Educational Media Reviews Online

This documentary is one episode of a five-part Canadian public television series entitled Canadian Women of Courage. It traces the experiences of the women who were part of the Canadian Army Show, an entertainment unit designed to boost troop morale during World War II. The film follows the creation of the Army Show from its beginnings in Canada through its overseas tours in Europe. It primarily focuses on the experiences of three women who were performers in the show. In on-camera interviews, they share interesting insights into the experience of war from a young performer’s point of view. The documentary also includes brief interviews with two of the men who were involved in the shows. Of particular interest is the section in which these performers describe their encounters with the starving people of Holland and the experience of entering the Belsen death camp five days after its liberation.

The documentary uses voice-over narration, interviews, raw film footage and narrated newsreel footage to good advantage. A couple of brief film segments showing the horrors of the Bergen Belsen death camp may be disturbing to some viewers, however. The audio and video in the program are somewhat uneven due to the wide variety of formats it contains. The interviews have a kind of “amateur home video” quality to them, while the newsreel footage exhibits a wide variety of sound and picture quality, ranging from excellent to extremely rough. The historic nature of these film clips makes this uneven quality unavoidable, however.

This video provides an interesting look at a particular piece of Canadian military history and also gives viewers a look at the profound impact war can have upon the young people who take part, and upon the country that must send them into battle. It should be of interest to World War II buffs and theatre researchers alike. It would make a good addition to any public or academic library.