Feature Films--Army of Shadows to Au revoir, les enfants

Army of Shadows (1969), Director: Jean-Pierre Melville, Running Time: 145 minutes

France, 1942, during the occupation: Philippe Gerbier, a civil engineer, is one of the French Resistance's chiefs. Given away by a traitor, he is interned in a camp. He manages to escape, and joins his network at Marseilles, where he makes the traitor be executed... This non-spectacular movie shows us rigorously and austerely the everyday of the French Resistants: their solitude, their fears, their relationships, the arrests, the forwarding of orders and their carrying out... Both writer Joseph Kessel and co-writer and director Jean-Pierre Melville belonged to this "Army in the Shadows".  

Ashes and Diamonds (Popiol i Diament) (1961), Director: Andrzej Wajda, Running time: 103 minutes.

Maciek, a young Resistance fighter, is ordered to kill Szczuka, a Communist district leader, on the last day of World War II. Though killing has been easy for him in the past, Szczuka was a fellow soldier, and Maciek must decide whether to follow his orders. (Kevin Dorner for IMBd)   

Attack (1956), Director: Robert Aldrich, Running time: 107 minutes.

During the closing days of WWII, a National Guard Infantry Company is assigned the task of setting up artillery observation posts in a strategic area. Lieutenant Costa knows that Cooney is in command only because of 'connections' he had made state-side. Costa has serious doubts concerning Cooneys' ability to lead the group. When Cooney sends Costa and his men out, and refuses to re-enforce them, Costa swears revenge. (Written by Buxx Banner for IMDb)

Attack on the Iron Coast (1968), Director: Paul Wendkos, Running Time: 90 minutes

During the WWII occupation of France, the heart and strength of the German Navy sits in a heavily guarded port known as the Iron Coastand it'll take a crackerjack team of Allied commandos to destroy it. Lloyd Bridges gives "one of his best screen performances" (Box office) as a major hell bent on seeing a deadly mission through to its "blazing finale" (Films & Filming). Major Wilson (Bridges) is a loose cannon, and his latest mission is a perfect fit. He must take an old minesweeper filled with explosives and ram it into the Nazi's prized naval port. The problem is, he and his crew will have only five minutes to escape this floating torpedo before it blows. Even if they succeed in taking down the stronghold, will they live to see the tide of war turn?  

Au revoir, les enfants (1987), Director; Louis Malle, Running Time:104 minutes

Gaspard Manesse plays Julien, an 11-year-old Catholic boarding-school resident during the Nazi occupation of France. He is witness to the courage of his instructors, who defy the German's anti-Semitic policies and quietly enroll Jewish children into the school under assumed names. Manesse befriends Jean (Raphael Fejto), one of these "instant Catholics." The refugee children are betrayed by a hostile ex-employee of the school, forcing Julien once more to be a bystander to history as Jean and the teachers are arrested. For this return to the French film industry after several years in the US, Louis Malle purged himself of his own bitter memories of life under the thumbs of the Nazis.