Tunisian Victory (1944)

Captivating movie !

Beautiful, moving film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A WW2 documentary on the Allied campaign in Tunisia in 1942-43. The Allies' victory in the campaign drove Germany out of Africa, went a long way to securing the Mediterranean for Allied shipping and was the first step on the path to invading Sicily and Italy.Interesting and edifying. A joint American-British production, with directed in part by the legendary Frank Capra (his co-director was the Englishman Hugh Stewart). The equally-legendary John Huston was also involved, shooting replacement scenes when some of the original film was damaged.Makes for engaging watching, with some good battle scenes, aerial combat shots and scenes of soldiers enjoying their down-time. The narration is a tad propagandaesque, but this was released during WW2, so is to be expected. Worth watching by all military history fans.

A lot has been written about this film.The latest being in the excellent book "Five Came Home".The British had already completed a documentary called "Africa Freed".However the US wanted to participate in this notwithstanding that they only had a relatively small number of troops in the campaign.Frank Capra came over from the States determined to remake the film which he was able to do.Much of the commentary was rewritten and scenes featuring the American army were inserted.It is clear that the cross talk between Burgess Meredith and Bernard Miles is inspired by John Ford's Battle Of Midway.Much of it is excruciating particularly the final section.The re enactments are fairly obvious and there is a credit card at the end stating this fact.Not surprisingly the film was slated by critics when it was finally released around a year after the end of the campaign.

*Spoiler/plot- 1944, A film showing the operations of many Allied units to support the eventual Sicilian Italian campaign.*Special Stars- Director: Frank 'Sicilian' Capra *Theme- Cooperation and planning wins wars.*Trivia/location/goofs- American documentary. Some information on General Patton's Kassarine Pass early tank victories against Field Marshal Rommel is included here.*Emotion- An enjoyable documentary made up of live action combat or newsreel footage. However, there are the unpleasant shots of injured Americans and killed Germans. But it is extremely educational and does what a narrative simulated war film can do.

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.