They Fought for Their Motherland (1975)
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During the War of 1812 against Britain: General Andrew Jackson has only 1,200 men left to defend New Orleans when he learns that a British fleet will arrive with 60 ships and 16,000 men to take the city. In this situation an island near the city becomes strategically important to both parties, but it's inhabited by the last big buccaneer: Jean Lafitte. Although Lafitte never attacks American ships, the governor hates him for selling merchandise without taxes - and is loved by the citizens for the same reason. When the big fight gets nearer, Lafitte is drawn between the fronts. His heart belongs to America, but his people urge him to join the party that's more likely to win.
As the communist revolt progresses in Russia, a female commissar is dispatched to some anarchist sailors to get them on board the party bandwagon. Her arrival is met with skepticism and an attack by an aspiring rapist. She shoots the man in self defense and begins to form the sailors into a cohesive fighting unit. Joining the unit for a mission, the sailors are all murdered before they can convert to communism. The fallen angel is held up as a symbolic heroine to the people's cause in this decidedly propaganda-drenched film. The film took a specially created prize at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival, somewhat to the consternation of critics who failed to observe its merits.
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Set just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Sgt. Ray Elwood is an American soldier stationed at a German army camp. A soldier because a judge gave him a choice between the army and jail, Ray spends much of his free time cooking cocaine for the MPs. When a soldier dies and a toxicology screen shows an alarming level of illegal narcotics, someone is sent in to investigate.
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