Theirs Is the Glory (1946)

I love this movie so much

One of my all time favorites.

Good movie but grossly overrated

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I am writing this as I saw that the film only had a 6.9 rating on IMDb and would like to input something personal. My father was one of the first at the bridge and one of the last to be captured.Many years ago we went to see A Bridge Too Far. (The night it opened, free tickets! As a young man I was impressed. After the film we driving home and my father said that had felt like walking out halfway through. "Their's is the Glory was an account of what happened at Arnhem; this is not a patch on that, and the way they portrayed Boy Browning ans was truly disgusting)From a cinematic perspective ABTF is a fantastic film, but Their's is the Glory is not only a great film but historically accurate.I hope you enjoy it and remember the sacrifice that so many made to give you the freedom to watch it.

This is what we would now call a docudrama about the battle in and around Arnhem during the closing days of the Second World War. Mixing actual footage of the battle with new footage shot a year after the war in and around the ravaged city with many of the surviving soldiers playing themselves, this tells the same story that was told in the big Budget A Bridge Too Far. Its very much a you are there sort of film that pretty much seems to tell it like it was.I ran across this film in a budget collection of World War two films and since I'm a big fan of a Bridge Too Far I thought I'd pick it up. I'm not sure which is the better movie. One is a huge Hollywood financed production, the other is a small scale gritty in your face film that certainly shows what it must have been like. One I like because I like the story and the spectacle, the other I like because it shows what it was really like, and how Hollywood's version was too neat and clean.As good as this film is it has two problems in my eyes. First off its a bit disjointed. The film is telling the whole story about what happened in and around Arnhem and things get lost, "characters" blend into one another. Part of this seems to be the result of the fact that the film seems to have been dubbed after the fact and it seemed to me that several people have the same voice. Its not bad but I began to feel awash in the proceedings.The second problem with the film is that its awfully stereotypically "British". Everyone is low key and even keeled. Everyone takes everything in stride, even the fact that they are surrounded with seemingly no way out. Its all greeted with a levelness that seems wildly out of the "ideal" notion of the British soldier rather than reality. The attitude is fine for a while, but buy the half way point into the film I was shaking my head and giggling at the calmness of it all. For me it severely detracted from the proceedings and left me feeling very disappointed.Flawed or not this is a must see, especially for those who like the later inflated epic film.

My Father was one of the soldiers that was used in the film. He took me to see it in a local movie theater when I was quite young (6 or 7 years old). He was a sergent major in the Royal Canadian Engineers. His company, using Evinrude powered storm boats, evacuated the survivors of the British Airborn units across the Rhine from Arnhem. There is a closeup of his face and he says something to the effect that he guesses that they are glad to be across the river or something to that effect. I took him, before he died to see the movie "A Bridge too far". His comment was that it was typically American. He always felt that their movies downplayed the roles of the Comonwealth allies. I have not seen the movie "Theirs is the Glory" since then. I would love to get a copy so that my children and grandchildren could see it.

One of my all time favourite war movies. The film re-enacts the famous paratroop landing at Arnhem by the British and Canadians the agonising and bitter fight while surrounded by the Germans.What makes this film of interest is that the actors in this film are the actual Allied troops who fought the battle. As an added bonus the re-enactment was filmed on location in Arnhem and features the local inhabitants playing themselves.The films opening sequence was shot in a Nissan hut and as the camera pans down a row of beds with soldiers lying on them while the narrator introduces them by name, occupation and town of residence.Most of the movie proper is a series of re-enactments combined with actual footage shot during the battle. The standard of acting is pretty good but a couple of the speaches made to the men are well wooden to say the least. But by the same token I've seen a lot worse.One thing that amazes me is how closely many scenes in the famous movie A Bridge Too Far resemble those in Theirs is the Glory. A co-incidence perhaps?During the closing scenes of the movie it is mentioned that of the 10,000 troops who landed, scarcely 2000 survived. Bearing this in mind the closing scene is not only harrowing but also one of the most moving I've ever seen as the view pans down the same barracks but showing empty beds and a few disheveled tired men with the haunting words 'just ordinary men'