It's a broad outline of the last campaign in Africa, in which the Germans were driven out of Tunisia and a complete victory finally achieved. Much of the footage was new to me, the musical score includes Rachmaninoff, and the narration -- mostly by Leo Genn, Bernard Miles, and Burgess Meredeth -- is nicely written. Just enough detail is given about personalities and units to keep the viewer from being confused.
This being a wartime documentary (1944), you won't get anything closely resembling an ambiguous picture. We're good; they're bad; we won, despite handicaps. Of course every Allied documentary is a story of victory despite temporary setbacks because, when the smoke cleared, who was left standing? So you'll see points made here without qualification. Nothing about the conflicts among the top brass. At Kasserine Pass, "the Allied armor withdrew." Nothing about the Allies having broken the Italian naval code so that we were able to destroy most of the shipping designed to support the Afrika Korps. (Rommel was reduced to draining his undamaged tanks of fuel and abandoning them in order to keep his remaining tanks running.) Nothing of General Freyberg's mishandling of Crete.
But that's to be expected in 1944. Some clichés are unavoidable, given the time: mail call, Christmas services, giving chocolate to the children, the returning refugees humble but grateful.
Yet it's an exciting documentary -- energizing and gripping in a way some others of its type were not, like "Attack: Battle of New Britain," which consisted mostly of shots of soldiers slogging through mud and jungles with very little action. Many of the same people were involved in the production -- Frank Capra, Leo Genn, Burgess Meredeth -- but the result was dull. Maybe one of the reasons is that we didn't "take" New Britain but called off the assault and left half the island to the Japanese, so there was no clear victory and the requisite climactic celebration was absent.
In any case, this film is better shaped and uses clear graphics so we're never lost about where we are or who is doing what. A good boxed set of the North Africa campaign is available in the "Battlefield" series.
This being a wartime documentary (1944), you won't get anything closely resembling an ambiguous picture. We're good; they're bad; we won, despite handicaps. Of course every Allied documentary is a story of victory despite temporary setbacks because, when the smoke cleared, who was left standing? So you'll see points made here without qualification. Nothing about the conflicts among the top brass. At Kasserine Pass, "the Allied armor withdrew." Nothing about the Allies having broken the Italian naval code so that we were able to destroy most of the shipping designed to support the Afrika Korps. (Rommel was reduced to draining his undamaged tanks of fuel and abandoning them in order to keep his remaining tanks running.) Nothing of General Freyberg's mishandling of Crete.
But that's to be expected in 1944. Some clichés are unavoidable, given the time: mail call, Christmas services, giving chocolate to the children, the returning refugees humble but grateful.
Yet it's an exciting documentary -- energizing and gripping in a way some others of its type were not, like "Attack: Battle of New Britain," which consisted mostly of shots of soldiers slogging through mud and jungles with very little action. Many of the same people were involved in the production -- Frank Capra, Leo Genn, Burgess Meredeth -- but the result was dull. Maybe one of the reasons is that we didn't "take" New Britain but called off the assault and left half the island to the Japanese, so there was no clear victory and the requisite climactic celebration was absent.
In any case, this film is better shaped and uses clear graphics so we're never lost about where we are or who is doing what. A good boxed set of the North Africa campaign is available in the "Battlefield" series.