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Story of a Dog

A dog trains for the battlefield and becomes a crucial part of the United States military. This 1945 short documentary film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short, One-Reel.

Top Cast

  • Knox Manning

    Knox Manning

    Narrator (voice)

Overview

A dog trains for the battlefield and becomes a crucial part of the United States military. This 1945 short documentary film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short, One-Reel.

Rating

6.1 / 10
8 Reviews
0 Popular

1 Reviews

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    6 Jul 6, 2025

    Given what they were being fed, I was quite surprised these dogs didn’t turn on their handlers and eat them instead! Rather than that, though, the narration adopts the persona of these mutts as they undertake some brutal and onerous training so that they are as immune to the effects of war as it’s possible to be. That’s handy because the plan is to ship them off to the Far East theatre of the Second World War where they can be used to sniff out snipers hiding in the dense undergrowth - hopefully saving many a soldier’s life. It’s all fairly standard wartime fayre that I think could have worked better had someone like Pete Smith provided a more humorous and engaging commentary rather than this really quite dry and earnest output. It’s interesting just how much effort and import was placed on the training of hundreds of these animals and at just how much reliance the military placed on these creatures with enhanced senses and skills.

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When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

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