Customer Reviews

George Stevens - D-Day to Berlin

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I certainly concur with Mr.Meminger's highest rating for this extraordinary documentary. The idea of seeing World War II in color is really quite astounding since our sensibilities are firmly formed in black and white. Showing the horrors of war,and even its poignancy, George Stevens Jr.'s narration along with the musical score by Carl Davis, makes for quite a compelling document. Even after watching this film 25 times or more, I am affected deeply by it with each viewing. I also recommend another documentary comprised of mostly color combat footage (and includes the Pacific theater, which "D-Day..." does not cover),entitled "World War II In Color" (available from Amazon.com), which was released in 1998 (90 min.). Incidentally, another WW II documentary, for which I cannot vouch, is also entitled "D-Day to Berlin"--look for George Stevens Jr.'s name in association with the film in question. "D-Day to Berlin" is, quite simply, indispensable.

I purchased this video for my father for Christmas 1999. He watched it three times just on Christmas night! A veteran, he considers it our obligation to educate today's youth about the war...he found this video an excellent means to accomplish this task.

Director, producer George Stevens spent the war years in uniform. Along with a number of veteran Hollywood cameramen and screenwriters they formed a film unit dedicated to recording the events transpiring in Europe in 1944 and 45. Narrated by his son, we follow "The Stevens Irregulars",as they called themselves, from the landing on Normandy to the Allied Forces trek across enemy territory to Berlin. We see the liberation of Paris and the discovery of the camps at Aushwitz to the fortress in the Alps where Hitler spent much of his time. What is remarkable is that these movies were shot in color. To view the D-Day landings in technicolor makes that events so real, we are not watching grainy black and white film, we are seeing it as it was seen by those who were there those fateful and historic days.. I was stunned seeing them for the first time. It is a time capsule like no other.

I just wish it were longer. There is actually a fair amount of color film shot from the war (I believe Stevens himself shot far more than this tape shows), and what's been released so far is just the surface. I'd like to see the rest made available.

George Stevens's inlook on the AEF from D-Day to Berlin presents an astonishing and macabre focus not on the battle, but the eternall journey to V-E day. Along this journey, Mr.Stevens brings into delight the horrifying death and exterminating camps of Dachau. The color sots are vivetting, careful not to turn our stomachs with "gross" scenes, he does show the reality of war and the wage of war on man's delicate souls, including death. A must see for all genertions, and why we need a memorium for the over 400,000 KIA, MIA men/women of all ethnic backgrounds of Americans in WWII. I am black, and realize that hatred is evil, the Holocaust justified that demeanour.

Dear Mr. Peter Lorenzi,

I must disagree with you completely, As a photography/film student, I viewed this film in part and soon realized that this film was not tinted with any type sepia-acetone color of any form. These motion pictures were shot directly from Kodak color film in "home movie cameras" that were brought along with the regular potion picture industry equipment that was used mostly for black and white shots. But this documentory was shot with real Kodak Technicolor: Called "IB Technicolor" for Imbibition. The most fade resistant color process. Found in 16mm from the mid 1940's to the early 1970's.

Also, Reviewed by Linda, Yahoo contributer.
At the start of World War II, famed Hollywood director George Stevens (Woman of the Year, A Place in the Sun, Shane), like several of his film-world cohorts, volunteered for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, whose assignment was to document the front lines of the war as it happened. Their footage accounts for the many famous black-and-white newsreels that were the public's only moving-image link to what was going on in the war. But Stevens also brought along his home movie camera and shot color film at the same time, capturing many images both informative and horrific, that he shelved away until his death. George Stevens Jr. inherited a treasure trove of film lore, and assembled this footage to show to the public for the first time in this documentary.

George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin is really an astonishing collection of personalized movies. We've seen much of this before: D-Day in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the discovery of the horrors of the concentration camp in Dachau. But being used to seeing these images in gritty black-and-white, it is almost alarming to see it in full, vibrant color. These films aren't washed out, and they certainly aren't sepia-toned. They are brightly colored as though they could happen today.

One should do their home-work before commenting on something in public.

Excellent documentary shot by the world's best combat photogrpher. The son narrates and understands what his father went through, landing on D-Day and following the troops through VE day. It's his coverage of the death camps that makes this important for others to undeerstand just how evil the Nazis were and just how willing the German nation was to help serve their master for a healthy economy.

As a WWII history buff, the movie provided a cameraman's perspective not usually considered for the time and it was in color which was a bonus.

This is the film done by the film maker from hollywood who followed General Patton during War world II, I bought this DVD because My dad had the VHS. My dad was in the resistance and then went to the D_Day at St mere L'Eglise and then went to Omaha beach and joint the US army as the French division, helping the americans going through France, Germany, and to do the junction with the Russian. It is one of the best documentary done in colors.
Until George Steven Junior short the film of 16min. and cut the signing with the russians in Tungao sur Elbe. I was very disappointed because in theses 16min missing my dad was in it.... Why cutting a wonderful documentary, that his dad did,
risking is live to show to the world what's happened and make sure people will remember. I was thinking of having a memory for me and my children of what their grandpa accomplished. And here go, cut probably for the cost of the product or for greed... The film is very great film, hard to see sometime for certain child or adult, but reel because you see death and the camps.
Since my dad past away.
What did George Stevens Senior is a masterpiece, what did his son is making money.... sad

Adding color film like these to the grainy black-and-white images that have become the public memory of World War II is illuminating. These are original color films, not colorized black and white films. The war in color is how people who were there saw and lived the war.

Yet the color footage is mostly of the photographers themselves, the ones who spent 99% of their time shooting the black-and-white footage we often remember or that serves as our memories of the war. There is some shocking footage of dead bodies, Dachau, and destruction. There is even more footage of mundane scenes of jeeps, soldiers, scenery, cities, and ceremonial meeting sin Paris and on the Elbe. And there are plenty of shots of the film crew shaving, eating, meeting dignitaries, opening Christmas presents, and looking like a bunch of buddies on a fishing trip. The narrator explains who the men were and what they did later, making them - not he soldiers -- the feature players of the story. These home movies at times separate us from the war and the men who fought the war. This dilutes the power of the message and of the memory.

This is a nice way to revive memories and to honor the service of the men who defeated the Nazis. But this DVD is short, superficial, overhyped, and oversold.