Great WWII Movies: A Walk in the Sun/ We Dive at Dawn/ The North Star

Where Hollywood Meets Heroes!

A Walk in the Sun (1945, 117 mins): In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to attempt to take a fortified farmhouse, as tension and casualties mount. Unusually realistic picture of war as long quiet stretches of talk, punctuated by sharp, random bursts of violent action whose relevance to the big picture is often unknown to the soldiers.

We Dive at Dawn (1943, 98 mins): The crew of HMS submarine Sea Tiger have their leave (and assorted family problems) cut short when they are recalled for a special mission: sink the new German battleship Brandenburg. En route, they learn that their target has entered the heavily defended Baltic; rather than fail, they follow it. Tension builds as they approach their target. After the attempt, escape seems impossible...unless they can refuel in enemy waters.

The North Star (1943, 108 mins): In a peaceful Ukrainian village, the school year is just ending in June 1941. Five young friends set out for a walking trip to Kiev, but their travels are brutally interrupted when they are suddenly attacked by German planes, in the first wave of the Nazi assault on the Soviet Union. When the village itself is attacked and occupied, most of the men flee to the hills to form a guerrilla unit. The others resist the Nazis as well as possible, but soon the village is placed under the command of a Nazi doctor who begins using the town's children as a source of constant blood transfusions for wounded German soldiers. Meanwhile, the small group of young persons tries desperately to take a supply of firearms to the guerrillas.