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OwlzinDaBarn wrote:
 
The movie I'd most want to see would be along the lines of Punisher's idea. But if people are currently anti-war, and American war movies "don't sell overseas," then they'd have to do it as a serious drama; just a movie that examines the horrors and brutality of war, and happens to feature a Sergeant named Rock. But maybe you can't do that, either. Americans typically don't want to hear the truth about the current state of our military; we've become so sanitized and politically corrected that we can barely view reality.

...Either make it a realistic WWII movie, or make it an insane adventure movie ala Indiana Jones; either way will suit the purpose. But don't sanitize the material by setting it in an unnatural environment; I believe that to be a slap in the face of the people who actually suffered through these real world events. I don't see why, with all our supposed collective wisdom, that we have to honor WWII by turning our backs on it.



That collective wisdom has been under heavy ideological siege from historical revisionists for some time now, Owlz, with the result that Hollywood now largely considers nationalism to be a dirty word.  Consequentally, IMO there was no way that Rock would have been translated to the big screen during the last twenty years or so without him being somehow mutilated in the process. And despite fans' current enthusiasm, I'll be very surprised if the upcoming cinematic portrayal of Captain America escapes that fate also.


In his own way Sgt. Rock is an archetype just like Captain America or even Superman-- he's one of those characters who provoke certain visceral reactions... reactions that one can judge people by. For a person to object to those war stories for some other reason like not caring for the artwork or criticizing the writing quality of the comic book scripts is one thing.  But if they despise the character, claim he's shallow, a boy scout, a fascist, a nationalistic propaganda tool, then I know immediately what they're about.  I also know that those people can't be trusted.


So for ideological reasons alone (and there are a couple of others as well already mentioned here) I believe the window of opportunity for making a faithful-to-the-original-source-material, big budget, big screen adaptation of Sgt. Rock has come and gone, at least for the forseeable future.  Which is why I keep returning to the idea that if it was ever going to happen it should have been done long ago.


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Now there are at least three different approaches during the period from roughly 1961-1970 (when Mitchum would have been in his prime for the role and the genre itself was far more popular) that might have been taken for that project, any one of which could have worked.






The first was to paint the fictional story of Sgt. Rock and Easy Company against the very broad cinematic canvas of the vast historical narrative of World War II, as in the 1962 film The Longest Day (where these photos I've posted of Mitchum in WWII Brigadier General combat dress are taken from). He would then be supported with an all-star cast of veteran stars like Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan and Karl Malden in the roles of the top military brass, then they cast actors like Clint Walker as Bulldozer, Charles Bronson (though he was Lithuanian, he would play the part of an Indian in several later films) could have been fine as Little Sure Shot unless there was a better alternative and maybe get a young Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Peter Falk to fill out the roles of other (newly created) Easy Company guys.  That would have been just fine.



The second option was to narrow the character focus of the story considerably and conceive it more along the lines of a film like Patton (1970), concentrating mostly on Rock himself, portraying the man in his fulness as the larger-than-life, legendary, mythical WWII figure that he obviously was:






If you were to ask Kanigher or Kubert how they conceived of the character, they'd say that Sgt. Frank Rock was a tough-as-nails (and often quite emotional) natural born leader and the guy who would have been the very last man standing at the end of the war. I could easily see him delivering exactly the same sort of no-nonsense opening monologue to his men that George C. Scott as General Patton did at the beginning of that film.


The third alternative would have been to narrow the historical focus of the movie and have Sgt. Rock and a handpicked team of a the best Easy Comapny men-- along with a few other outside specialists-- recruited for a very specific, top-secret commando mission behind enemy lines, The Guns of Navarone being the most prominent example of this sub-set of the genre. One of Alistair Maclean's other best WWII novels, Where Eagles Dare (which was also made into a terrific film) could, in theory, have been perfect as a vehicle for bringing Sgt' Rock to the big screen. Not that Maclean would have actually allowed that, mind you; I'm just saying that hypothetically it could have been done; MGM would hire a top screenwriter to fashion a script along similar lines.







From a synopsis of that film:

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In the winter of 1943-44, U.S. Army Brigadier General George Carnaby, enroute to Crete to rendezvous with Russian forces to plan the final details of the invasion of Normandy, is captured by the Germans when his aircraft is shot down. He is taken to the Schloß Adler (The Castle of the Eagles - hence the story's title), a fortress high in the Alps above the town of Werfen and the headquarters of the German Secret Service in southern Bavaria. A special team of mainly British commandos is hurriedly assembled and briefed by Colonel Wyatt Turner and Admiral Rolland of MI6, and led by Major John Smith, MC and US Army Ranger Lieutenant Morris Schaffer. Their mission is to parachute into the locality, infiltrate the Schloß Adler, and rescue General Carnaby before the Germans can interrogate him.


Where Eagles Dare
takes place entirely in wintertime, and because of that it isn't the typical setting that one would automatically associate with Sgt. Rock. But a number of Kanigher and Kubert's 1960s Our Army at War tales did, in fact, take place in the winter, so that factor certainly isn't all that important. Actually, in my view it wouldn't even have been necessary to call the picture "Sgt. Rock".  The main thing would have been to get the character to the big screen authentically with a great story behind him.


Speaking of which, that gives me the excuse to post a video clip of the dramatic opening title sequence to Where Eagles Dare with its stirring, unforgettable theme music by English film composer Ron Goodwin.  It's a real shame they don't make great war pictures like this anymore...

 
[Below]

 


Last Edited By: alizarin1 Feb 7 10 5:53 PM. Edited 5 times.