They raised children, baked cakes... and built world-class fighter planes. Sixty years ago, thousands of women from Thunder Bay and the Prairies donned trousers, packed lunch pails and took up rivet guns to participate in the greatest industrial war effort in Canadian history. Like many other factories across the country from 1939 to 1945, the shop floor at Fort William's Canadian Car and Foundry was transformed from an all-male workforce to one with forty percent female workers.
Narrator (voice)
Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.
The story of a courageous battle between U.S. Navy "Tin Can" ships and two of the most powerful Japanese ships in the fleet. The Tin Can sailors fought bravely to secure a victory for the U.S Navy and save MacArthur's invasion force.
Black Panther, the Avengers, Hulk, Fantastic Four, The X-Men, Thor, Iron Man - to name only some of the best known super-heroes created in the 1960s by comic book artist Jack Kirby, the super heroes which today, dominate the world wide blockbuster box office cinema. This documentary mixed with CGI form his work examines Jack Kirby’s comics through his experience as a young American soldier in WWII France. How did this terrifying experience inspire him to create Captain America, and so many others characters as the war came to a close?
In January 1942, the U.S. military created a new bomber command, the Eighth Air Force, and sent a small contingent of men overseas to loosen the Nazis' grip on Europe. The command's star player was the B-17, a fast, heavily armed aircraft that changed the course of World War II. Witness them take on the mighty German Luftwaffe over enemy skies. Discover the story of how one B-17--the Memphis Belle--and its crew lifted the spirits of a nation and became a symbol of American prowess in defense of freedom.
The invention and use of a jeep are described, from the viewpoint of one of the vehicles.
WWII from Space delivers World War II in a way you've never experienced it before. This HISTORY special uses an all-seeing CGI eye that offers a satellite view of the conflict, allowing you to experience it in a way that puts key events and tipping points in a global perspective. By re-creating groundbreaking moments that could never have been captured on camera, and by illustrating the importance of simultaneity and the hidden effects of crucial incidents, HISTORY presents the war's monumental moments in a never-before-seen context. And with new information brought to the forefront, you'll better understand how a nation ranked 19th in the world's militaries in 1939 emerged six years later as the planet's only atomic superpower.
In January 1942, the order activating the 'US Air Forces in the British Isles' was announced. On 12th May, the first contingent of USAAF personnel arrived in England, the beginnings of what was to become the largest air force in the world. The British people had never seen anything like them. Michael Brandon (Dempsey and Makepeace) presents the story of the courageous young Americans who fought the war from the foreign fields of eastern England. And of the local populations who welcomed them, resented them, admired and loved them. "The American Invasion" provides a powerful record of a momentous period in American and British history.
The convoluted and moving story of Russian writer Vassili Grossman (1905-64) and his novel Life and Fate (1980), a literary masterpiece, a monumental and epic account of life under Stalin's regime of terror, a defiant cry that the KGB tried to suffocate.
On March 9, 1953, Joseph Stalin was buried in Moscow in front of a million people. His funeral is that of a demi-God. Ultimate paradox for one of the greatest criminals in History who brought misfortune to his people while arousing collective admiration.
This short film focuses on the USS Franklin, an aircraft carrier that in March 1945 suffered heavy bombing damages and a massive toll on servicemen before returning to the U.S.
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
A historical account of military policy regarding homosexuality during World War II. The documentary includes interviews with several homosexual WWII veterans.
This film brings to life a vanished world: that of the Warsaw Ghetto, destroyed by the Nazis after the 1944 uprising. Two authentic "reconstruction" sources have been used to this end: photographic and cinematographic documents recorded at the time and discovered in Poland, East Germany, Israel and France; and the oral testimonies of 44 survivors, invited to evoke their personal tragedy in front of the images put before their eyes.
A remarkable film that takes a special look at the first war to be truly reported and recorded by one of the more unsung heroes of World War II: the combat photographer. Through the unflinching eye of their camera's lenses, these courageous soldiers continually risked their lives in their brave attempts to capture history.
The director’s mother, Mirka Mora, avoided Auschwitz by one day. On his father’s side many perished in the Holocaust. These facts triggered three visits to Auschwitz by Mora from 2010 to 2014 in an effort to understand and remember.
A propaganda film about the struggle of the Slovak army on the eastern front in 1941 and 1942.
'Veterans', focuses on WW2 veterans, once fighters in the Red Army and now uprooted immigrants, fighting for their place in society. These people, who experienced the twentieth century's bloodiest war as Soviet soldiers, immigrated to Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union and found themselves in a society that is totally indifferent to their glorious past. The film offers a close and compassionate look at the veterans' lives, fueled by complexity, pain, and an almost silent insult, alongside joy and self-deprecating humor. The feeling of living on borrowed time drives the veterans to embark on what may be their last adventure.
Oscar winning postwar propaganda film in support of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Strident but poignant, focusing on children. The film surveys the Nazi/Japanese atrocities, post-war devastation and the early relief efforts. This film was responsible for raising over $200,000,000, making it a top moneymaking film. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.
Story of a Dog is a 1945 short documentary film under the supervision of Gordon Hollingshead. In the film, a dog trains for the battlefield and becomes a crucial part of the United States military. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short, One-Reel.