Tunisian Victory

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.