George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin (1994)

Produced and narrated by George Stevens Jr., this short documentary uses footage taken by his father when he was in the Army Signal Corps and follows American troops from D-Day in June 1944 to the end of the European war.

Director:

George Stevens Jr.

Writer:

George Stevens Jr.

Stars:

George Stevens Jr., Dick Kent, Ken Marthey

Won 3 Primetime Emmys. Another 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
George Stevens Jr.	...	Self - Narrator
Dick Kent	...	Self (voice)
Ken Marthey	...	Self (voice)
Ivan Moffat	...	Self (voice)
Hollingsworth Morse	...	Self (voice)
Jack Muth	...	Self (voice)
Irwin Shaw	...	Self (voice)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Omar N. Bradley	...	Self (archive footage)
Charles de Gaulle	...	Self (archive footage)
Bernard L. Montgomery	...	Self (archive footage)
George S. Patton	...	Self (archive footage)
George Stevens	...	Self (archive footage)

Storyline

Produced and narrated by George Stevens Jr., this short documentary uses footage taken by his father when he was in the Army Signal Corps and follows American troops from D-Day in June 1944 to the end of the European war.

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Plot Keywords:

home video | filmmaking | dachau concentration camp | paris france | 1940s | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Biography | War

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Did You Know?

Trivia

George Stevens Jr. and his editor Catherine Shields have been sanctioned after the TV Academy learned that a project for which they received Emmys in 1994 was not an original work. Official statement from TV Academy is, "Recently, the Television Academy became aware of a 1985 BBC documentary, D-Day to Berlin, which shared some production elements with the similarly-titled 1994 program George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin, a documentary entered into the Emmy competition. Based on a review of the two programs, the Television Academy concluded that the 1994 documentary was ineligible for Emmy consideration per the 'Criteria for Eligibility Rule #9,' which reads - a program that is a foreign acquisition without benefit of a domestic co-production cannot be re-introduced into eligibility in a current awards year, even though it may have been modified with new footage, sound track, musical score, etc. Because of this determination, the 1994 documentary's Emmy nominations and wins have been disqualified."

On March 2020, the TV Academy made the unprecedented decision to rescind the four nominations and three wins (which no longer appear on the Emmys webpages noting Stevens' or Shields' track records at the ceremony).

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Goofs

The narrator states that General George Patton's revolvers had pearl handles, but this is incorrect. Patton's revolvers had ivory handles, not pearl.

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Connections

References A Place in the Sun (1951)

User Reviews

Winning Documentary

George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin (1994)

*** (out of 4)

Entertaining documentary covering director George Stevens as he signed up for WW2 and ended up filming some of the most memorable footage of the war. The director and his crew (known as Stevens' Irregulars) ended up filming, as the title says, the landing on Normandie and the eventual surrender in Berlin. Along the way we also see and hear about the men's journey into a concentration camp, which changed their lives forever. For the most part this is a very fascinating documentary, although there's no denying that it has since been passed by better items. With that said, the color footage here shot by Stevens is the main reason to watch this as we get some incredibly beautiful shots of the battle fields. We also get some very graphic scenes at the camps with bodies piled up on one another and we also see some German soldiers who had their heads beaten open after the prisoners were able to get free. The documentary runs a very quick 46-minutes and for the most part it talks about the various missions that Stevens and his men went on. There's a little talk about the impact of filming this stuff had on the men. For example, Stevens was mainly a comedy director but after the war he felt he couldn't film laughs anymore and turned to darker subject matters. This only gets a very brief mention but more of an examination of this would have been very interesting and especially since the running time was pretty short and could have used some more stuff. With that said, fans of old WW2 footage will certainly want to check this out.

Details

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 June 1994 (USA)

Also Known As:

Денят на десанта до Берлин

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Liberty Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

46 min (TCM print)

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1