Battle of Stalingrad Epic DVD Review by Blaine Taylor

The DVD contains two parts (1 & 2), was restored from original elements, and is the highest quality version known to exist. The running time is 163 minutes.

Without doubt the most famous and well-covered Red Army battle of World War II, Stalingrad is acknowledged by all military history experts as the crucial turning point of the brutal war on Hitler's Eastern Front. Here, we see that battle through the eyes of Stalin, his marshals and generals, and the average Soviet fighting men and women who stopped the hitherto near-invincible German war machine cold in its tracks. Good visual comparisons are presented of the conquest-crazed German High Command from Hitler on down, as opposed to the calm, deliberate approach to the battle taken by Stalin and his top commanders, both at the Kremlin and in bombarded dugouts in the besieged city. A sweeping, acted out, dramatic film of epochal sweep and splendor, the battle scenes are nothing short of gigantic, magnificent, historically accurate, and visually detailed and gripping. The Germans---far from being demonized---are presented factually as they were, just as detailed in numerous first-hand memoirs and combat after action reports.

Directed by the noted Soviet director Vladimir Petrov, viewers will find this fine film presentation accurate in every detail---not only the Red Army's uniforms, weapons, and armored vehicles, but also those of the doomed German 6th Army. Particularly insightful is the depiction of its commander, Friedrich von Paulus, one of the least known of Hitler's commanders in movie war cinema. This re-enactment of the battle is the very best. The bonus features include the following: original promotional materials, period headlines and illustrations, original Allied newsreel of Stalingrad surrender, interactive scene selection, switchable English or German subtitles, and DVD-9 Region O worldwide playback capability. There are also four historical slide shows; film background, observations on the film, German Field Marshal von Paulus biography, and Stalin's Marshals and Generals.