Old MSgt

Recieved the movie 'Lebanon' today from Netflix... was anxious to see it and then when I did I only made it three quarters of the way thru it!!!

It's all about the personalities of the crew inside the tank. I didn't see a shot OF the tank from the outside! Mostly it's about the stress the crew members have. Here's some immediate descripencies I can instantly remember at this minute (course there would have been MORE IF I would have had a pencil and paper in hand!):

-No crew members wear any tank/intercom helmets.
-The 'tank commander' never opens the turret hatch, it's always CLOSED unless somebody wants to come in for a visit.
-The crew argues a LOT about what's going on, both with each other and the TC.
-There must be a LOT of water standing in the bottom of tanks!
-Any outside infantry personal that become KIA are put INSIDE the turret crew compartment.
-Any captured enemy is put INSIDE the crew compartment.
-Most of the 'outside' view is thru the gunners sight and 80%+ is with the gunner (while the unit is assaulting a hostile town mind you) closely looking at the FACES of the friendly troops AND of the forlorn faces of the local hostile citizens. Including a close up view of a destressed (almost naked) mother AND of one friendly troop using a urinal! (If I was in a combat condition and decided to use a URINAL in a DESTROYED building to wee and turned and saw a MAIN GUN of a tank POINTED RIGHT AT ME I'D PROBABLY DO MORE THAN A #1!!!...) I thought gunners were support to sweep suspicious town areas for trouble instead of ZOOMING IN on FACES! MOST of the gunner's crosshairs is kept centered ON accompanying FRIENDLY infantry!
-And seems like there's LOTS OF ROOM in a turret, where MANY people can stand up, walk around, (almost as big as my living room!)
-Never saw what kind of tank this was from the outside...

These are just SOME of the things that really SPOILED me on this 'tank' movie. I didn't make it to the end, had to STOP it. Just GLAD I DIDN'T order it off Amazon til I saw it! This was TOTAL WASTE of almost a hour of my life and electricity. HORRIBLE MOVIE!

Of course the movie critics LOVED IT... go figure....

Mike in Kentucky

pattoncommander

Thanks for the heads up. I saw some ad clips and noted a couple things you mentioned...apparent roomy space in the tank as well as the crew not wearing any commo gear. In a dug in, static Stu III, maybe possible, but in a tank...[:-]

Onondaga

FYI Old MSgt, you could have glimpsed the tank exterior at the very end. But I have to agree with you, it wasn't what I was hoping for in a tank movie. Too much drama in the same interior space. " The Beast " is a much better tank action movie.

Rex Ross

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I agree about "The Beast", but "Sahara" with Bogart will always be my all time favorite.

What other good tanker films are there? I'm talkin' films about tanks, not films with tanks in them. But that isn't a hard and fast rule. I will allow exceptions.

There was a film with Abbott and Costello (or was it Laurel and Hardy?) about them in the army. An early Stuart runs out of control and crashes thru half of the buildings on the base. Funny as heck.........

sassgrunt

My Feedback: (1)

Just this weekend, my Significant Other wanted to watch a 1943 movie called "For Whom The Bells Tolls." It was about a guy (Gary Cooper) during the Spanish Civil War fighting with the Spanish underground during the late 1930's. I had about zero interest in paying attention to it until the final 10 minutes or so - and then I saw 4 or 5 really early tanks moving into the scenes. There were two Renault FT-17's, something that looked like it had the running gear of a Marmon-Herrington tank, and something that looked like a predecessor of the Sherman or Stuart - some kind of tracked "Combat Car" (I think they were called). They all ran, except for possibly the rear FT-17; which looked like it always stayed exactly the same distance & speed as the one in front of it - leading me to think it was being towed. Anyway, it was pretty cool to see working vehicles of things I'd only seen in photographs before. -Mike

pcomm1

The film is beyond terrible on every possible level.

pattoncommander

There are two movies "The Tanks are Comming"...one shot at Ft Knox (1941) about Shermans in Germany....centered around a hotshot TC and a mechanic who talked to the CG and got a new Pershing (represented by an M-46) assigned to him.

The other was about a taxi driver who joined the army and became a tanker...stored his taxi in a wooden barn which was run over by an M-2A4 tank. Lots of good footage of M-2A2 and M2A4 tanks. (An M-2A4 would be a cool RC tank).

Agreed, "The Beast" and "Sahara" are still the top two. Much of Sahara was shot using a fiberglass makup M-3. it was up for sale a couple years ago.

Pah co chu puk

I thought " Tank Girl " was a fun movie.

Punker chick with her own Sherman tank.  It's not a war movie, more of a weird love story, but she does reak some havoc with that thing.

Boys learn real fast that she don't put up with lame games.

jimster43

Tank (1984) - James Garner. Totally about a tanker and a tank.

Best Defense (1984) - Dudley Moore, Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy plays a tank commander.

Gex

lol Eddie Murphy as a tank commander?

CountChocula

You may try this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlEKPlE6330