Hidden Flick: Women and Children First
There is a scene in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan where an American journalist asks a commanding officer, played by Tom Hanks, why he and his men are attempting to save the title character. Hanks as Captain Miller replies, “Anyone wanna answer that?” Ryan’s family had lost three of four sons in World War II, and the American government decided that a fourth and final death would not happen, so Hanks led a crack platoon into the heart of the war to extract the lone living Ryan son, played by Matt Damon. The film is based on a true story about eight brothers who died in the American Civil War.
I am reminded of films of the events that took place in the air on September 11, 2001, and on the ground as people waited for their loved ones to return home. Alas, unlike Ryan, this would not always occur as husbands, wives, children, relatives, friends, and co-workers were lost forever due to multiple terrorist acts of stone cold murder.
This week’s Hidden Flick is actually two films about World War II that happened from the perspective of those left at home while the horrors of battle raged on—women and children. However, the horrors of war are an equal opportunity employer; all creeds, religions, sexes, and age groups are involved. These films show what happens to the individual in society, and how life—a precious and unique gift—is torn apart, squandered, and thrown away when conflict cannot be solved by peaceful means.
READ ON for this week’s Hidden Flick double feature…
