La vraie gloire

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.

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 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 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.

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'.