Mr. Capra Goes to War: Frank Capra's World War II Documentaries Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Mr. Capra Goes to War: Frank Capra's World War II Documentaries Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 12, 2019

In our relatively recently published Stand-In Blu-ray review, I posited the question “When did Frank Capra become ‘Frank Capra’?”, by which I meant the image of Capra as the champion of the common man and espouser of supposedly liberal leaning politics that spoke truth to power and unapologetically elevated ostensibly inherent American values of, well, liberty, fraternity, and equality (the French Revolution be damned). A totally different, indeed antithetical, thesis posited by Capra biographer Joseph McBride might suggest that that “Frank Capra” was not in fact anything like the “real” Frank Capra. In the fascinating interview with McBride included on this Blu-ray as a supplement, McBride makes a pretty cogent case that Capra was, if anything, a pretty Conservative (capital C) type who just happened to be surrounded by those “lefties” whom many seem to think are the sole residents of La La Land.

As Joseph McBride makes clear in both the overview supplement as well as some of the shorter introductions he offers to the films included on this disc, it’s probably misleading to think of Capra as what film fans traditionally think of as a “director” with any of these films, since he rarely if ever shot new material, and instead used “found footage”, along with commissioning a few interstitial animations (done by the Disney folks, according to McBride). Therefore, all of the films in Mr. Capra Goes to War are “Capra films” in name only, and Capra might be thought of more appropriately as an Executive Producer, pulling the strings to get everything accomplished.

The films included on this disc are:

Prelude to War. This was the first outing by Capra in the Why We Fight series, and it’s a fascinating document of what was being “sold” to the American forces as the rationale behind the entry into World War II. What may be downright shocking to some viewers, at least in passing and within the context of the roiling political and religious dynamics of our contemporary world, is an early “overview” of various holy texts. Moses’ Ten Commandments takes “first place” in this list, but guess what’s second? It isn’t the New Testament (which amazingly comes last), but the Koran and Mohammed! Confucius is also given a little tip of the hat (guan?), in what I personally found to be a rather bracing ecumenicalism for that particular time period.

The Battle of Russia (Parts 1 and 2) is a fascinating piece for at least a couple of reasons. First, as Joseph McBride mentions in his introduction, this consists largely of footage shot by Soviets during battles, interspersed with copious clips from such historical Russian films as Sergei Eisenstein’s legendary Alexander Nevsky. As such, there’s a distinctly different “flavor” to at least some elements of this film, which is also the longest of the Capra Why We Fight outings. Interestingly, Anatole Litvak, another well remembered name from Hollywood’s so-called “Golden Era” is credited here, and the resonant voice of Walter Huston (sounding just a bit like Spencer Tracy now and again) is on hand as narrator.

The Negro Soldier may raise a few unintended hackles simply due to its now outdated titular adjective, but it’s actually a rather interesting piece which was designed to get African Americans to enlist. This is a Capra production, with Stuart Heisler listed as director. Once again, there’s copious newsreel footage utilized, including some great scenes of Jesse Owens letting the world know how African Americans stacked up against the “racially superior” Germans in the 1936 Olympics.

Tunisian Victory was of special interest to me, since my father fought in this campaign as part of the Ninth Infantry Division, which is probably why I might take issue with McBride's assertion that this part of the war was somehow "secondary" to the European theater. This is an exciting piece for anyone who is interested in “desert warfare”, and it ably documents the combined efforts of American and British forces to rout Rommel’s “high tech” approach toward taking this uninviting territory. According to the back cover of this release, a whole host of notables were involved in this particular production, including Ray Boulting, John Huston, Burgess Meredith and Dimitri Tiomkin. Those with an interest in this part of World War II are encouraged to check out Desert Victory, the Academy Award winning British documentary about this campaign. I know it's out on DVD, since I reviewed it years ago for another site, but it doesn't seem to have made it to Blu-ray yet.

Your Job in Germany is arguably the weirdest entry in this set, and not just because it was written by a certain Theodore Geisel (AKA Dr. Seuss). This was produced in the immediate aftermath of Germany's defeat and was meant to educate American occupation forces on how to "behave" while on assignment in Germany. As McBride states, the rhetoric in this film is pretty overheated, and tends to paint all Germans with the same kind of broad brush that Germans themselves had used to paint "inferiors" like the Jewish people. It's a disturbing historical relic, one which McBride states was retooled as a Warner Brothers film called Hitler Lives!, which ended up winning an Academy Award.

Mr. Capra Goes to War: Frank Capra's World War II Documentaries Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mr. Capra Goes to War is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.33:1. It's important to keep in mind that, as Joseph McBride gets into, there's very little "original" content in any of these films, and as such, we're already dealing with a glut of secondary (and frankly by the look of things, tertiary and beyond) elements, many, maybe even most, of which display rather significant damage and image degradation. Every piece on this disc shows rather large scratches, occasional missing frames, highly variant contrast and equally variant grain (some of which I'm assuming is due to various formats, as I suspect at least some of this footage is at least 16mm and perhaps even 8mm). As such, there are certain obstacles to overcome, and every film in this set has a rather heterogeneous appearance, with some moments looking relatively damage free and with surprisingly good detail levels, and other moments looking dark or alternatively washed out, with large speckles and even emulsion damage covering part of the frame. This is one of the rare Olive Films releases I've personally reviewed where there's a bit of banding, though none of it actually afflicts any of the films. There are several opening text disclaimers (copyright warnings and the like), where "ripples" of banding appear during fade in and fade out, and the same anomaly is noticeable in the "National Archives" logo that appends the films.

Mr. Capra Goes to War: Frank Capra's World War II Documentaries Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Much as with the video element, the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks included on this release often show pretty substantial damage and other signs of age related wear and tear. Virtually every soundtrack has manifest pops and cracks along the way, and distortion and amplitude variances are also fairly recurrent. Most of the narration actually makes it through the gauntlet surprisingly well, and some of the sound effects of the battle scenes still reverberate with decent force, but for some listeners, the optional English subtitles may be more than welcome.

Mr. Capra Goes to War: Frank Capra's World War II Documentaries Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Frank Capra: Why We Fight (1080p; 31:40) is an interesting piece featuring Joseph McBride (who also provides separate introductions for all of the films included, as the following entries document). McBride deconstructs the "myth of Capra", referring to information he developed writing Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success.


• Prelude to War Intro (1080p; 2:11)


• The Battle of Russia Intro (1080p; 3:07)


• The Negro Soldier Intro (1080p; 5:27)


• Tunisian Victory Intro (1080p; 4:28)


• Your Job in Germany Intro (1080p; 4:31)

Mr. Capra Goes to War: Frank Capra's World War II Documentaries Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mr. Capra Goes to War is the rare release where the technical deficiencies of both the video and audio presentation are far outweighed by the historical importance of the films. Now, that said, there are going to be some viewers who blanch at some of the blatantly un-PC aspects of at least some of these films, but, again, as historical documents, they're amazing. The added comments by Joseph McBride may also surprise some longtime Capra fans. With caveats noted, Highly recommended.