Dieppe

The Anglo-Canadian raid on the German-held port of Dieppe on 19 August 1942, known as Operation "Jubilee", was a tragic failure. Over 3,000 mostly Canadian soldiers were killed or captured in just over seven hours. The mini-series Dieppe attempts to recreate the events leading up to this tragedy on two levels: the men at high levels who argued for and planned the raid, and the soldiers at squad-level who had to execute it. As a war drama, Dieppe is relatively standard fare, following the traditional format of focusing on a squad of Canadian privates in the Royal Regiment of Canada, 2nd Canadian Division. This aspect of the film is very predictable, including romance angles (somehow, the movie industry feels that the portrayal of historical events would be unintelligible without a love triangle or two), and not particularly satisfying. The soldiers are introduced, prepare for the mission, wait and are then killed in a few moments of intense slaughter. The closing scene in Gallipoli is clearly mimicked, but without the suspense of waiting one's turn to be mown down. In Dieppe, they pretty much all die at one go.

However the most interesting part of the mini-series and the most controversial, is in the way it assigns blame for this fiasco. The key man is Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was assigned to take over Combined Operations in October 1941. Mountbatten was ordered by Churchill to conduct commando raids on occupied Europe and to harass the enemy. Some of these raids were successful (and they are not mentioned in this film), others were not. In conjunction with other leaders, including General Montgomery, Mountbatten decided to launch a division-size raid on the port of Dieppe. No operation of this size had ever been attempted before. The mini-series portrays Mountbatten as the arrogant, amateurish villain of this tragedy, who uses the raid to supposedly promote his own selfish career interests. In fact, all the British senior planners in the raid, including Montgomery, are depicted as intense, idiotic and inflexible. They lie to the Canadians about the German defenses and the air and naval support that will be provided.

On the other hand, the high-level Canadian army leaders are portrayed as a mixture of opportunists and victims. The corps commander volunteers his division to "do something" before the American army "steals the show". The senior Canadian commanders suspect the mission will flop but bite their lips. Major General Roberts, the division commander, is the most sympathetic character in the entire film, as first the division and then a difficult mission are dumped in his lap. Roberts is depicted as an honest, caring commander who wants to accomplish the mission and return with as many of his boys as possible. I strongly recommend professional army officers who are interested in joint operations to pay particular attention to Roberts role, because they are many genuine problems of interservice coordination laid bare therein. Unfortunately, this mini-series puts too negative a spin on the reasons for the tragedy. There was amateurish planning and mistakes made, but no British conspiracy. Mountbatten was far from the self-serving snob portrayed in this film.

For those viewers who expect to see an action-packed war movie, they will be disappointed by the actual landing, which only occurs in the last half-hour of the film. The budget must have been fairly low, because the focus is only on "Blue Beach" (there were seven other beaches landed on that morning). There is no coverage of other units, tanks landed or the massive air battle overhead. As in old style war movies, the enemy is never visible except for muzzle flashes. On Blue Beach, the Royal Regiment of Canada lost all but 60 of 543 troops landed. The film suggests that their sacrifice was in vain but this is far from the truth, given the huge improvement in Allied amphibious techniques between August 1942 and June 1944. The film's suggestion that the "dress rehearsal" explanation was a cynical ex post facto deception is scurrilous.

Dieppe is not the most accurate war movie or the most exciting, but it does have a great value in depicting the difficulties in mounting joint operations. Rather than the detailed dramatization of the actual operation that it attempts to portray, Dieppe should be viewed as a cautionary military fable about how the best laid plans can fall apart. It is superb in depicting how many little "want of a nail" issues can mount up to set the stage for disaster. However viewers should not accept the portrayals of historical individuals, particularly those who can no longer defend their reputations, at face value.

I'll concentrate on the actual dramatic presentation rather than judging the technical merits of the DVD or its supporting features.

The film itself is an accurate view of army life for the Canadians in England in WW II. Just about all facets of their existence at this time is covered; from the speed marches, poor food, boredom, and life at the pubs (as distinct from the beer parlours back home).

The interaction of the senior commanders is well done, though those without a solid background of who was who in the Canadian Army may find the relationships of the characters a bit confusing at first. The personalities of historical figures like Victor Odlum (the un-named general in part I), Harry Crerar and Andy McNaughton are well captured. The Canadian actors who portray the British commanders like Mountbatten, Bailie-Grohman and Hughes-Hallett do so seemingly effortlessly; I was surprised to find out after the fact that these talented actors don't actually have the English and Scottish accents they used in the film.

Minor historical details are incorrect such as insignia and weaponry but these are minor trifles and don't detract from the film; in fact many rare items of kit are showcased in the film also. The only glaring error is also a continuity shot; Mills bombs are showed being primed during the trip across the Channel, and then an American grenade without fuse is shown in an action shot, and two shots later the same grenade is shown, this time with grey putty covering the hole where the fuze should be!

As for the history behind the raid, the book by Loring-Villa that this film is based on is an excellent read. The other reviewer who intimates that Dieppe provided valuable lessons learned hasn't asked himself - if Dieppe never happened, would Normandy have taken place any differently? As bitter as it may be to swallow, the casualties at Dieppe may very well have been in vain; certainly the Allies had many lessons to draw on from other invasions, from Gallipoli to Wake Island to Sicily and dozens of others, before the landings in Normandy.

Dieppe was a stupid waste, and this movie explores why in an honest and intellectual manner. Best to read the book in conjunction. The characters of the Canadian infantry unit portrayed put a great human face on things, though a little more character development would have helped. Hard to fit everything into four hours though, and the interplay between Churchill and the others in that galaxy of generals is equally as interesting and important.

My earlier review was done under a seperate login; Amazon's new "real name" policy has unforunately disassociated my earlier review from my new persona. However, it gives me the opportunity to discuss the extra features of the DVD, which I did not do before.

I was surprised to see this broken down into two seperate discs, and more suprised to see each disc get its own case (both are housed in a cardboard box). Seemed like a bit of a waste.

However, the extra content is very good - though not outstanding.

A CBC special done in 1992 has a journalist interviewing three veterans of the battle - including distinguished historian Denis Whitaker, the only officer of his brigade to land at Dieppe and then return to England unwounded on the day of the battle. It's a nice set of interviews, done in Dieppe.

There is a 7 minute bit from the CBC show Midday on the second disc also which claims to be a "behind the scenes" look. There are some comments by the film's director etc. but a lot of scenes from the movie are inserted in - this was obviously being done as advertising for the miniseries rather than an indepth study, and it was certainly not done specifically for the CD.

Most interesting to me, however, was the 60 minute documentary included as the final special feature. Shot in black and white in 1962, it includes many interviews with actual participants and historians. There are no introductory credits, however, and the start of the segment is a little jarring, but among those interviewed are

Vice-Admiral Mountbatten
Field Marshal Montgomery (later Viscount Montgomery of Alamein)
General McNaughton
General Crerar
General Roberts
Denis Whitaker (at that time a captain and later a distinguished historian who wrote DIEPPE: TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH, as a retired Brigadier General)
Lieutenant Colonel "Cec" Merritt, VC
Lord Lovat
Major Gorowny-Rees (Combined Operations Headquarters)
and more

As well as historian Terence Roberts, whose book THE SHAME AND THE GLORY is the defining look at Dieppe, and which was just coming into print at that time (ignore the plug for the book in the video!) and also Colonel Charles P. Stacy, the official historian of the Canadian Army in WW II whose books continue to be a prime source of info for scholars and students of Canada's participation in WW II.

For anyone who has studied these personalities, it is a bit of a thrill to see what they look and sound like when talking, and the conversations are interesting. They discuss the "piece of cake" legend that has grown out of the Dieppe raid, for example. If watched in conjunction with reading some of the literature (such as Brian Loring-Villa's book, on which the miniseries was based), it is interesting to see the claims that some of the commanders made on camera and compare and contrast to the historical record.

The special features could have been improved - a full length "making of" would have been appreciated. There are so many items of WW II equipment in the film that just assembling it would have been an interesting story, and the special effects - especially recreating Blue Beach so faithfully - would be another. Would have been nice also to see interviews with some of the actors.

However, as it is, the special features - while culled directly from the CBC archives with a minimum of fuss - are interesting and worth the price of the DVD.

In addition to the opening of the documentary, there is also a lengthy tract that is actual repeated, and there are parts where the picture is lost - no doubt faithful to the original broadcast of this documentary but probably not necessary for the DVD version. It would appear the documentary was not edited for this DVD but simply thrown on as an extra feature. Pity, as the documentary itself is quite good, and does include much motion picture footage shot on 19 August 1942, as well as other "stock" footage.