Battle in The Mind Field

It took 2,000 years for someone to make chess better! The most challenging game on earth comes to life in Battle Chess. An entire medieval world at war is reflected on the checkered field. Everyone who’s ever had a knight take a pawn has seen that capture as more than one piece replacing another on the board. In player’s minds, the bold knight, resplendent in his armor of silver or ebon, sallies forth and slays the foul footsoldier. Combat, mortal combat, is the heart and soul of chess, but this aspect of it can only live in the mind’s eye… until now!

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One of the most powerful anti-war statements ever put on film, this gut-wrenching story concerns a group of friends who join the Army during World War I and are assigned to the Western Front, where their fiery patriotism is quickly turned to horror and misery by the harsh realities of combat. Director Lewis Milestone pioneered the use of the sweeping crane shot to capture a ghastly battlefield panorama of death and mud, and the cast, led by Lew Ayres, is terrific. It's hard to pick a favorite scene, but the finale, as Ayres stretches from his trench to catch a butterfly, is one of the most devastating sequences of the decade. The film won Oscars for Best Picture and for Milestone's direction – and trivia buffs should note that the actors were coached by future luminary George Cukor, while Ayres became a conscientious objector in World War II.