George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	War	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	44:10
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	George Stevens Jr
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	George Stevens Jr
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Carl Davis Peter Howell

    George Stevens (1904-1975) was the director of numerous enjoyable films before World War II, like Swing Time and Gunga Din. After the war, he directed increasingly pretentious films like A Place in the Sun, Shane and Giant. This short film helps explain why his choice of themes changed.

    In 1943, Stevens joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and was put in charge of the Special Motion Pictures Unit, assigned to follow the invasion of Normandy with the 6th Army for the purpose of recording their operations for the archives. Using 35mm Kodachrome film, Stevens and his team (which included cameramen Joseph Biroc and William C. Mellor and writers William Saroyan and Irwin Shaw) filmed the D-Day invasion, the destruction in French villages, the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, the meeting of the American and Russian armies, the liberation of Dachau concentration camp with the furnaces still burning, the trench in which Hitler's body was burned and so on. The film also includes 16mm home movies made by Stevens.

    The film has been put together by George Stevens Jr., himself a producer, and he also narrates, with excerpts from audio interviews with surviving participants. This is fascinating material but unfortunately too short, particularly given that there are no extras. If you like war footage, you may want to pick this up.

Video

    The film is presented in what appears to be the original aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The video is quite clear and crisp, though the couple of occasions on which the director's son appears on screen appear to have been shot on video, or in softer focus than desirable. The colour looks better than colour home movie footage that sometimes crops up in documentaries, but still does not look natural. Flesh tones are a bit too red, but otherwise colour is not too bad.

    The camera shakes a bit at times, but generally the transfer is very good. There is grain, dirt and flecking, but this is to be expected in this sort of material, and overall it looks better than a lot of war footage.

    Optional English subtitles are provided in italicised white lettering, and seem to match the narration.

    This is a single layered disc, with less than 2 Gb used, so there was never any need for a layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

    The sole audio track is English Dolby Digital 1.0.

    Audio is good, with the narration being clear and distinct. Some of the inserted audio of the era is crackly, but that was inherent in the sources used. The audio transfer is just fine for this material.

    The banal music score is by the normally reliable Carl Davis and Peter Howell. Unfortunately it sometimes draws attention to itself and away from the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    No extras are provided. There was plenty of room for something to have been included.

    This appears to be identical to the Region 2 disc, but does not seem to have been released in Region 1 as far as I can tell.

    A fascinating documentary, but the DVD provides short measure for the asking price. Video and audio are good, but there are no extras.

Video
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Overall