WWII In Color (1998)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Produced by William Hunt
Distributed by Goldhil DVD

Features:

• Bonus battles: Invasion of Italy, Battle for Germany
  
• Feature-length bonus documentary narrated by Clark Gable
  
• Timeline scene navigation
  
• Geographical scene navigation
  
• Slide shows
  
• Vintage newsreels
  

Rating: NR, recommended for mature audiences

Anamorphic: N/A

My Advice: Get it for your favorite military history buff.

As the generation of men and women who can actually remember World War II dwindles away, their stories often untold even to their own children, it is rapidly becoming more and more important to preserve whatever historical documents are available for future generations to see and hopefully from which they (and we) can learn. With the recent declassification of a large number of films shot by the U.S. military's Signal Corps, all in full color, there has been a surge in documentaries about the conflict of Axis and Allies. World War II In Color attempts to bring much of this never-before-seen footage to all interested, in the lasting format of DVD.

Running the gamut from the European theatre to the Pacific, with footage of everything ranging from captured Nazi films about V-2 rocket tests to the Battles of Midway and Iwo Jima, this documentary is an exhaustive look at the wide-ranging war, all in color, all shot from the perspective of the participants. For those of us used to seeing these images only in old black-and-white newsreel footage or still photos, the addition of color makes the war, which many Gen X's parents don't even remember, into a very real and very visceral part of our history.

Given the soldier's-eye view of the footage, it is at times quite disturbing - war is hell, as they say, and beaches covered in dead and wounded Marines leaves little doubt of the veracity of the old cliché. Perhaps equally disturbing are the bits of footage claimed from Hitler's private archives, depicting the megalomaniacal Austrian at play with his nieces and nephews, or walking away from his advisors to go play with children. It's all too easy to think of Hitler as an inhuman abberation, which perhaps gives us some small comfort that it couldn't happen again, but this footage hammers home the fact that he was just, beneath it all, a man.

The footage drawn from actual battles-in-progress, like Midway, Iwo Jima, or the Memphis Belle's famous 25th mission, serves up a keen insight into what life on a battlefield was like for those that lived it. The unbridled chaos of a fight raging in full force makes one wonder how anybody managed to walk away unscathed or, perhaps more properly, how anybody managed to walk away at all. Watching desperate mechanics working frantically to remove live ordnance from burning planes on the runway, knowing that at any moment the bombs could reach a critical temperature and detonate, gives fresh perspective on the sort of everyday heroics that were (and I imagine are) necessary in times of war.

The disc itself is loaded with features, from a full-length docu movie to extra footage that couldn't be shoe-horned into the existing documentary. It also provides several options for navigating the bewildering array of footage, from a timeline that links directly to the battles in chronological order (as well as some supplemental newsreel footage) to a map of the globe that provides all the locations of the footage as links directly to the footage.

In short, they creators of this disc would have been hard-pressed to cram any more information onto the disc, particularly given that the History Channel has snatched up its own share of the color film for a series of documentaries themselves. So, if you or someone you know is an avid military history buff, pick this one up and give it a look, because Hollywood never got this close to putting the war on screen.