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This is a documentary of Victory in Europe starting from before D-day to VE day. The Allied military gathered combat and other military footage to put together their version of the fight from Normandy to Berlin. Eisenhower has a foreword introduction. There are lots of combat footage. Some of them are fairly bloody with dead bodies. They are very compelling and many of the footage have been reused over the years. There are two versions of the ending. One ends simply while the other ends mentioning Japan. I can do without the various people (actors?) doing the narration as a stereotype of each nationality and military unit.

This is one of the best-regarded of the classic wartime documentaries – another Academy Award winner, as it happens – and, in retrospect, among those that has stood the test of time reasonably well. Co-incidentally, its viewing followed that of THEY WON'T FORGET (1937) starring Claude Rains, who is featured here as one of several uncredited narrators! With this in mind, while one understands that such films were made as collective efforts for morale-boosting purposes, it feels odd to realize who may or may not have been involved only while watching it…or even after the fact (I was not aware, for instance, that the script was by Paddy Chayefsky)! Anyway, its enduring qualities over more dated similar efforts has much to do with the film's very structure – not only the various nations involved in the Allied cause taking turns to provide 'first-hand' commentary throughout, but its detailing the progress towards the end of WWII (from D-Day to the fall of Berlin).

It was interesting, to be sure, to watch real footage of a number of famed battlegrounds which would later be fictionalized as star-studded spectacles by the commercial cinema – the Normandy invasion itself in THE LONGEST DAY (1962), the BATTLE OF THE BULGE (1965), the entry into Berlin following the capture of THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN (1968) and the ill-fated Allied maneuver at Arnhem in A BRIDGE TOO FAR (1977). Other points worth mentioning here are the fact that this was 'presented' by U.S. Supreme Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower (indeed, it is said that the gold statuette on Oscar night was delivered to him personally!), later the 34th American President, and the early harrowing depiction of the realities behind German concentration camps which, as stated in the film itself, removed from one's mind any notion of the futility for such a conflict.

Not your average World War II documentary, 'The True Glory' avoids static interviews or impersonal narration, instead presenting collated archive footage from the final few months of the war, played out against real war veterans verbally relating their experiences. While some of the stock footage shown feels awfully familiar, there are several excellent, unusual shots throughout, most notably one where the camera is positioned at the wheels of the plane and a sequence where passers-by on the street walk up to the camera from all different directions. The nighttime footage is remarkable too. Not all of the verbal recounts resonate with a lot of flag-waving dialogue, however, several lines linger long in the mind ("I'm not squeamish... but I'm human") and the documentary refreshingly includes recounts from an extensive variety of personnel. Sure, most of the interviewees are soldiers, but we also get the perspective of an army hospital nurse, a war reporter and the list goes on. The documentary also curiously mentions the prospect of World War III some time in (then) foreseeable future with a reminder that war really can be a horrible thing. Indeed, while the film sometimes feels like the Allies patting themselves on the back for a successful victory, 'The True Glory' does not shy away from depicting how grueling war is and it deserves some credit for that.

The choice of film was excellent with one exception. They devoted one minute to Belsen with no actual mention of the Holocaust. The documentary though was almost ruined by the dreadful ponderous blank verse commentary.

"The True Glory" was a feature-length documentary, jointly produced by the US Office of War Information and the British Ministry of Information, telling the story of the war on the Western Front, from the D-Day invasion of Normandy up to VE Day. The film was directed by Carol Reed and uses newsreel footage of the actual fighting, with commentary by multiple first-person narrators, including participants in the fighting, and an introduction by no less a personage than General Eisenhower himself. It was ad enticed with the slogan, "The story of your victory...told by the guys who won it!"

Although the war in the West may have been over when the film was made, some time in mid-1945, it can still be regarded as wartime propaganda; we are reminded that the war in the Far East was still continuing, and one of the film's messages was clearly "we've beaten Germany, now it's Japan's turn!" Another message can be summed up as "And the Krauts had it coming to them!" The view of Germany presented here is equally propagandistic; the Germans are portrayed not just as cruel and sadistic but also arrogant and full of a self-confidence which was eventually to prove unjustified.

This is very much a film of its time; although the emphasis is on the Western front, the Soviets are still "pursuing gallant allies", and Stalin is even described as one of the "architects of freedom", along with Churchill and Roosevelt. These views would start to look outdated only a few years later, when peace had turned to cold war. Today the film is really of historical interest only. If you want to know the story of the Western Front in the years 1944/5, eighty years of historical research and analysis means that we have today documentaries that are far more detailed, informative and objective and less propagandistic and smugly self-congratulatory. 6/10.

Obviously, "The True Glory" is propaganda in favor of World War II. Walking away from it, one gets the feeling that this was a war that had to get fought (and when you think about it, it WAS the last war declared by congress - as opposed to the president unilaterally launching it - and we paid for it with high taxes). None other than Dwight Eisenhower* introduces it and reminds the viewer that this is firsthand footage of the war. We get narration from all sorts of people: multiple nationalities, and even multiple races.

But something else caught my eye. Towards the end, we get footage of US troops meeting Soviet troops, and both sides hit it off. Any scholar of WWII knows that the USSR was our ally in that war. Well, a mere two years later, the United States and Soviet Union became enemies. A person seeing this documentary just a few years after its release would've gotten left befuddled at the sight of Ivan and GI Joe happily shaking hands, now that the US considered the USSR the world's #1 threat. But as George Orwell depicted in "Nineteen Eighty-Four", alliances shift depending on which war it is, and memories of previous alliances get erased.

Well, one has to understand that the documentary got released right after the war ended. The footage of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin holding their conference looked heroic (most people didn't know that Truman had ditched FDR's plans for a future without war). It's understandable that the documentary won Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards in 1946. While the propaganda factor may seem over-the-top, I still recommend the documentary as a look at the mindset in late 1945. To think that there was that brief period when it looked as though there would never be another war, and now a nuclear holocaust looks like a real possibility.

Anyway, you should see it (but also watch "The Atomic Cafe").

*It's probably worth noting that as president, Ike taxed the rich at 90% to pay off the war debt and build the Interstate system, defended Social Security, and worked to ease tensions with the Soviet Union. He could never get elected as a conservative nowadays.

This is probably the earliest example of what you could call a "complete" documentary depicting the end of World War II. Starting with the planning for and then the implementation of the D-Day landings, and using hundreds of different pictorial sources, this takes us on a fairly comprehensive and often quite harrowing journey from the beaches of Normandy to the streets of Berlin. It's introduced by Gen. Eisenhower and he occasionally contributes to the soundtrack, but for the most part this is narrated by the ordinary soldiers, sailors, fliers and civilians whose lives were affected by this huge-scale military and logistical operation. It's that commentary that stands out well here, offering us some poignant observations of their travails over the best part of a year in occupied France, the Low Countries and then finally Germany itself. Some of the comments are stoic and witty but never flippant. Each has a story to tell, an episode to describe, an encounter to recount - and for much of this, it's against an enemy that had most certainly not given up. What's also striking here is the collaborative delivery of it's message. Those under the command of The King, Roosevelt and Stalin as well as those fighting for the freedom of those long-occupied territories speak openly and freely of their inter-reliance and abilities to work hand in glove - regardless of language difficulties, cultural or ideological differences and the archive illustrates that co-operation with a remarkable degree of comprehensiveness. Be warned, however, that those images also depict the ghoulish atrocities of not just the war, but of the liberation too. Of Belsen - and these images are not for the squeamish. They are truly appalling, and described by many who arrived there in 1945 with a degree of disgusted incredulity. Then we move on to scenes of ruin in towns and cities in the Fatherland before witnessing scenes of Göring and other staff officers signing documents and surrendering their weapons in defeat - in an altogether more dignified fashion. It doesn't try to be political or analytical, it tells the story from the perspectives of those folks who fought the battles and won the war and is really worth a watch if you are ever looking for a potted, but potent, encapsulation of the end of the war in Europe.

This fantastic documentary released by the United States Government and co-directed by the great and smart writer-director Garson Kanin and Michael Powell opens with DDE telling us that we are going to see the events as occurred as told by the men and women who were involved and there. This is no talking heads documentary. It essentially covers the journey from the moment the allies land on Normandy till they take Berlin. All the while, a series of voice-overs obviously scripted details the action as they talk. Be it English, American, Canadian, Czech, Russian, female paramedics, black soldiers we are given the whole she-bang. The voices change as randomly as the scene changes. There is a problem though. The dialog is scripted and can sound corny and a bit rah-rah and flag-waving. Everything is optimistic in this cinematic dairy so to speak. Scenes of allies being killed end with voice-over lines "We lost 3,000 but we moved on" and the editors will jump away to scenes of the army defeating or bombing Berlin. They do not linger or failure or tragedy except when it matters at the concentration when we see the dead bodies and survivors. That said, all sides of the human behavior are covered. We see soldiers who would rather shoot the Germans than capture them. You can feel the anger behind the voices of the soldiers as he chants racist mantras at the POWS. Anger, happiness, futility, fear, and foremost of all optimism is covered and the ending tells us that we can together and be one. The sea of flags ending might seem corny but it was made after the Great War. It has a right to be.

Described by Basil Wright as "a really brilliant example of collaboration of talent on an international level" and bearing the official endorsement of an introduction by General Eisenhower, this blow by blow account of the final year of the war in Europe includes uncredited contributions from both commentator Leslie Banks and combat cameraman Russ Meyer.

Moving at a rare old lick, the frequent dry humour and laconic passion of the words combines with forcefully edited found footage to create an engrossing piece of reportage as fresh as the day it was made (although the actual events depicted probably felt like a lifetime to actually experience compared with the way the film flies past).

This film won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature--and according to IMDb, Dwight Eisenhower himself got the trophy! The film is introduced by General Eisenhower himself and Robert Harris narrates. There are also folks who talk throughout the film--giving soldiers' accounts of the events. It chronicles the landing of the Allies at Normandy, France and continues up to the fall of Berlin. According to IMDb, the US and British government had access to the work of 1400 cameramen.

Historically speaking, this is an amazing and important film. However, when seen today by the average person, it's EXTREMELY slow going--with lots of grainy images and VERY dry narration. I would not recommend you see it and instead find a newer and more polished film. Heck, I am a retired history teach and I still found this pretty uninteresting!!

Later documentaries and war films have combined to make this piece seem rather outmoded in manner and naively optimistic in tone whilst its powerful images now alas seem all too familiar. At the time of course it must have packed quite a punch. The editing of newsreel footage shared among others by co-directors Carol Reed and Garson Kanin, is superlative. Some of the front line cameramen of course would not have lived to see the film receive its Oscar as Best Documentary. Splendid score by William Alwyn. Lots of familiar and uncredited voices here and the choice of Leslie Banks to declaim the somewhat purple prose is inspired following his role as Chorus in 'Henry V'. An 'uncredited' name as cinematographer is that of Russ Meyer who went on to film 'action' of an altogether different sort! The less successful aspects of the campaign are glossed over in keeping with its propogandist nature and the massive casualties are seen as the price to be paid for a job well done. History has naturally overtaken the film and it is most unsettling now to see Joseph Stalin, who was handed millions of East Europeans on a plate at the Yalta Conference, being described as one of the 'architects of peace'! The following year another of those architects, Winston Churchill, delivered his 'Iron Curtain' speech. Well-intentioned and technically faultless this is a moving testament to human beings 'in extremis'.

Even though Americans on the home front were bombarded by newsreel footage of World War Two, the Academy awards-winner of Best Documentary Feature, August 1945's "The True Glory" encapsulated the final year of the Allies effort to overtake Germany and Italy in the European theatre. The documentary, directed by Hollywood's Garson Kanin and England's Carol Reed, followed the Allied troops from the D-Day landing at Normandy to the surrender of the Germans in May 1945. The joint effort between the United State Office of War Information and the British Ministry of Information involved over seven hundred cameramen, and viewed by a team of editors who meticulously selected which of the thousands of feet of footage shot would be in the final documentary.

"Much of the camerawork is very impressive," wrote reviewer Patrick Boyle, "particularly the more lyrical shots of soldiers in semi-silhouette against early morning skies. 'The True Glory' is an interesting and invaluable record." Front ended by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the documentary was written largely by playwright Paddy Chayefsky. Co-director Kanin had just seen Chayefsky's first play, 'No T. O. for Love' at the Scala Theatre in London's West End and offered him a chance to help script "The True Glory." Chayefsky had been drafted in the U. S. Army when a land mine exploded near him in Aachen, Germany, sending him to the hospital where he wrote his play. Awarded the Purple Heart, Chayefsky contributed to the unique script of having a narrator detail the progress of the Allied troops from Normandy to Berlin, augmented by personal first-person accounts from soldiers, members of the French resistance, Parisians, and women of the nursing and support staffs. General George Patton, actor Sam Leven and Peter Ustinov also give their own personal prospective of the war.

"The True Glory" was one of the first films to show footage of the German concentration camps. The images projected while the United States was still waging an intense battle with the Japanese served as a morale booster to those fighting in the Pacific. And the horror in the holocaust scenes could have been included to justify the dropping of two atomic bombs over Japan to show how satanic the Axis powers conducted themselves during WW2.

The British Ministry of Information and the U. S. Office of War Information produced this film of the Second World War from June 6, 1944 through the surrender of Germany on May 10, 1945.

There aren't many official credits on this winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The two uncredited directors are Garson Kanin and Carol Reed; Kanin claimed that as the uncredited producer, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Oscar winner. Surely the estimated seven editors, the ten writers (including Joe Brown, Paddy Chayesfksy, and Peter Ustinov), performers who spoke the commentary and the purported memories, including Leslie Banks, Sam Levene, and Richard Attenborough, the war footage shot by, among other people, Russ Meyer, and the millions of Allied troops deserve praise.

I do not want to linger on this film. I caught it on UK television by accident and saw within a brief space of time image after image of unbelievable horror. Fragments of people's destroyed lives and a collage of male voices voicing comments ( mostly American, nothing from Russia. Only a few remarks and images of Russians and given their losses that ran into millions this was to me inadmissible. And no women's voices but then I saw only most of this film and may have missed them. No voices of Germans and yes there were voices to be heard there as ' innocent ' men and women were caught up in the maelstrom of all this bedlam despite their nationality ) I saw a brief few images of the concentration camps but only a discreet nod to people of ' other ' religions!!! Not the single word ' Jewish ' and of course this being 1945 no mention of ' homosexuals ' or ' gypsies '. It is a film of its time when prejudices were rife and people could either not be mentioned or clumped into a stereotyped format. A convoy of slave labour passed by at one point and this was blithely mentioned and glossed over. Their agonized faces were equal to the liberating soldiers, but just a glance and a mention while we watched the soldiers. Every image was soaked in humanity in its filth and pain, yet the end of the film speaks of the ' true glory '. A black and white film in every sense. Glory is the last word to use when millions of innocents on all sides died and suffered and lived those long years under appalling conditions. And of course this being so-called objective no analysis about how we slid over long years into this morass of evil and unendurable pain. I give it 2 for the agony of the pain, and parts of it that must have been an education for some at the time.

Imagine that nothing happens to you in your whole life; then all of a sudden you find yourself in the midst of war. Naturally you want to record your experiences to share them Mr with your children and your children's children and the future of mankind. There we find the same experience shared by thousands of people actually just always been the same. Challenging quite sad because many interesting original stories can be told about the second world war -especially from German point of view- instead one always get the same rehashed ocean of meat that we all know already with the only messages to obey to the government which of course is the great problem from the very beginning leading to all of the misery of the second world war to begin with. In total it can be sent that this documentary is pretty much boring do it the same time it must be interesting for somebody who never heard about the second world war but in reality we all heard about it already so nothing is no again and because nothing is new it is just keeping the old texts intact and by doing so it destroys the chance for future and by The strand of chance for future it destroys the chance of life and in this the movie is supporting the enemy or no matter which side of team you are standing. You want to do something right then don't watch this movie.