Victoire du désert

This was one of a number of documentaries made by the Ministry of Information spotlighting successful military campaigns.It is well made and serves its propaganda purpose.

This documentary account of the victorious campaign in Egypt and Northern Africa is nearly 100% actual war footage. In the inimitable British tradition it is factual, not propaganda-based (although some emotive wording can be found in the commentary). The Brits are to be commended for making a film of the campaign so quickly (1943) so that the public were able to unravel what really happened and what part they, their friends & relatives might have played in supporting the effort. Highly motivational stuff. Superb footage of all the protagonists, including Montgomery, Churchill, & Rommel (captured German footage!) etc. For authenticity this would be as near as possible to faultless. A great story and one that deserves to be re-told. The film is just over an hour in length, and does not drag at all. Recommended for anyone interested in World War 2 or in great land battles.

This wartime documentary has one advantage over many of it's contemporaries. It's a largely self-contained story of the planning and execution of a battle from the Second World War that was actually won. It's also a much more internationalist depiction of the activities by soldiers of many different nations that fought against Rommel's hitherto unbeaten Afrika Korps across Mesapotamia and towards El Alamein, a mere sixty miles from Alexandria and not much farther from the crucial Suez Canal. There is an astonishing collection of wartime photography to supplement a narration that is frequently quite journalistic in nature. It avoids rousing sentiment and delivers us a more factually-based chronology of reports, augmented by simple diagrams, on how this theatre of war perilously ebbed and flowed. We are effectively immersed in the hot and arid environment to which these soldiers had to adapt and with shells falling all around their grubby yet vital trenches scratched out of the soil and stone, this is a well structured retrospective evaluation of a scenario where the generals also respected the skills and tenacity of their equally battle-hardened and determined foe. One of the better wartime morale-boosters, this one.

This is another example of a film – or, in its case, a documentary – which was much lauded by critics once upon a time but which, when viewed today, does not come across as particularly outstanding (if eliciting occasional excitement throughout from the mainly dimly-lit barrage of various types of artillery). I mean this criticism towards it exclusively as a cinematic product, of course, since the events depicted – the Allies' defeat of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's previously invincible North Africa campaign in 1942 – constitute one of the most decisive turning points of WWII. The fact that it was all captured live by respected British film people (albeit uncredited!) is all the more remarkable when considering that several cameramen were killed, wounded or imprisoned by the enemy during its shooting, as the opening text duly informs us; interestingly, then, the scenes showing Rommel himself and, briefly, Adolf Hitler was 'supplied' via confiscated footage in possession of German P.O.W.s! Many such 'classic' efforts were released during the course of the 6 year-long (1939-45) global conflict by notable British and American film directors, a good number of which I own and have watched in the past, while a few more will be included among my initial spate of 2014 viewings.

For the record, the print I watched of DESERT VICTORY had a 10-minute newsreel – FILM BULLETIN NO. 45: U.S. ATTACKS IN THE ALEUTIANS – appended to it, revolving around battles in the Pacific that were also officially 'reported' by John Huston. Incidentally, the latter competed with the film under review for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars, but the British effort emerged victorious; besides, co-director Boulting made BURMA VICTORY (1946) in a similar vein.

This has to be one of the greatest documentaries of all time! The combat footage is all real! At the beginning, there is a notation that, in the fighting depicted, four of the cameramen were killed and thirteen others were either wounded or captured by the enemy. There is also footage taken by the Germans that was captured in the British advance. Watching this, think about one thing: everything you are seeing, a camerman was close enough to shoot with a camera and was, while filming, unarmed and a target. Hemingway defined courage as "grace under pressure". This marvelous masterpiece is a testament to incredible courage. Words fail to do these brave souls credit. But Desert Victory does. I salute them and the others whose courage is immortalized here on celluloid.