Search - December 7th - The Pearl Harbor Story on DVD

Two Good Documentaries on One DVD

Jeffrey T. Munson | Dixon, IL | 01/04/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD contains two documentaries. The first is John Ford's film about the attack on Pearl Harbor. I had mixed views about this film. I thought the original scenes from the attack were very interesting, and there were some scenes which I've never seen before. However, the scenes which included the plastic models were very poorly done. I realize this film was made over fifty years ago, but I was still disappointed with the poor use of the replicas of the American battleships. It was very easy to tell that they were not real.

The second documentary on this DVD was much better. It deals with the kamikaze attacks against the American fleet off Okinawa. The footage in this documentary is all actual. The viewer gets a true sense of what it was like to fight against an enemy fully intent on diving their plane into an American ship. The skies were literally full of anti-aircraft shells, yet the kamikazes kept on coming. Most never made it to their targets, but some did manage to break through, but thanks to the heroic efforts of the ships' crews, most of the ships were operational after the attack. However, some ships, such as the USS Franklin, suffered a much worse fate.

Overall,I gave this DVD 4 stars; the Pearl Harbor documentary gets 3, while the Okinawa documentary gets 5. Some parts of the Pearl Harbor documentary were very interesting, but I thought the poor use of the models greatly detracted from the overall quality of the film. On the other hand, the Okinawa film was excellent. The footage is all authentic, and the viewer gets a real sense of what it was like to be in a kamikaze attack.

I recommend this video highly. Both documentaries describe two important parts of World War II; one at the beginning of the war, and one at the end. Watch this video and see what it was like to fight the Japanese attackers at Pearl Harbor and survive a kamikaze attack in the waters off Okinawa."

Good documentary

Micheline Anne Montreuil | Quebec city in Canada | 06/30/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is a good documentary about what happened in Pearl Harbor, Hawaï, on December 7, 1941. It is curious to still see the word "CENSORED" on the screen of the radar more than 60 years later; there are no more secrets about radar. So, if you wish to remember December 7, 1941 or to try to understand what happened, it is a good DVD to buy."