On December 29th, 1940, the German Luftwaffe launched a brutal attack on London.  Fire bombing the city they targeted St. Paul's Cathedral, one of London's greatest monuments in the hopes of demoralizing the people.  The bombing was so concentrated and intense, that the Nazis nearly burned the entire city to the ground.   Now a British made-for-TV documentary has been released that looks at that one fateful night: The Blitz: London's Longest Night.

Told through reenactments, interviews with men who fought the fires, surviving civilians and their descendants, written accounts of the attack, as well as actual film footage taken during the raid, this film attempts to put a personal touch on the events of the evening of December 29th.   There is a good amount of historical data and analysis of the German strategy, but the focus is how the everyday person handled the battle.  The film follows several people throughout the night seeing and how they reacted to the devastation.

Though this film has some very good parts, on the whole it doesn't really succeed.  There isn't any real suspense, something that a show like this should have built in.  There isn't much of an attempt to build up the tension which would have made the show more engaging.  There was too much foreshadowing which weakened several key moments.  The fact that they show St Paul's Cathedral at the beginning of the movie lets viewers know that it doesn't get burnt to the ground, and the consequential examination of how fragile and susceptible to fire the structure isn't as powerful as it might have been.

They also don't give much background information on any of the characters, making it a little hard to connect with them.  Case in point are the couple who were visiting their daughter in the country and spend the night crossing the burning London trying to get to the man's emergency response unit.  They came across as a pair of idiots.  Why didn't he report to another station?  Or at least leave his wife in an bomb shelter?  Spending the night walking miles and miles across a war zone is really pretty dumb, even though they attempt to paint this pair as heroic.

The narration is very verbose too, repeating the same information over and over.  This makes the film drag a bit and slows the pace.

The one highlight of the show is the interviews with people who were there.  You could see the emotions in their faces and how deeply this effected them.  Even 65 year after the fact, many of the interviewees had trouble holding back their tears.   These first hand accounts had much more impact than the recreated scenes or dry narration.

The stereo soundtrack is fine though not outstanding.  The bomb explosions lacked the punch that a 5.1 track would have had, but this doesn't adversely effect the presentation.  The dialog is clear and the background music is clear.  A solid sounding disc.

Video:

The 1.78 anamorphic widescreen image was very good.  Being a recent production, the image was clear and the free from print defects or compression artifacts.  The vintage footage was scratchy and had a lot of grain, but this wasn't distracting.

Extras:

There are no extras unfortunately.  Outtakes from the interviews with the fireman and survivors would have been nice.

Final Thoughts:

This movie wasn't as interesting and engaging as it should have been.  There wasn't much tension or suspense, something that a documentary like this should have.  They repeated information too many time making the documentary more dry than it should have been.   They could have used a little more background and information of the night attacks leading up to the December 29th attack too.  The interviews were very interesting though and make the film a good rental.