WWII in Color

ANOTHER video about World War II? C'mon, our shelves are loaded with every battle from Tarawa to the Bulge; do we really need another one? Yes, and for one simple reason: this video set is presented in incredible and spectacular color. There are other videos that are more comprehensive than this set and others that have more detail about battles, but the color photography--seen here for the first time on video--is what sets this title apart from the others. This is the war as seen through our eyes, these are the beaches that we landed on and those soldiers are us. I'm not exaggerating; the photography presented throughout this video series is as crisp and as clear as anything taken with our own camcorders, and since we have become a society used to seeing pictures in color, the battle scenes seem realistic for the first time. We are used to seeing World War II in black and white: jerky images of men and women from a different time, planes that look like they took off from Kitty Hawk, and stock newsreel photography that has no counterpart in today's culture. For the first time, Adolf Hitler looks like a real person, not a media-created monster and his scenes with Eva Braun in the Bavarian Alps could have been shot last year, not more than sixty years ago. The producers of this set have taken previously classified material, digitally restored the color, and have come up with a series that brings the horror and the bravery of World War II to a new level of intensity. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. Aud: P. (J. Carlson)