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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > WWII > War > Genocide > Holocaust > Docudrama > British > Biography > Documentary > Arts > Music > Pover > Hitler: The Last Days (1973/Paramount/Legend DVD)/The Last Flight Of Petr Ginz (2012/First Run DVD)/Only The Young / tchoupitoulas (2012/Oscillioscope DVD set)/Orchestra Of Exiles (2012/First Run DVD)

Hitler: The Last Days (1973/Paramount/Legend DVD)/The Last Flight Of Petr Ginz (2012/First Run DVD)/Only The Young / tchoupitoulas (2012/Oscillioscope DVD set)/Orchestra Of Exiles (2012/First Run DVD)/Power aka “Jew Suss” (1934/Rank/VCI DVD)

 

Picture: C/C+/C+ & C/C+/C     Sound: C+ (Power: C)     Extras: D/C/C+ & C /B-/D     Films: C+/C+/C+ & C/B/C

 

 

Our latest round of documentaries and docudramas look at the Holocaust, WWII and what is missing from a simple look at our world today…

 

 

We’ll start with the not-always-remembered Ennio De Concici’s film Hitler: The Last Days (1973) which has Sir Alec Guinness as the title murderer hiding in his bunker, based on eye-witness accounts.  Instead of being exploitive (no sex in the bunker here) or any sensationalism, this plays more like a filmed stage play with occasional vintage WWII and Holocaust footage, plus a few moments of text information so we know what is going on in historical context.

 

Now that Guinness is so known for being the mentor in Star Wars, it is hard to buy him as Hitler.  He looks the part, moves around convincingly enough, but just cannot lose his voice or even parts of his British accent every time he speaks.  The result is that the film is not able to build on his performance (he is too nice to some extent as well, not acting sick enough for those final days) and though I appreciated the efforts here, the film just does not hold up on its 40th anniversary.

 

Paramount originally issued the film and it was not a bomb, as well as it being a British co-production that is helped by a supporting cast that includes Simon Ward, Adolpo Celli, Eric Porter, Diane Cilento, Gabrielle Ferzetti, Doris Kunstman, Julian Glover, Joss Acklund, Sheila Gish, Michael Goodliffe, Angela Pleasence and Freddie Jones.  De Concici was more successful as a writer (Salon Kitty, the 1956 VistaVision War & Peace, Divorce Italian Style) in one of his rare directorial outings.  It is worth a look, but it did not stay with me then or now.

 

There are no extras.

 

 

Lothar Mendes’ Power aka “Jew Suss” (1934) is the original British version of the film Hitler eventually remade as one of the most hideous anti-Jewish propaganda films ever made, but this version is not so great and sometimes even bizarre.  Conrad Veidt is the title character (Suss is pronounced Zeus here, though it is also pronounces like success, esp. with the remake) who is Jewish, but wants nothing but money and power, already playing on a stereotype.  He gets the chance by helping a King to be in the 18th Century, but never admits he is a Jew.

 

After some twists and turns, including actual Jews being humiliated and one framed for murder, more revelations come to the surface and Joseph has to decide whether he will take action and make himself look bad, endangering his power drives, or make the tough choice and have a life spared.  The script is heavy-handed, the acting awkward and oddly comical, whether intended or not.  Flaws and all, this is a historically important film with more than enough flaws and issues to leave open the even worse Nazi version.  Whether it is even historically accurate (it is so melodramatic, you have issues suspending disbelief) is another issue, but I would give this one a look, but expect shock at its many flaws and problematic moments.

 

There are no extras.

 

 

Sandy Dickson & Churchill Roberts co-directed The Last Flight Of Petr Ginz (2012), a sometimes mixed documentary about another Jewish child like Anne Frank who kept a diary as the Nazis approached and The Holocaust was getting into full force unbeknownst to too many.  He kept a diary, was very articulate and creative for being 13 years old, a diary that was found thanks in part to a U.S. Space Shuttle explosion (horrifically) and did so much more in his life than most do by the fully lived adult end of theirs.

 

Animation is created to recreate some of his drawings while other drawings are show outright and this is an intense 66 minutes.  I wish it even showed more or had more to say, though I will also note that the music is sometimes awkward and does not always match the mood or circumstances being shown.  Still, it is yet another unbelievable chapter of the future lost and re-reminds us of the massive losses to the world the Holocaust will always represent.

 

Three shorts on the material are the brief extras.

 

 

Josh Aronson’s Orchestra Of Exiles (2012) is even more thorough in its amazing tale of Bronislav Huberman, an ace violinist who was Jewish and was facing more than the usual crisis in the face of Hitler, WWII and his own life.  Unhappy about The Nazis and rise of Nazi Germany, he decided to not only start an orchestra with Jewish musicians, but get them to the holy land desert then known simply as Palestine (before the State of Israel was established) and save their lives while also saving the arts and Jewish culture.

 

As part of the Nazi campaign to remove Jews, there was also a maniacal drive to make sure Jewish culture, art and achievement in the arts never reached the peak pitch of the Europeans, even when they were playing the music of Europeans.  One of the untold stories of WWII is how so many in Europe agreed and turned their back on world Jewry to make sure this too was so.  Instead, some of those works became permanently tainted in blood (like Wagner) and thanks in part of Huberman, Jews and Jewish culture survived, even if some Jewish-authored works were denied worldwide success and fame.

 

This runs an intense 85 minutes and is a remarkable, vital work that impressed me throughout.  Aronson even fills in new interviews and vintage footage with semi-sepia-toned HD-shot reenactments that are not bad if too pristine to totally fit in visually, but it is the music and story of the people that count and that is why this is as much of a must-see documentary as I have seen lately among many good ones including The Last Days Of Petr Ginz above.

 

Extras include an on-camera Aronson interview and four bonus shorts (The Power Of Music, Music Education: The Legacy Of The IPO, Huberman’s Dream, Why Jack Stayed In Europe) worth seeing after the documentary.  It is a plus how well the reasons why Jews did not immediately leave their respective countries before the Axis killers arrived is explained here.

 

 

Finally we have a double feature that brings us to the present. Oscilloscope has a new DVD set with two

 

Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims’ Only The Young (2012) is  about a group of lost Southern California skate youth not knowing what to do with themselves and try to find where they are going in life with hardly any adult guidance, influence or involvement.  Like so many suburbs and towns across the country, the national housing scandal has caused too many foreclosures, the economy has left them behind and they are lost in many ways.

 

This can be raw and honest, but we have seen this often before and better, whether in scripted dramas or other documentaries, but it is not phony like reality TV garbage and has some good moments if not enough to make its 70 minutes really work.  There is maybe more interview moments than just footage shown, which backfires and makes this too much about talking heads and not visually cinematic enough about their lives.  It is worth a look, but don’t be tired when you do it.

 

Extras include a feature length audio commentary track by the co-directors, the Original Theatrical Trailer, Outtakes and the dramatic comedy short Thompson by Tippet that is in the mode of the feature.

 

 

It is joined by The Ross Brothers’ tchoupitoulas (2012) focusing in three young African American brothers from a poor neighborhood near New Orleans and how they just miss the last Midnight train home, leaving them out on the streets overnight.  There is even more talk here, some moments that ring oddly, several disconnects (the directors are white and miss the boat on the Black Experience at times) and at 82 minutes never adds up to a trip, experience or memorable work that really shows up or tells us something we have not seen before.

 

Specifically on New Orleans, it plays like Treme-lite and both documentaries show how co-directing backfires and makes for a less-intimate work.  It still makes an interesting flipside to Young, but I wish both were richer in showing us what was there and going on in each situation instead of letting too much talk and awkwardness get in the way.

 

Maybe revisits in both cases will improve from these works, but we’ll see.

 

A trailer and Behind The Scenes featurette are the only extras.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Hitler is supposed to be from a film in Technicolor, the dye-transfer, three-strip kind, but despite a good print being used here, this is duller than I would have liked.  I know that British color can be a bit more overcast than other labs, but that is not the issue here and this should be a little sharper too. 

 

The 1.33 X 1 black and white image on Power is from a print that shows its age and though it has likely been cleaned up and fixed, it is just very soft, which is to be expected for a film 79 years old.  Rank and VCI have done the best they likely can here until the money is put out to do an HD-level clean-up.

 

That leaves the rest of the DVDs with their anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image transfers a little soft and choppy as to be expected form documentary works with the newer HD shooting having motion blur and on the spot flaws and older footage being dated, but tchoupitoulas tends to be much softer throughout and was shot with limited HD cameras.

 

The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Orchestra sounds as good as any of the titles here, with the 5.1 on tchoupitoulas and Young having some location audio issues as expected.  Flight is in a consistent, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that is just fine, but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Power has background hiss throughout and shows its age.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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