Monument Men
 

Dull, dull dull. We were looking forward to this film, missed it big time.
DVD in 3 weeks

I read the book a few months ago...it was pretty dull also. I will wait for it to come out on VuDu.

Cloney said, "It wasn't supposed to be Private Ryan."

This is true Tabs, the subject matter isn't fascinating, but I think it is worth the read to see what these men accomplished...and to think of what would have happened had they not been successful. Priceless artifacts ad art would have been lost forever.

Same subject, much, much better film:

"The Train"

from the 60's w/ Burt Lancaster.

My wife and I saw it tonight, we both enjoyed it. I wasn't quite sure about some of the details being accurate, but so what.

I have also watched The Train with Burt Lancaster.

Both are worth watching IMHO.

There is another book that I have read a bit of about the Soviet endeavor to plunder and loot the art treasures of Europe

"Beautiful Loot" by Konstanin Akinsha and Grigori Kozlov

Saw that movie back in the day...

I do want to see the movie I think it is a great story of recovery.

Ummm I do think that Cloney's take on history is a bit convoluted. Hitler ordered a scorched earth policy for the whole of Germany. Hitler felt that the German people were not fit to survive because they lost the war for him...He ordered the destruction of bridges, utilities, dams everything. Albert Speer who was the War Production Minister was supposed to carry out the orders, but purposefully disobeyed and did not carry them out. At the end Speer went to Hitler in the Bunker in Berlin and told him what he had done. Hitler felt disappointed in Speer that he to would betray him, however he gave Speer credit for telling him to his face.

The men who were sent out to recover the art and artifacts were in a race to see that the Soviets did not get to them first. That was more to the point of why they were going after them.

The dirty little secret is what our boys and the other Allied boys brought home with them as being liberated by them from the evil NAZI's. Treasures are still being found today in the USA. Some of the Holocaust treasures stolen from the Jews are in museums in the USA and there is legal actions pending to repatriate them to their rightful owners families. I was always on the look out for a hidden gem at the auctions that I attended. I imagine that from the 50's through the 80's one could occasionally find something of value that was a looted object.

Another thing to consider is that Chinese Gordon's British and French soldiers looted and burned the Chinese Summer Palace in 1864 under his orders. One can only imagine what is still out there in someones attic.

My wife and I thought it was a good movie, in the way a Miata is a good sports car. There is no Steve McQueen cameo, and Clint Eastwood isn't going to come in with guns blazing. It seems a bit like what you might expect if a museum curator was to go to war.

In other words, it isn't going to ''do'' you, or blow you out of your seat with action or suspense. It does however underscore what Americans used to stand for, and the contrast between that and what we were fighting against.

I doubt that it was terribly authentic, but it might inspire a television documentary that could fill in all the blanks. I found the film to be somewhat thought provoking, but then it was in the realm of what I might think about anyway. It isn't going to say much to those of the ''in it to win it'' generation.

I find movies like this interesting because of the length we were willing to go to do things that we would decide are just too expensive now.

Wife and I saw it yesterday and liked it a lot. As DanielDudley mentions, it underscores what we used to stand for. The story moves right along with interesting characters and gorgeous scenery. Obviously the story has been greatly simplified - this whole deal was about far more then the Ghent alter piece and the Bruges Madonna. But there was indeed a Monuments company that did this good and important work on a wide scale. For more on the story, see "The Rape of Europa," by historian Lynn H. Nicholas. The Nazis wanted it all, as one of the characters in the movie notes - even all the great wine collections in France. For more on this, see "Wine & War," by Donald and Petie Kladstrup. There's also "The Secret of Santa Vittoria," by Robert Crichton, about a trove of wine in Italy. hidden from the Germans.