Cinema, Also Showing Oct. 15, 1945

The Fall of Berlin (Artkino) looks pretty much like dozens & dozens of other battles through the camera eye—although the battle itself rates high on the list of the war’s difficult and decisive struggles. The fault is partly an ineffective English-language narration which drones out at the audience in the heavy, monotonous tones of a tuba. The freshness of such a documentary as The True Glory’s, told through the voices of the men in battle, is sadly missing.

Nonetheless, The Fall of Berlin has scattered scenes which have a strong curiosity value: the captured German general who had conferred with Hitler three days before the capitulation and apes the Führer’s trembling gestures; the haughty defiance, even in defeat, of Field Marshal General Keitel as he is brought in to sign the unconditional surrender; the business-like faces of Russian soldiers routing the Nazis out of the crumpled buildings; the unmistakable fear on the faces of surrendering German soldiers when they come face to face with their conquerors for the first time.