Winter War & Scipio Africanus

[Keith Heitmann]

I just ordered two new DVDs today. One is the acclaimed Finnish production "Winter War", sort of the "Das Boot" / "Stalingrad" of the frozen north.

The other is "Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal" which was filmed during the days of Fascist Italy using thousands of extras and on camera slaughter of elephants during the climatic battle scene.

Both films are available in VHS (NTSC & PAL) format and on DVD from International Historic Films located not too far away from me in Chicago. This outfit has been around for some 20+ years and have all sorts of videos and CDs related to WW2 including many documentaries about battles, etc.

You can visit their website at:

www.ihffilm.com

[Keith Heitmann]

I watched both DVDs Friday night.

"Winter War" in the finnish language and subtitled in english. The subtitles are a nice size though and easy to read. There are some typos in them however. Nothing major. One I recall is the "Is" starts a sentence that should have been "If".

The battle sequences were done pretty well. Lots of body parts, litterally. One of group upon which the story revolves gets blown to bits litterally by a artillery shell as he darts around the corner in the trench. His friend gather the pieces to be carted home for burial.

Early Soviet model tanks make their appearance for the first time in film that I know of. I believe they were T-10s.

The story takes a little time, about 35 mins to get rolling, as the mood and storyline is laid out. Finnish and Soviet negotiators try to work out their differences. Soviets want finnish land to protect the flanks of Leningrad and the Finns that own it, naturally don't want them to have it.

There are a few scenes of home and as the men collect their uniforms and gear to prepare to move to the front.

The story might be a bit more appealing to those in the West if it were dubbed into English like Stalingrad and Das Boot were. Listening to the finns speak to each other is a bit distracting while trying to read the subtitles.

The Finns put up a good fight with limited men and equipment and do manage to hold off the Soviets in desperate fighting, sometimes hand to hand. The equipment shortage is nicely pointed out when the Finn laughable 5 round artilley barrage is answered back by a Soviet avalanche of artillery on the Finn positions.

One irritating feature of the translation is the constant use of the term "the boys", as in the "the boys from xyz town" over and over. The fighting units of the Finns are all local militia type troops supplied by each town and each town group of men fight as one group.

Not a bad war movie if you can get past the Finn language and some of the amateurish translations.

The next one on the hit parade was "Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal". This one was dubbed in english for release to the US back when it was made in 1937.

It is in black and white, the dubbing is done quite well and matches the italian actors very closely except in a few instances when language differences make it impossible.

Scipio is a typical heroic italian actor of the period. You might compare him to a Tom Mix in toga.

The movie opens after the slaught of the legions at Cannae in the Forum of Rome, and there are litterally a cast of thousands as extras. Scipio makes his appearance at the top of some stairs and the crowd goes wild. He makes his way through the crowd of cheering peope to the Senate where he announces his plans to attack Carthage in an effort to make Hannibal retreat from his assault on Italy and Rome. He's given command of the legions and the begins to gather his troops.

From what I could tell the producers of the movie footed the bill to have a full scale Roman trireme warship buit for some of the scenes and may have had more than one built.

The two forces gather at the plans of Zama and prepare to meet each other in battle. There are a few scenes of Romans being captured and being put into slavery by the barbaric Carthaginians as subplots. Hannibal and Scipio have a meeting, which probably never happened.

Finally the climatic battle scene occurs and the two forces charge each other.

Hannibal sets his elephant troops upon the Romans but the Romans manage to hold them off by allowing the paniced elephants to charge through lanes they open in their ranks as they hack and slash at their sides.

Obviously they didn't stuch the disciplined tactics of the Roman army, even though the republican army of Rome wasn't as good a fighting machine as the later professional army of the empire. The battle just sort of turns into mob scene as the two sides join in battle.

The background info on this movie states that the elephants in this film were actually killed during the filming of the main battle scene in the interests of realism. So when you see an elephant with a pilum in its eye its for real. No P.I.T.A. back then, but it did cause an uproar in some contries.

While it's not every one's cup of tea, being B&W, italian dubbed into English and about the Punic Wars, it is noteworthy in that its a spectacle filmed during the reign of Facist Italy and a bit of a collectors item in that regard. Many of the extras in the film were eventually drafted a short time later and sent off to Ethopia to fight.