Produced for the Army Signal Corps, Huston’s second wartime documentary depicts the servicemen involved in the North Pacific Aleutian Campaign. Notable as the director’s first color film, for which he provided narration and fought hard to include scenes of tedious army life, Huston juxtaposes combat footage with day-to-day activities like latrine digging and mail call.

Screening with:

The Battle of San Pietro
John Huston, USA, 1945, 35mm, 32m
Huston’s account of a key skirmish in the Italian campaign was so unadulterated—showing faces of dead soldiers and GI corpses wrapped in mattress covers—that the Army attempted to delay its release. Answering protests that his film was antiwar, Huston declared that if he ever made a pro-war film he should be shot. Defended by General George Marshall, it’s now regarded as a milestone in combat realism. Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.