I watched this documentary for one reason--it won the Oscar. However, my perspective on this film is a bit different from most people, as I am a history teacher and actually took a class entitled "Adolf Hitler"--and studied the man in great depth and read thousands of pages of biographies, commentaries and even "Mein Kampf". Needless to say, I probably will be more of a stickler than most when it comes to the quality of the film.
The movie is narrated by Marlene Dietrich--an ardent anti-Nazi who was forced to leave her homeland because of her hatred of Hitler and his regime--so she was a good choice for this role. It's just a shame that the stuff she had to read was at times pretty poor--with a storybook section that just seemed stupid and trivialized the evil of Hitler. As for the rest of the film, I was disappointed--as the film had way too many photos (some very grainy), irrelevant engravings and filler and not nearly enough actual period film footage. I agree wholeheartedly with another reviewer that said that the History Channel and A&E have spoiled us for such documentaries as they simply are better and feature nothing but film footage and interviews--excellent ones at that.
So why, if the film isn't a great documentary about Hitler, did it win the Oscar? Well, perhaps at the time it was among the best films about him or perhaps the AMPAS members just liked the idea of an anti-Nazi film (hardly a risky decision on their part!). Regardless there are today so many better films that I could recommend (such as "Hitler and Stalin: Roots of Evil"--oddly not listed on IMDb) that this one is easy to skip.
The movie is narrated by Marlene Dietrich--an ardent anti-Nazi who was forced to leave her homeland because of her hatred of Hitler and his regime--so she was a good choice for this role. It's just a shame that the stuff she had to read was at times pretty poor--with a storybook section that just seemed stupid and trivialized the evil of Hitler. As for the rest of the film, I was disappointed--as the film had way too many photos (some very grainy), irrelevant engravings and filler and not nearly enough actual period film footage. I agree wholeheartedly with another reviewer that said that the History Channel and A&E have spoiled us for such documentaries as they simply are better and feature nothing but film footage and interviews--excellent ones at that.
So why, if the film isn't a great documentary about Hitler, did it win the Oscar? Well, perhaps at the time it was among the best films about him or perhaps the AMPAS members just liked the idea of an anti-Nazi film (hardly a risky decision on their part!). Regardless there are today so many better films that I could recommend (such as "Hitler and Stalin: Roots of Evil"--oddly not listed on IMDb) that this one is easy to skip.