Customer Reviews

Attack: The Battle for New Britain

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My daughter who normally gets up and leaves the room when I watch something like this sat through it and asked, "Why is this so interesting?" I answered, "Its because you are actually watching the real battle, those are the real men who fought."

As far as complaints about racism in the narration...nonsense. It is normal to not love one's enemies because they are enemies. That is not racism. And the term "fuzzy-wuzzy" became a term of endearment to the Australians who were helped greatly by the indigeneous people during WWII in Melanesia.

This is a valuable document about real military action in the South Pacific.

This is another trip in the time machine provided by these videos. The video quality is poor and the sound effects of bombs, guns and tanks don't always match the action. There's a warning about "racist" comments in the narration - 'nuff said. What's important is the clips that are in this and the other videos in the collection are genuine - they were made on the scene at the time. It's not a "movie" in the sense of a story you might like to read. It's a vintage documentary - vignettes of the men who trained, fought and died in the defense of the world against the evil that was the Japanese empire at the time. These are some of the young men who we now know as "The Greatest Generation." They literally saved America and the world from the unimaginable evil Japan was trying to spread. Ignore the graininess and bad lighting, It's probably a tenth generation copy. Let it absorb you so that you will see these men. Had it not been for them, our lives today would be very much different.

The American army prepares to attack the Japanese-held island of New Britain in early 1944.
Using extensive footage of the US Infantry training and fighting in the Pacific, flowing arrow battle maps and a sometimes impassioned narration by actor Lloyd Nolan, producer Frank Capra's ATTACK!: THE BATTLE FOR NEW BRITAIN is one of the many fine documentaries he produced during the Second World War. Capra is best known as a documentarian for his Why We Fight series, which were also made during the war and which chronicled Europe's and the Allies' war against Germany.
The 60-minute ATTACK! is preceded by a half-hour documentary, don't know the producer, entitled SEA POWER. With stock footage and flowing arrows drawn and ready, SEA POWER provides a short lesson on the balance of power in Asia as it was understood circa 1944. A static defense - fortified island bases - was possible only when complimented by a mobile naval force equal to or stronger than the enemy's. Unimaginative and informative, SEA POWER presents the context in which ATTACK! takes place.
ATTACK! uses a great deal of original footage to show the Allies training and fighting. The film centers on the ground troops, and perhaps influenced by field reporters like columnist Ernie Pyle and cartoonist Bill Mauldin, the troops are presented in a homey, unvarnished manner. War is shown as hard, dirty work fought in miserable conditions. Malaria infested stinking jungles aren't dressed up, aboriginals are unashamedly referred to as fuzzy-wuzzies, and the wounded and dead are photographed. Even a captured Japanese soldier is shown- a Jap, in the parlance of the day, who is presented with Nolan's reactionary narration asking us What's this? That's right, it's a Jap soldier waiting for medical care, and smoking an American cigarette while he waits. In other words, the movie seems to be telling us, if you're looking for atrocities we ain't gonna be the one to show them to you. Even though it's the infantry who's the star of this one, the deepest impression is made by the confounding logistical obstacles overcome. After the troops establish a beachhead and push in (including some astonishing, if inconclusive, front-line camera work) we see the tanks and jeeps and trucks unloaded. For every finger pulling a trigger, Nolan intones, there are a hundred others pushing, hauling, and carrying.
Even though the transfer print is grainy and hard to track at times, I enjoyed ATTACK! quite a bit. Highly recommended for war movie fans who are interested in wartime documentaries.