Customer Reviews

D-Day to Berlin

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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Excellent, except I got the impression that Montgomery would have won the war by himself. This expisode is very pro pro pro British!!! The British won the war with Americans holding them back!!! If we would have listened to The Field Marshall we would of won 6 months before. The Slowness of the British in the Falaise pocket delay after Normandy was not mentioned and the Market Garden was Eisenhower's fault (not giving Montgomery troops promised and not agreeing to the operation sooner). The producers made a point that Eisenhower bet "Monty" that the war would be over by Christmas but Monty won but failed to mention it was according to Monty's plan. Also what do you expect the actors to do, look like the real guys. For what it is worth they did ok, what do you expect. All in all the episode was Good but I still recommend the World at War series, it is also pro British but does give respect to the American leadership during that time.

This DVD does an OK job covering the final year of the war in Europe, but has a minimum of actual film footage shot by combat cameramen. Instead there are loads of dramatized shots of modern actors portraying GIs and Tommys, interspersed with wooden recreations of meetings between generals. If you find that you just can't bear to watch black and white footage, this may be great, but for me it sucks the life out of the DVD. One of the great dramas of the Second World War was that so many common people were participants. Watching actual films of these people is part of what makes the story so dramatic. The grime, fatigue, blood, tragedy and heroism are real. Combat footage of a soldier falling is very moving. Watching actors feign death in slow motion as the color film changes to black and white is embarrassing. Instead of enhancing the story, it cheapens it, reducing an epic conflict to the status of a TV movie.

Unfortunately, while the box boasts that the DVD uses "a testimony-driven format, as well as archive footage", there is no hint that it contains any re-creations. So be warned, while there is some original film, it is secondary to the dramatized contemporary reenactments that do little to further the story.

I just borrowed the entire series from my library system, and all 12 discs are excellent, but D-day to Berlin is especially gripping. Superb footage coupled to well done re-enactments offers the best of both worlds, a great documentary and an epic film. Another disc on Dunkirk also gets the same treatment. Superb!!! Also, the two discs on Auschwitz is incredible!! These three are essential, but the whole set is very tempting.

I got this DVD a few years back but finally watched it tonight. Disappointed! This seemed to be like a propaganda piece on how Montgomery saved the Allied Powers and
how all the battles were his ideas. "Assault on Fortress Europe D-DAY" part of the
War File series is far superior. 'D-Day to Berlin' does not even mention that the
Americans provided 3/4 of all men and war material. Again why all the re-enactments; there is plenty of new and old found Colour and B&W film footage.
Where is the mentioning that Montgomery was to take Caen within a week. Then we had
'Totalize; Epson and Goodwood with massive tank loses. (Oh, ya the Americans fault)
Americans came-up with COBRA. Eisenhower went along with ARNHEM. The list goes on
and on. I do like the other documentaries but this is the weakest.

I watched the last two episodes of this "gem" of a series- I found it an appalling mixture of bad docudrama and 1950s Cold War propaganda. Truly silly- as if the Western Allies were ever REALLY going to Berlin or as if Joe Stalin was ever going to allow weak "democracies" on his borders. That drunken ass Churchill is portrayed as some sort of hero instead of the vicious fool he was. (Check out the history of Greece in 1945 if you don't believe me). Isn't time we in America and Britain grow up and tell the truth about WW2 history? Victory was won with RUSSIAN blood- the Russians did the lion's share of the fighting! There is a hilariious interview at the end of the last segment where a British officer describes being outraged at some Russian soldiers stealing silver! REALLY! I laughed at his description of the threatening reaction of the Russians to his pompous little hissy fit! All in all this series is more of the delusional "history" which seeks to give the West far more moral credit than it deserves...

There must be thousands of hours of actual footage existing of these events , so why all the tacky, low budget, fictionalized re-enactments? (I suspect to appeal to young people who refuse to watch anything in black and white or listen very long to a narrator.) The actors hired to play Patton, Montgomery and Eisenhower don't even look like the real person, and sound even more ridiculous. The actor playing Patton is especially bad.

The facts are here if you're interested in this subject. But it's almost ruined by the fictionalized dialogue and campy presentation.