WWII The Complete History

Rating: M – Contains War Footage.
Duration: 1800 mins.
Genre: Documentary.
Actors: N/A.
Director: N/A.
Release Date: Available Now.

This would have to be the most-complete WWII documentary collection I have ever seen, with 30 hours of footage over 10 discs; it has a huge amount of information about the war.

And by complete, I do mean complete and in roughly chronological order. The quality is also very good. Not quite George Stevens good, but as good as black and white archival footage gets.

It’s been put together in small 5-10 minute segments with background music and a voice over. The only problem being that the back of the individual DVD cases only list the main points, where as each DVD probably contains 40-50 segments.

But it’s all here, from Hitler’s rise to power and Chamberlain’s inability to stand up to him, to D-Day and beyond, with Africa, Russia and the Pacific all covered.

It does have a subtle propaganda feel, but this is mainly due to it being from a purely American point of view. It would be interesting to see something of this calibre done by the BBC, to get a British point of view to some of the aspects, and even a few interviews from the German side would have rounded the whole thing off.

But that’s just me being picky. If you’re interested in World War II, then this is what you want – stay clear of cheap imitations at the Warehouse as they will only give you parts of the story, and you’ll end up spending more.

One hundred dollars might seem like a hefty price tag for a black and white documentary, but remember this is 10 whole DVDs, collated and presented as a whole package.

Food for thought:
Can evil ever be defeated?

Rent or Buy?
This is a definite purchase, I doubt that many, if any rental shops will stock this massive box set!