Category: Cornelius Ryan
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Old Gamers Never Die, or: Operation Market-Garden, ‘Crusade in Europe,’ and Unexpected Victories
“Many historians, with an ‘if only’ approach to the British defeat, have focused so much on different aspects of Operation Market Garden which went wrong that they have tended to overlook the central element. It was quite simply a very bad plan right from the start and right from the top. Every other problem stemmed…
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Musings & Thoughts for September 17, 2020: Of ‘Market-Garden,’ Waiting for Packages, and Other Bits of My Mind
Hello, there, Dear Reader (Constant and otherwise). It’s early afternoon on Thursday, September 17, 2020, and it’s a hot late summer day in my corner of Florida, Because the owner of the house where I live is off from work and is away running errands, I’m enjoying some rare weekday online time and writing this…
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Summer Sunday Daze: On My Reading List for July
Hi, Constant Reader. It’s Sunday, July 12, and as I start this post noon is not that far away on this hot summer day. Right now the temperature outside is 92˚F (33˚C), and with humidity at 66% and a 3 MPH southwesterly breeze factored in, the heat index (or “feels like”) temperature is 108˚F (42˚C)…
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Home Media Comparison: ‘A Bridge Too Far’ DVD vs. Blu-ray
A Bridge Too Far on Home Media When producer Joseph E. Levine’s $25 million adaptation of Cornelius Ryan’s non-fiction book A Bridge Too Far landed in theaters on June 15, 1977, home media as we know it today was in its infancy. Videocassette recorders existed, of course, but they were still mostly used by the…
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Movie Review: ‘A Bridge Too Far’
Lt. Gen. Horrocks: [briefing his XXX Corps officers on Operation Market Garden] Gentlemen, this is a story that you shall tell your grandchildren, and mightily bored they’ll be. [the officers laugh] The plan is called “Operation Market Garden”. “Market” is the airborne element, and “Garden”, the ground forces. That’s us. [points to a map behind him of Holland, showing…
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Book Review: ‘The Last Battle’
All art, no matter what the medium might be, is a product of the times in which it is created. A 1950s-era novel like Elliott Arnold’s Flight from Ashiya, for instance, will resonate with readers or movie buffs who remember director Michael Anderson’s 1964 adaptation, but it will still reflect the concerns and issues of…
A Certain Point of View, Too 