The True Glory

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 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.

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.

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.