Author Archive: Retro

Victory at Sea began life as a 26-episode television documentary, originally presented on NBC in 1952-1953 as part of their Project 20 series. The program used rare film clips — including captured German and Japanese combat and newsreel footage — to chart the history of WWII, from the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 to VJ (Victory in Japan) Day in 1945. Richard Rodgers composed a special score for the series, which quickly matriculated into a hit LP; one of Rodgers’ leitmotifs was later adapted into “No Other Love” in the Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway musical Me and Juliet. Victory at Sea won several awards and ran forever in rerun syndication — and, in 1954, was spun off into a theatrical feature. It was up to editor Isaac Kleinerman to distill the 13 hours of the orginal series (culled from 60 million feet of film!) into 97 minutes. The feature version of Victory at Sea was [...]

Detailed documentation of the Nazi trials. Includes Russia before the German invasion and after the atrocities.

Very graphic captured Nazi footage of the horror of the concentration camps.

Filmed in color, The Memphis Belle has long been held up as a “model” wartime documentary. In a terse, exciting 41 minutes, the film assembles footage from several allied bombing missions into one single representative flight of the famed Flying Fortress known as The Memphis Belle. Though both the crewmen and the filmmakers take considerable pride in the fact that the Belle has completed 25 successful missions, there’s no phony heroism, no grandstanding, no flagwaving. As calm-voiced narrator Ed Kern explains, the Belle has a job to do, and it does it, and that’s all. The danger facing these Flying Fortresses is underlined, but never overemphasized, by brief glimpses of those doomed ships that didn’t make it back. Memphis Belle was directed by William Wyler, who also flew several missions with the crew, manning the camera himself at considerable risk. The overall excellence of The Memphis Belle is even more obvious when compared to the [...]

Dir. Garson Kanin. The bravery of the men who were a part of the Allied armies in Europe. Battle footage w/ voice-overs.Compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen. It opens as the assembled allied forces plan and train for the D-Day invasion at bases in Great Britain and covers all the major events of the war in Europe from the Normandy landings to the fall of Berlin.

The story of Helmut and Karl Hoffmann. Both come of age at the start of Hitler’s power in Germany. Helmut joins the SS and eventually becomes a successful flag rank officer. Karl joins the SA and experiences the darker side of Nazism after the SA is disbanded and Karl is thrown into prison and later conscripted into the German army. Brother is pitted against brother until their relationship, and the Third Reich, stands in ruins

The Russian people’s determination and preparation for war against the Nazis.

Chronicles the lives of shell-shocked WWII veterans and their painful efforts to return to society. Written by John Huston.

Shows naval maneuvering in the South Seas with emphasis on New Guinea, New Britain, and the Philippines. Includes the nuking of Hiroshima and the surrender ceremonies on the U.S.S. Missouri.