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20 Movies from Books about World War II

The great shadow of war came first

The action of these books and movies is set at the edge of World War II, when a lot of people feel already doomed because the strength of Nazi Germany is a menace to civilization.

Erich Maria Remarque Arch of Triomph. Remarque tends to be forgotten nowadays, but his books leave you breathless and usually sad: Remarke displays both understanding and compassion for his heroes, and then, there is fate.

The movie Arch of Triomph (1948) centers on the love part rather than the political part, and you would enjoy Charles Boyer and the young Ingrid Bergman. Charles Boyer was the "French lover" in a quantity of Hollywood movies, but he was very different in real life. He committed suicide a few days after his wife died, leaving a note saying that he was unable to go on without her. Another actor did not commit suicide but also said he was just waiting for death and longing for death after he lost his wife (it is rare enough to remember): Vincent Price.

A theater play written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison,Everybody comes to Rick's.was not produced, but became a cult movie in 1942 under the title Casablanca.

The great war epics
Not suprisingly, the two greatest war movies before Saving Private Ryan came from the same author: Cornelius Ryan. Ryan had been a war correspondant and interviewed thousands of people, from the Generals to the soldiers in the field and a quantity of simple witnessess. A long time before portable dictaphones and personal computers, the collection, typing and organization of his documentation was a horrendous task. And with time passing by, his books are more and more precious. Both The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far are worth reading. I did, and I am not a war aficionado. However, if you are not fascinated by books on WWII, go directly to the movies and get the gist of it all: most available stars of Hollywood were in The Longest Day (1962) and A Bridge Too Far is very moving (1977). Cornelius Ryan was himself a man of great courage in his private life.
Ladislas Farago was a popular writer who authored mainly novels about the war. Two of them made great movies: Patton: Ordeal and Triumph became the blockbuster Patton. The broken seal, a weaker book, became Tora! Tora! Tora!

Action heroes
The autobiography of the most decorated American soldier, Audie Murphy, became a great movie: To Hell and Back (1955). A.M. played his own role and looked like a teenager. He had survived the war, he did not survive Hollywood.
The well known movie Guns of Navarone was first a book by Alistair McLean. And you might like to double your pleasure with reading Stephen Ambrose(essential book) before enjoying Band of Brothers.

The seducing bad guys
There are actors so compelling that you find yourself almost rooting for them, even though they are playing the role of the devil. So is Marlo Brando in The Young Lions, a movie coming from a book by Irwin Shaw. Now I cannot open the book without thinking of Brando, despite the fact that the character in the movie and in the book are extremely different, so you might prefer to start with the book first.
The key to Rebecca is both a book by Ken Follett and a fantastic movie (rather a TV series). It is hard to find, appearing more often on Amazon.co.uk than Amazon.com (neither had it in April 2008) and I could not find it with any competitor. The ruthless spy is played by David Soul, both a terrifying presence and a master of erotism. He certainly is at level with Brando in this series (and yes, it is the same blond man you saw in Starsky, if you are old enough). How we lost this terrific actor to Great Britain is beyond belief. I found the series only in VHS, unhappily.

James Mason spies for the Germans in Five Fingers a movie inspired by the book (Operation Cicero) of L.C. Moyzisch. The real Cicero was neither bright nor simpatico (I know that because I read interviews from him).

From Ken Follett again, Eye of the needle is the story of a spy who knows all about D-Day. Again, you see the bad guy (Donald Sutherland) playing the feelings of a woman to succeed.

Jack Higgins wrote The Eagle has Landed the story of a German plot to kill Churchill, and in the movie you got some of our favorite stars as bad heroes: Donald Sutherland, Michael Caine, Robert Duvall (2001)

Spy stories

From Robert Harris Enigma, the famous story of how a Polish-British team cracked the German codes and then protected the secret of their discovery became a movie in 2001. Earlier, William Holden appeared in The Counterfeit Traitor, a movie coming from the book by Alexander Klein. See more on the spy page.

Death camps

The horrors of nazism come in two beautiful books-movies: Sophie's choice by William Styron (a movie with an incredible Meryl Streep) and Schindler's list, a book by Thomas Keneally(essential book) and a movie by Steven Spielberg.

What impressed me in Schindler's list is how ordinary the hero is: Schindler appears as a man with average intelligence and lower than average morality. How come Schindler did the right thing and saved innocent Jews while the Pope remained silent? How come Christian Germany (and Christian France for that matter) did not see what was so wrong with fascism? I think that it is because centuries of "family antisemitism" at home blurred their mind. All these people let books burn and Jews deported and went happily to church on sunday.

Human failure
There are three great books/movies showing people who could do the right thing and get simply side-tracked. The oldest one is the very moving story of The Bridge on the River Kwai. The movie dates from 1957 and was inspired by the novel of Pierre Boulle. Boulle lived in the same village as me when I was in France and looked very lonely and unhappy for a famous man. In the movie, Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness) is a prisoner and a British example of fortitude in face of the Japanese. Then he gets so taken by the construction and the engineering of a bridge that he forgets the war: he does not want his beautiful bridge to be destroyed, even if it helps the enemy.
Herman Wouk wrote The Caine Mutiny, which became a movie in 1954 and one of the strongest role of Bogart, slowly destroyed by anxiety, compulsion and paranoia.
But the most subtle book is The remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro(essential book). It is the story of a butler unable to take charge of his own fate. It describes a kind of impotence in front of life that many people feel at times...or permanently. This incapacity to do for oneself is cruelly painted against the background of the pre- and post-war problems. The 1993 movie is brilliant with Anthony Hopkins at his best. Hopkins said that he interviewed old professional butlers for his role and that one told him that the room should feel more empty when he was in it than when he was not.

A woman's point of view

Not surprisingly, all these war books are written by men. One book, written by a woman, comes in sharp contrast with the rest. Written by Susan Isaacs, you can feel a very different perception of war in Shining Through (1992), and that feeling is well transmitted in the film adaptation starring Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith who narrates the story.