Frank Capra was, believe it or not, one of the best directors of things related to war. There were other directors sent overseas to document what was going on in regards to the allied war effort during world war 2, but Capra is probably the most well known because of his excellent "Why We Fight" series, which includes several documentaries about different topics pertaining to the war. These include such things as Japan's brutal invasion of China in the 30s, Hitler's insatiable appetite for conquest in europe (which leads to all of western europe being swallowed by the reich), and the German invasion of Russia in 1941. This film is not part of that series though. It was a joint production between British and American producers which means it depicts both country's troops in a fight to the death against Hitler's feared Afrika Korps, led by the brilliant and legendary strategist Erwin Rommel. As you would probably expect, the film doesn't really have any story. It's world war 2 and that's all you can really say about it, but it only focuses on the north african theater of the war. This was an important area for the allies to be fighting in, although the american troops sent there at the time mostly didn't know why. After Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece, Hitler is forced to rescue his bumbling ally, which delays the nazi invasion of the USSR by several crucial weeks. Not that this really matters in the grand scheme of things, since the soviets would move all their industry beyond the Ural mountains where the Germans couldn't reach anyway. The purpose of this film is to show why allied soldiers, British, American, Free French, South African, Australian, etc. Were fighting in Tunisia to begin with, and it does this well. It covers pretty much every major event that happened there during the war and how this eventually brought about the end of german presence in north africa, but it also shows some german victories too. At Kasserine Pass, the first real engagement between US and german forces in north africa, Rommel manages to push american forces back over 50 miles through the mountains in one of the most one-sided battles of the war. Their experience lacking, the badly led american soldiers faltered and melted away. Eventually though, the allies begin to gain the upper hand, and Hitler is unable to hold onto his southern flank any longer. Rommel's army, short of fuel, is forced further and further into the corner of Tunisia closest to Italy, and the allies batter the exhausted force until it is broken into smaller pieces and surrenders. This sets the stage for the allied invasion of Italy, the underbelly of europe that would allow the allies to get much closer to Hitler's reich. The germans had lost their presence and advantage in north africa, and from here, it would only be about a year until d-day when western europe itself was invaded. This documentary is important viewing for anyone that likes to read or watch things on ww2, since it will give you a better understanding of why the germans failed in north africa and see how the myth of their invincible armies was shattered.
9 Reviews
Interesting and edifying
grantss11 June 2018
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.
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.
Desert Victory
sol-kay8 December 2009
Director Frank Capra's war-time documentary of the first allied-UK US & Free French-air sea and land assault on Nazi occupied territory being the Vichy French controlled areas of Nortrh Africa.
With the Nazis and their Japanese allies staging a coordinated nut cracker-like military operation in order to split the allies-US UK & USSR-in two and take over the oil rich reserves of the Middle & Near-East it was decided by the allied high command that the only way to stop it from happening is by knocking out the vaunted German Afrika Korps under Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. The first part of the operation was to stop Rommel from capturing Egypt and the Suez Canal in the ferocious and see-saw battle of El Alamein which took place some two weeks before the allied invasion.
With Rommel's battered Panzer units now in full retreat in Libya the US-UK-Free French plan is to cut him off in neighboring Tunisia and keep Rommel and his troops and armor from escaping by sea from the country's northern ports. Rommel did in fact make it out of the country but the majority of his famed Afrika Korps, some 250,000 German & Italian troops, didn't ending up for the most part POWS; Prisoners of War.
Most of the action in the documentary takes place on the rocky slopes and hill country of Central and Southern Tunisia with the Afrika Korps fighting for its life against overwhelming allied land sea and air power. It was Rommell in not being able to get the much needed fuel that he desperately needed for his Panzers that was one of the major reason for his ultimated defeat. The one chance Rommell had to put the allied forces to flight-the battle of the Kesselrine Pass-came to a screeching halt not because of any allied counter-attacks but the fact he ran out of fuel for his tanks and planes! At the time the Afrika Korps was on the verge of both splitting and annihilating the allied forces whom it badly mauled in the battle but because of fuel shortages was forced to stop short in its tracks before it could finish the job.
With Hitler pouring tens of thousands of troops into Tunisia to reinforce Rommel's Panzer and Mechanized Divisions the Afrika Korps, in a number of skillful and dogged holding actions, was only able to hold out a bit longer but still be able to inflict well over 70,000 casualties on the attacking allied troops. But in the end the fresh and battle hardened German troops were all lost to Hitler in any future combat in Western Europe Sicily and Italy where they well could have turned the tide against the allies. By late April 1943 with the US Army finally capturing bloody Hill 609 and pouring, together with Free French & British troops, into densely populated Northern Tunisia all the avenues of escape, Tunisian port cities, were captured by the Anglo American and French forces. That all made a Dunkirk-like escape by sea virtually impossible by the hard pressed and exhausted Axis troops. This left the Afrika Korps with only two choices: death or surrender. Wisely enough they took the latter and lived to see, not die or fight, another day!
With the Nazis and their Japanese allies staging a coordinated nut cracker-like military operation in order to split the allies-US UK & USSR-in two and take over the oil rich reserves of the Middle & Near-East it was decided by the allied high command that the only way to stop it from happening is by knocking out the vaunted German Afrika Korps under Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. The first part of the operation was to stop Rommel from capturing Egypt and the Suez Canal in the ferocious and see-saw battle of El Alamein which took place some two weeks before the allied invasion.
With Rommel's battered Panzer units now in full retreat in Libya the US-UK-Free French plan is to cut him off in neighboring Tunisia and keep Rommel and his troops and armor from escaping by sea from the country's northern ports. Rommel did in fact make it out of the country but the majority of his famed Afrika Korps, some 250,000 German & Italian troops, didn't ending up for the most part POWS; Prisoners of War.
Most of the action in the documentary takes place on the rocky slopes and hill country of Central and Southern Tunisia with the Afrika Korps fighting for its life against overwhelming allied land sea and air power. It was Rommell in not being able to get the much needed fuel that he desperately needed for his Panzers that was one of the major reason for his ultimated defeat. The one chance Rommell had to put the allied forces to flight-the battle of the Kesselrine Pass-came to a screeching halt not because of any allied counter-attacks but the fact he ran out of fuel for his tanks and planes! At the time the Afrika Korps was on the verge of both splitting and annihilating the allied forces whom it badly mauled in the battle but because of fuel shortages was forced to stop short in its tracks before it could finish the job.
With Hitler pouring tens of thousands of troops into Tunisia to reinforce Rommel's Panzer and Mechanized Divisions the Afrika Korps, in a number of skillful and dogged holding actions, was only able to hold out a bit longer but still be able to inflict well over 70,000 casualties on the attacking allied troops. But in the end the fresh and battle hardened German troops were all lost to Hitler in any future combat in Western Europe Sicily and Italy where they well could have turned the tide against the allies. By late April 1943 with the US Army finally capturing bloody Hill 609 and pouring, together with Free French & British troops, into densely populated Northern Tunisia all the avenues of escape, Tunisian port cities, were captured by the Anglo American and French forces. That all made a Dunkirk-like escape by sea virtually impossible by the hard pressed and exhausted Axis troops. This left the Afrika Korps with only two choices: death or surrender. Wisely enough they took the latter and lived to see, not die or fight, another day!
Decent WW2 Doc
Michael_Elliott25 June 2008
Tunisian Victory (1944)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This WW2 documentary was produced by the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the British Film Unit. Frank Capra and Hugh Stewart filmed and directed the majority of the movie but before it was released, parts of the print were damaged so John Huston went back and reshot those scenes. The documentary starts from the very beginning of this legendary battle until the victorious end when the Germans were forced out of Africa. If you've seen any of the various WW2 docs out there then you know what to expect. There's a lot of great action footage, which is probably why most people are drawn to these types of films. We also get a good understanding of the battle plan laid out by the British and we get to see how it went over so well to lead to a victory. The best moments of the film are when we see the soldiers celebrating Christmas. These scenes are very heart warming and it's great seeing the soldiers having fun in the middle of all the chaos that goes along with war. Winston Churchill and President Dwight D. Eisenhower appear in the film as well. Burgess Meredith does the narration of the American soldier.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This WW2 documentary was produced by the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the British Film Unit. Frank Capra and Hugh Stewart filmed and directed the majority of the movie but before it was released, parts of the print were damaged so John Huston went back and reshot those scenes. The documentary starts from the very beginning of this legendary battle until the victorious end when the Germans were forced out of Africa. If you've seen any of the various WW2 docs out there then you know what to expect. There's a lot of great action footage, which is probably why most people are drawn to these types of films. We also get a good understanding of the battle plan laid out by the British and we get to see how it went over so well to lead to a victory. The best moments of the film are when we see the soldiers celebrating Christmas. These scenes are very heart warming and it's great seeing the soldiers having fun in the middle of all the chaos that goes along with war. Winston Churchill and President Dwight D. Eisenhower appear in the film as well. Burgess Meredith does the narration of the American soldier.
A Patched Up Job
malcolmgsw13 July 2015
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.
Superior WWII Doc.
rmax3048238 July 2012
Warning: Spoilers
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.
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.
Exceptionally well made and free of the usual propaganda and jingoism.
planktonrules31 January 2020
"Tunisian Victory" is a film that seems much more like a documentary than the usual propaganda pictures being made in America at the time. What I mean by this is that the documentary tells the story of the Allied victory in North Africa in a very straight forward manner...with little of the usual jingoism and hyperbole. Because of this, it's aged very well.
The story is of Operation Acrobat. It begins in November, 1942 when combined American, British and Free French forces invades Northwest Africa in Morocco and soon heading to Algeria and Tunisia. The story is told using lots of high quality footage taken of the battle as well as diagrams and narration as well as actors providing some of the narration in the guise of soldiers.
The bottom line is that for 1944, I cannot imagine a better war documentary and it's quite a bit better than many of the other similar documentaries of the day. Well made, interesting and a treat for history lovers.
The story is of Operation Acrobat. It begins in November, 1942 when combined American, British and Free French forces invades Northwest Africa in Morocco and soon heading to Algeria and Tunisia. The story is told using lots of high quality footage taken of the battle as well as diagrams and narration as well as actors providing some of the narration in the guise of soldiers.
The bottom line is that for 1944, I cannot imagine a better war documentary and it's quite a bit better than many of the other similar documentaries of the day. Well made, interesting and a treat for history lovers.
The story of the allied invasion of North Africa 1941-42
clanciai30 March 2023
This is a pure downright war documentary, but it was fashioned by expert hands, and from beginning to end you feel the sustained mastermind of more than qualified directors. There are no actors, but there is still great acting on the part of the speakers, Bernard Miles, Leo Genn and Burgess Meredith as both reporting, supporting and soldiers' voices, which add to the documentary authenticity and the genuineness of the work. Frank Capra is the main director, well known for a number of the best American films of the 30s and 40s, but there are also the brothers John and Roy Boulting, who made some of the best British films of the 40s and 50s. The British had the greatest losses, about half of all, in this unparalleled military operation to take the Germans out from North Africa, the tremendous "Acrobat" operation which was kept absolutely secret until it was carried through. This operation was one of the greatest in the entire war, and yet it has been perhaps the least spoken of. It has landed in the shadow of Stalingrad and the invasion of Normandy, but was perhaps even more admirably and skilfully performed, as it was as near to perfectly planned and implemented as could be. The film is not too long but strongly sustained all the way, and using Rachmaninov's second piano concerto to increase the pathos and moods of the enterprise is not at all out of place.
An enjoyable documentary
oscar-3520 September 2012
Warning: Spoilers
*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.
*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.
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