December 7th - The Fleet that Came to Stay (1943)

In 1943 John Ford gave the great cinematographer Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, The Grapes of Wrath) an opportunity to direct his first film. What was intended to be a short documentary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor grew into a veritable epic, framed by a debate between Walter Huston's Uncle Sam and Harry Davenport's Mr. C on the true nature of the Pacific paradise. Hawaiian history, rah-rah patriotism, and arguments over the loyalty of the Japanese-American population are capped by a stunning re-creation of the battle so convincing that feature films borrowed footage from it for decades. Arch and dated, it's a fascinating slice of history that until a few years ago was never seen by the public. Toland's criticisms of the American Navy caused it to be withheld until Ford could cut the 82-minute feature into a half-hour short, removing the history and analysis and concentrating solely on the battle and the recovery.

VCI's release features Toland's original cut as well as Movietone News and Universal newsreels of the attack and an unusual Japanese TV newscast covering the 1995 debut of this restored version in Japan.

The DVD also features Ford's Oscar®-winning 34-minute version, audio commentary by four Pearl Harbor survivors, and Frank Capra's 60-minute 1945 documentary Know Your Enemy: Japan, a more traditionally jingoistic piece of wartime propaganda that was narrated by Walter Huston. --Sean Axmaker Amazon.com

Interesting History

The extras on this product are great, especially the Know Your Enemy (The Eighth in Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" Series). The images and newsreels are great for showing what was happening during the attacks and show a better idea of what was going on during the time - excellent use in the classroom. December 19, 2007

it is a rare documentary

for generations who never live at that time through this documentary one should learn what the meaning of sacrifation and the price of freedom July 21, 2007

Two Good Documentaries on One DVD

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. January 4, 2006

Good documentary

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. June 30, 2005

important? in it's own way...

I don't quite know what to say about this. John Ford is an important director. I suppose this is important historically speaking, but it is very racist. It's propoganda, and not against the enemy, but against out own people. This is the type of work that allowed us to have our deterrment camps. On the plus side, Huston, who plays Uncle Sam, does argue that they are Japanese-Americans are as American and as loyal as any other. But we have Mr. C., which is U.S.'s conscience telling us different. I'd like to think that the rational side won the arguement in the film, but we know from history it didn't. And the film ended with our people as the enemy. June 2, 2003

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