Guest
Join this channel to get access to perks: Want to learn more about Periscope Film and get access to exclusive swag? Join us on Patreon. Visit Visit our website Leo Hurwitz’s extraordinary documentary “Strange Victory” (1948) was the first significant post-WWII anti-racist, anti-fascist non-fiction films. It is composed of archival scenes of WWII destruction juxtaposed against newly shot sequences that portray inequity and unbalance in American society. Narrated by Alfred Drake, Muriel Smith, and Gary Merrill the film questions the discrepancies between the ideals of the allied victory and the lingering aspects of fascism in U.S. society that manifest as anti-semitic and racist rhetoric. Epilogue (0:20). Opening credits framed by newspapers at newspaper stand (0:54). Aerial view from plane of European farm land, industrial centers (1:22). Archival WWII footage front lines: soldiers wade through shallow water, load missiles, run through rubble of former city perhaps Warsaw or Stalingrad, sky dotted with chutes as paratroopers make their way to the ground (2:11). WWII death, destruction, terror and loss: Russian woman falls to ground crying, prisoners of Nazi concentration camp slumped over, soldier kisses wife goodbye (3:53). Montage Allied forces bombers flying over European countryside, firing at targets, sequence footage of battles, explosions, crumbling buildings (4:22). Battle of Berlin April 1945 (6:10). Plaque for Hitler's Chancellery/ Kanzlei des Führers der NSDAP; destruction of the Reich Chancellery (7:27). Corpses of German soldiers lie scattered (8:03). Portrait of Hitler overlaid footage of destroyed Berlin (8:29). American life: coal miners, train barrels across rural fields, agricultural hands on farm while narrator translate’s portion of a Hitler speech (9:23). Aerial of New York City from plane, Statue of Liberty (10:05). Medics assisting wounded; men prepare to send a casket containing a KIA serviceman into ocean, 12-gun salute (11:11). Funeral procession of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (12:05). Montage of women, children mourning as they bury dead from World War II (12:36). Nazi troops walk in groups with hands up surrendering; allied troops seek out Nazis in hiding, round them up (13:48). The Nuremberg Trials: Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Erich Raeder; hanging of war criminals (14:49). Global celebrations end of war: New York City, San Francisco, Russia; crowds cheering, Nazi paraphernalia burned in bonfires; soldiers reunite with loved ones (15:31). Racially charged violence in America’s south: hand scribbles N-word across building facade, Emmett Till murder, Ku Klux Klan walk through forest in white robes, lynchings (17:55). Pro-segregationist politicians, religious leaders - John E. Rankin, Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith, Merwin K. Hart (18:47). Sequence hands plastering racist, anti-semitic propaganda stickers around public venues (19:50). Attacks on religious institutions Across Boston, Long Island, Detroit, Chicago (20:33). Propaganda texts: America Speaks, Gentile News (21:34). Newborns in bassinets, narrator emphasizes beauty in diversity (22:05). Scenes of segregated Americans via economic disparity in the north, Jim Crow south; signs for separate entrances, “ghettos” (25:29). Nascent Civil Rights Movement: riots, lynchings, black Americans mourn at wake (29:00). Archival footage of WWII, Hitler and the Third Reich rewound to insinuate war never ended/ Hitler’s ideologies were never defeated (29:43). Societal conditions that lead to fascism, racism, hate - public soup kitchens, poverty, anti-semitic/ anti-communist propaganda posters, use of radio to spread hate around society (31:18). Mobilization of Nazi supporters, men wave Nazi flag through streets, Hitler Youth camps (32:53). Footage cuts between Hitler parading around Germany/ greeting supporters and the suffering of Jewish people in concentration camps (34:30). Tuskegee Airman, decorated WWII veteran Virgil Richardson piloting a P-51 Mustang, walking through hangar of commercial aircraft (36:16). Richardson greets secretary who is answering phones at desk, waits for job interview but is turned away because of his race (38:20). Economic and occupational racism - white architect at work, white surgical theater, white railroad conductor, white symphony, room of white typists (40:44). Black / African Americans working as agricultural hands (42:15). Ending sequence, summative words, graphic footage suffering in concentration camps (43:47). This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit
