While the attack on Pearl Harbor took place almost 50 years ago, many video enthusiasts have been vicariously reliving that battle for years through their VCRs.
Military history is one of the largest and most popular of the special-interest video categories, and the Chicago area has several companies that distribute thousands of titles.
While most of the interest centers on World War II, subjects range from the Civil War to Operation Desert Storm. Tapes cover everything from specific wars and battles to the history of certain units and documentaries on various pieces of military hardware.
”The sheer magnitude of World War II and other battles is what basically draws people to these titles,” said Peter Bernotas, president of International Historic Films, a Chicago-based video distributor with about 400 titles on military history.
Some military-history subcategories are spurred by current events, said Anisa Allen of Fusion Video, a Tinley Park-based video distributor that has a catalog of about 500 military-history titles.
”For example, when fictional films about Vietnam were popular at the box office a few years ago, so were video documentaries on that war,” Allen said. And as the 50th anniversary observances of various World War II events approach, Allen expects interest in associated video titles to peak.
”We`re already seeing a lot of interest in our Pearl Harbor titles,”
she said.
Part of the lure of military-history video is the range of material, from highly polished documentaries to original newsreels and training films.
For example, at International Historic Films, tapes range from Nazi newsreels to episodes of director Frank Capra`s ”Why We Fight” series to U.S. and German training films.
A few of the World War II films are controversial, such as a Nazi propaganda film that contains harsh anti-Semitic messages.
Bernotas said he carries the film only for historical purposes and personally condemns the message it conveys.
At Fusion, titles include ”The Black Fox,” a 1962 Academy Award-winning documentary on Hitler; the popular ”Victory at Sea” series; and PBS`
”Vietnam: A Television History.”
Some of the films were produced by the U.S. government (such as the ”Why We Fight” series) or the networks.
But ”some of these films were not found in the West and came through East Germany through the `back door,` ” Bernotas said. ”Others came from private collections. Some were sold by the pound as junk and were luckily discovered by collectors. Half of our newsreel collection came that way. Sometimes, restoration work is needed.
”We have had some fantastic finds,” he said. ”For example, about eight or nine years ago, we got a call from a U.S. military member who had 10 reels of German newsreels in his home that he brought back with him from Europe after World War II. There was some spectacular footage in that collection.”
Bernotas said he expects hundreds more titles to be released in coming years.
”There`s still a lot of surprises out there to be found in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union-literally thousands upon thousands of reels of film that have not been opened up since World War II,” he said. ”It will take years to archive this material.”
In the Chicago area, there are several outlets for military-history video.
Fusion Video publishes a separate military-history mail-order catalog. Call 800-338-7710 for more information.
For the International Historic Films catalog, call 312-927-2900.
Oak Forest-based MPI Home Video also has numerous titles available by mail order, including ”Battle for the Falklands” and ”Citizen Soldiers: The United States Army Story.” Call 800-323-0442.
Public Media Video is a Chicago-based distributor with several military-history titles, including ”The Divided Union,” a series on the Civil War;
and ”The Secret War,” a BBC series on the technology involved in World War II. Call 800-262-8600.
Moviecraft Inc. is an Orland Park video company that carries a series of American propaganda theatrical documentaries called ”The War Time Years.”
Call 708-460-9099 for a catalog.
