Argentinian waters, all on the QT- except the OSS knows.

The decision is made to send a small group of Americans to disrupt things for the Germans, without bringing the war down to Argentina. This Clete Frede is an interesting character as he is half American, and half Argentinian by descent. This reminds me of the protagonist of the Presidential agent series who also has mixed blood, and therefore uncertain allegiance.

Honor Bound successfully transports us to a far corner of the world, during a tumultuous time in world history. It is a novel less about war in the end, and more about what it takes to mount a clandestine operation in a foreign country, without getting caught. It is definitely not the standard WW II novel with the marines charging up the hill. There is a lot of culture, and place setting. This novel builds in the first 100 pages at a slow pace. Once the freight train gets moving, it is quite intriguing. I'm already working on tracking down the next novel in this series, Blood and Honor.

Overall Grade: B+

--Jonas

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)

When I heard that Letters From Iwo Jima was the companion film to "Flags of Our Fathers," which I extremely disliked, I put off seeing it. Still though, I was at least a little bit curious about this film that deals with such an important WW II battle, that I finally decided to check it out. It is directed by Clint Eastwood.

The film begins, in a manner reminiscent of "Saving Private Ryan" with a look at modern day Iwo Jima, and the relatively small monument that stands at the peak of Mount Suribachi. We quickly cut to 1944, and show the Japanese soldiers digging in their fortifications for the impending American invasion. You see, the unique aspect of this film is that it shows the battle not from the American side, but from the Japanese side (which likely explains why it was such a hit in Japan). While this is an intriguing concept that the entire film is in Japanese takes this concept more than a little too far. Seriously folks, after about an hour of reading subtitles, I wished that there was an English subtitle track at least for the DVD, instead of another disc of useless bonus features.


As Letters From Iwo Jima develops, we meet Japanese soldiers of several different ranks. Then, like in a season of TV's "Lost," we develop these characters further by showing scenes of their life before war, and showing that they are just ordinary folks thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Then with the American invasion in full swing, we see how the outnumbered Japanese fight while low on food, water and ammunition. Clearly, this was a dark time for them, but their humanity does poke through the blood and guts on a few occasions, like when they have a touching conversation with a captured American Marine, and they all realize that they’re not that different.

I know that this film was the lower budget of the two, but I was still appalled that they recycled several of the battle scenes straight out of "Flags of Our Fathers." At least they should have cut it a little differently, or had a different angle on the same machine gun nest. My near photographic memory simply identified too many scenes that should have been mixed up a little more to keep it visually more interesting.

Still, in the end, despite the lengthy 2:20 running time, I did find Letters from Iwo Jima a stronger effort than "Flags of Our Fathers." It shows that "war is hell," no matter which side of the battle that you're on.

Overall Grade: B

--Jonas

Run Silent, Run Deep (1955)

Sometimes there’s no substitute for being there. I find that the best novels are from those that can convey there actual experience into fiction. While any of us could write a novel of World War II, for example, few would have the first hand knowledge that author Edward Beach brings to the table. You see, he was a submarine commander in the Pacific during WWII, and although Run Silent, Run Deep is a fictional work, it is still firmly grounded in what really went on from someone who did it in this author's debut novel.

The novel opens shortly after Pearl Harbor, and the “sleeping giant of America” comes off of its peacetime footings and scaling up for war. We meet the characters as they are training on an old WWI sub at the base at New London, Connecticut. In a rush to get subs into the battle, folks are getting promoted to sub commander who in peacetime would take a lot longer. Also, a bit of a love triangle develops between the sub captain, his executive officer and a civilian female.

After taking a new sub through the Panama Canal, we find our crew going up against Bungo Pete- a Japanese destroyer commanded by an ex-submariner. He knows the American tactics too well, and proves a formal adversary against several of the sub crews as he sinks them one by one. I definitely give credit to the men that went out in these boats that were so crude compared to modern standards. For example, they barely had sonar, and half the time they attacked from the surface because it was easier than using the periscope!

Compounding the American challenges is a torpedo that doesn’t work correctly. Even with vigilant maintenance, the torpedo that the American subs are firing has a high fail rate, striking the target and literally bouncing off. Our captain on a shore side assignment takes on the challenge of dealing with this. Finally, in an epic sea battle that would make Herman Melville proud, the latest American sub goes up against Bungo Pete’s destroyer in a death match to the very end.

I enjoyed this novel very much. As an aside, I had read this work when I was a lot younger, and I had enjoyed it quite a bit that time also so it was interesting to see how much my taste hasn’t changed. The descriptions of Pearl Harbor, and Waikiki are also very accurate, and again the author’s first hand experience come into play here. While this novel is over fifty years old, it still reads well, and is a classic at this point. Fans of either World War II, or the Navy will enjoy Run Silent, Run Deep very much.

Overall Grade: A-

In Danger's Path

In Danger’s Path is the eighth novel in WEB Griffin’s series of The Corps. While it weighs in at a lengthy 550 pages in hardcover, it is well worth the effort.

The main plot focuses on, true to Griffin’s other novels, a little more obscure history. The US Navy needs better weather information about the Northern Pacific. The Army and their Air Corps also need this same info as they plan ahead for an invasion of the Japanese islands. It is decided that weather data from Mongolia would be helpful to both services. The issue becomes as to which service will mount the mission, and how to setup a weather station in Japan’s backyard, and keep it supplied without the enemy bombing it. While this doesn’t get highlighted in history books, this mission and the weather station is historically true.

Griffin uses this as his starting point for this apocryphal story of some of our favorite US Marines to setup the weather station in the Gobi Desert (imaginatively called Operation Gobi- seriously they should have had a better code name than that!). The storyline divides between General Pickering, now a bigwig at the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA) in charge of Pacific Operations. We follow the planning stages, and the interservice politics involved in a complicated mission on the other side of the world. There is also a sideline about a potential break in security that results in a shake up among the brass.

The other major plot line focuses on some issues that hadn’t seriously come up from the first novel in this series, Semper Fi. In typical Griffin fashion, he diabolically shelves these storylines on the back burner just until you start to give up hope (or at least forget…), and then he thrusts them into the forefront. More specifically, we hear more about the foreign wives left behind in China from the Marines that were withdrawn before World War II. He also interweaves some chronologically older events into this novel that brings things together. Seriously, anyone that can mesh eight books together into a cohesive plot line must be a master of their trade!

By the end of In Danger’s Path, it is 1943, all of the major characters in the series are featured, and a lot of loose ends get tied together. After eight novels, some of which are not exactly short, we have been taken on quite a tour of the Marines in World War Two. In my view, Griffin probably could have ended the series here. In fact it appears that this is the last of The Corps novels that deal with WW II. However, there are two more novels that head on over to the Korean War, and who knows if there are more coming.

Grade: A-



For reviews of the first six novels of the series, click here. For the seventh novel, Behind the Lines, see here.

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

It was with great anticipation that I rented Flags Of Our Fathers on DVD. I had seen the trailers and looked forward to a retelling of the famous Battle of Iwo Jima, and the courageous Marines that defied the odds to raise the flag on the hilltop that day. (As an aside, I once met a retired Marine that claimed to have been on the "next hill" when the flag was raised.) This was based on a novel by the same name, and the film was up for plenty of awards recently.

Boy, was I disappointed. First of all, Flags Of Our Fathers tries to tell the tale of the three remaining men that raised the flag that day. In the end, they're not even sure who was really in the photo. We feel empathy towards a mother that maintains that her now deceased son was in the image, that never really gets any recognition as his back was turned to the camera. The whole time sequence of this film is screwed up as it really has more flashbacks that the film Memento (which is a great film if you missed it...). Every time the plot gets moving, either on the Japanese island, or in the later war bond tour, we get interrupted to go back to the other, and the entire thread of whatever that was happening is lost big time.

I also got the impression that Flags Of Our Fathers had more to say about our current war than about World War II. I'm just not sure what the take home message was! War is too expensive? Heroes just happen by chance and are not planned? America needed to continue the fight at a time when the end wasn't in sight? Our soldiers don't get taken care of well after the war is over? Take your pick because all of the above themes permeate throughout the film. With that many half developed themes, it becomes a bit of a mish-mosh in the theme department.

This is simply another example of the trailer not showing what the film is going to be accurately. This lengthy film tips the scales at around 2:15, and it feels closer to three hours. There were points that I felt it couldn't end fast enough! If you'd like to see a great historical military film, then Saving Private Ryan is still a much better choice by any comparison. Somewhere in Flags of Our Fathers there is a better film. Perhaps if we cut out about an hour, and resequenced the film in a more chronological order, there would be something that was worth the effort watching. In its current state, its clearly not to this reviewer.

Finally, much of the film focuses on finding one of the Marine's comrades: Iggy. After scene after scene of yelling for "Iggy" I still have no idea if he was ever on the island, or what his fate was. Really, a film should be clearer than that.

Overall Grade: D

Behind the Lines

In this seventh part of the series, Griffin manages to turn some obscure history into a full blown plot. More specifically, Behind the Lines deals with the guerilla resistance in the Philippines after MacArthur withdrew, and the Japanese occupied the island nation.

With Douglas "El Supremo" MacArthur withdrawn from the Philippines to Australia, most of the remaining US forces surrendered when Corregidor, their island fortress fell. However, there were some that didn't go along with this plan. Wendell Fertig was a lieutenant colonel in the Army reserve, in the engineering corps; on paper an unlikely person to organize and lead a resistance movement. However, he ends up doing just that.

In order to increase his stature among the Filipinos, Fertig self promotes himself to General. Various troops come to join his rag tag group which attack Japanese convoys to procure supplies. With a radio, they attempt to establish contact with their military forces across the ocean.

With Fertig's group back in touch, it becomes a political football as to if and how the US military should assist him. Apparently MacArthur had felt previously that guerilla operations could not be mounted, and didn't want to be proven wrong by an engineering corps light colonel, from the reserves no less.

They decide that with the Army turning a cold shoulder that the Marines can take on the challenge. Also, the newly formed OSS (which eventually evolved into our CIA), also is trying to get involved like "a camel sticking its nose into a tent." In other words, they're not welcome, and even worse, their point man is Macklin, the lying, conniving and cowardly officer that everyone loves to hate from earlier novels in the series. Leading the Marines is Ken "Killer" McCoy, who was introduced in the first novel, but we haven't seen nearly enough of lately. Just to keep things interesting, Macklin outranks McCoy, but will be shot if he impedes the mission!

Also contributing to the depth of the novel, is the way that that Griffin handles the radio codes. By taking us through the various substitution ciphers, we gain a much better appreciation of creating and breaking a code. I’ve often wondered how they work, and now I have an appreciation of the intricacies of creating and breaking such transmissions.

I enjoyed Behind the Line very much. As is typical of Griffin, this work is historically accurate, and overflows with realism. I recommend Behind the Lines to any World War II buff.

Overall Grade: A

For our review of the eighth novel, In Danger's Path, see here.

The Great Raid (2005)

When I think of the grand epic war movie, modern examples include Saving Private Ryan, and Pearl Harbor. The Great Raid tries to fit in with this exclusive crowd, but falls short of this lofty benchmark.

The story to be told centers around a raid by the US Army Rangers during World War II. The goal was to liberate a prison camp of American GI’s that were captured by the Japanese when they invaded and occupied the Philippines. These five hundred soldiers in the camp were survivors of the infamous Batann Death March. The liberation of these American POW’s was the largest raid ever attempted, and the most successful ever in American military history. Certainly, with a background story like that, the film should have an epic plot, and at many points it does.

The Great Raid starts off strong. In the opening scenes, vintage footage is shown of the era and some historical background is presented in a succint and informative fashion. After this powerful start, we end up with multiple thirty second scenes that keep changing locations to various places in the Philippines. This results in some confusion and fragmentation. After this settles down, we focus on the Rangers, led by a Lt. Colonel, ably played by Benjamin Bratt.

Just when we start getting the plot moving, we take an extended tour to Manila, showcasing a nurse played by Connie Francis, and the Filipino underground movement. While I’m sure most of this was based on fact, very little of this subplot ultimately ties in to the main plot of the raid. I feel that it is a distraction, and contributes to the slow feel of this 2:10 film. Sure, it tries to make the nurse a romantic interest of one of the prisoners, but it feels like this was artificially laid onto the plot to make this appeal to folks beyond history buffs. I think this film could have been edited down to a tighter and better movie, and ultimately reaching its potential.

The last hour is well done. Here we focus on the title of the film and show the great raid. They had expert military advisors, and had put the actors through a two week boot camp to make them look and feel less like actors and more like soldiers. What results is quite good, and the props all looked quite authentic. Unfortunately, it takes a little bit too long to get to this point.

The Great Raid is a story that should be told and not forgotten. The DVD includes a WW II timeline that features some interesting trivia, and a featurette on the boot camp that the actors went through. As long as we realize that this film is not in the same category as the great war epics, we can enjoy it for what it is- a decent story slowed down by a distraction. If you have enough time to devote to it, check it out.

Overall Grade: B