ER’s handsome star, George Clooney is part of an all-star cast, including Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, Nick Nolte, and John Travolta (who seems to be in everything), that will be seen in the Twentieth Century-Fox adaptation of James Jones’ The Thin Red Line. About the men of C-for-Charlie company, during and after the brutal, bloody battle of Guadalcanal, this book has long been hailed as a masterwork along with Jones’ From Here to Eternity. As movie lovers know, the latter led to the 1953 film which won eight Oscars, including Best Picture. Forever immortalized by its wave-swept love scene between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, it is also famous for its casting of Frank Sinatra as the scrappy soldier, Maggio. Sinatra whose career was then shaky wound up winning an Academy Award, and enjoying a career comeback. Proof that war is swell when it’s Hollywoodized.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
