Hitler - The Untold Story

I think it is a good guess that most of the money spent making this documentary (or rather series of three documentaries) was spent on the cover graphics, which I must confess caught my eye. This is a great example of deceptive packaging. And let me explain why.

First this is not a 12 hour series on Hitler as advertised.

Secondly there is no documentary in this package actually called Hitler: The Unknown Story. The name of the six hour slog contained herein is Hitler: Myths, Anecdotes and Lies... which is a misnomer as well. (It is not listed in IMDb.)

There is also a three hour documentary misleadingly labeled "The World at War: From Hitler to Hiroshima", which again once you actually watch the DVD is called "From Hitler to Hiroshima: The World at War". This has nothing to do with the excellent Thames Television series from the 1970's entitled the "World at War" and is just labeled such to confuse the viewer. It is in fact one more tedious run through of the same material.

Next there is also a three hour documentary on the U-Boats. This might be worth the couple of dollars shelled out for this thing. (Warning if you pay more than five dollars for this package you're going to have a tough time getting your money's worth.)

Finally as to the Hitler documentary, which indeed is nearly six hours long... (And feels every minute of it.) If you've seen a couple of documentaries on Hitler you've seen it all before, except for perhaps 2%. I think approximately 70% of Triumph of the Will was cannibalized from a very poor quality print. And the rest is from predominantly obvious sources. Now I would be willing to forgive even that somewhat if they had any new slant on the subject. Some poor English historian is roped in with less than 6 minutes of talking head time amongst the 6 hours. Supposedly he narrates this whole shebang. But he doesn't. ( I wish he had.) Instead we get a very stilted individual talking with a strange American accent who can't pronounce certain words quite correctly. This could be the "director" Jose Delgado who is the "write and director" (sic).

By the way this is from Mill Creek and Octapixx???

Here's what this mess really looks like to me: With it's horrifying digital transition effects, it's constant and pointless musical score, it's untranslated Hitler speeches droning on through the background as random sound, it's fuzzy images; it all seems to have been crammed together on someone's old PC in about 1997 from preexisting source material (VHS?), without too much regard to content meshing with image. Yes I did glean a couple of shards I hadn't known about. But that's really no excuse. (Maybe I should do one of these.)

This wasn't the untold story. This was truly Hitler: the completely needlessly rehashed story.

this is not a bad documentary...it is 12 hours long...and well worth $7.00. The narration and way it is all put together is very bland..but if interested in seeing footage and hearing information..you will get it in this documentary. It is something you would expect to see other people sleeping with their heads down on their desks in history class...but for interested students..it is still informative and interesting.

If YOU want to see some actual World War 2 footage taken in Germany at that time, this is a good one to watch. Unless YOU buy something like this DVD, I don't know when or where you could ever see it.