Churchill's Island

Lorne Greene narrates this often stirring, poetry-tinged documentary about the plight facing Great Britain, on land and sea and in the air, and throws defiance back from the beleaguered island.

To people my age, Lorne Greene was Ben Cartwright, the master of the Ponderosa and the father of three very different sons on the long-running TV western, BONANZA. During the Second World War, however, his was the voice of the Canadian war documentary, laying out the truth, telling of the peril, and loudly proclaiming the inevitability of victory in his deep, thundering voice. There were eighteen or nineteen of them. This is pretty early in the series.

During WWII, German films to be used in Germany for propaganda reasons were often intercepted by the Allies and sent to Canada. The National Film Board, under John Grierson, would then use the German footage in Allied propaganda.

Churchill's Island, perhaps the most famous of the Western propaganda, extolls the virtues of the Allied cause while using Nazi footage to show the evils of fascism.

While this film seems very dated (and with good reason, it's 60 years old), it's still a fascinating look at the use of a relatively new media as a tool of social control. 8/10.

The first ever documentary to win an Academy Award will be harder to take seriously nowadays due to the propaganda factor, but I'd say that it made perfect sense in World War II. "Churchill's Island" extols the United Kingdom's defense industry, identifying it as the main bulwark against Nazi Germany's advance. Despite the title, Winston Churchill only appears briefly at the end. The other elephant in the room is that back then, it was widely agreed that we needed high taxes to pay for wars; sixty years later George W. Bush turned a record surplus into record deficits by borrowing money from China* to fund his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the end, I recommend this documentary, the first ever Canadian production to win an Oscar.

*Speaking of China, the people who buy all that junk in Wal-Mart overlook something. Wal-Mart buys 90% of its products from China, which buys its oil from Iran. On top of it, the evangelical Christians have endorsed Vladimir Putin for his anti-gay policies, not realizing that his government is one of Iran's biggest allies.

Made in Canada and clearly intended to bolster support from the "new world" for the isolated British nation, this is quite a well put together documentary that uses actuality quite effectively. Though a little overly prone to lists, the narration isn't as effusive as you might expect which gives this a little more authenticity as the photography depicts the Nazi bombings of town and cities. It also illustrates the effectiveness of the Spitfire and the Hurricane which thwarted Goering's Luftwaffe and ultimately staved off the land invasion. Switching tactics, however, the Nazi war machine turns it's attention to the shipping on the perilous Western Approaches and we see the treacherous conditions faced by sailors in the North Atlantic as the U-boats take their toll. That's where the Canadian and American industrial might helps immeasurably, delivering food, fuel, replacement weaponry and troops which works to keep the UK from starving. As it's people prepare, daily, for privation and attacks their spirit remains indomitable - even as their homes are burning around them. Of course it's propagandist in nature, but the fact that it doesn't shy away from the genuine state of affairs in the Kingdom works to it's credit and some of the photography bears testament to the bravery and ingenuity of those doing an altogether different kind of shooting.