Rooted in the docu-realist tradition perfected by such wartime features as Charles Frend's San Demetrio, London (1943) and Pat Jackson's Western Approaches (1944), this exceptional reconstruction of Operation Market Garden was completed in the ruins of Arnhem and Oosterbeek by survivors of the British 1st Airborne Division detailed to capture the main road bridge over the River Meuse.
Ably combining archive footage with new scenes photographed by CM Pennington-Richards, directors Brian Desmond Hurst and Terence Young coaxed laudably natural performances from men whose outstanding courage in September 1944 was reflected in the determination to return to the scene of such fierce fighting to record a lasting tribute to their fallen comrades.
Despite a commentary and extracts from BBC radio dispatches, the course of the battle is authentically disorienting. But the flashes of gallows humour and the realisation of just what monumental odds the paratroopers faced in holding hopeless positions for so long make this a humbling, deeply-moving experience and an essential companion piece to Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far (1977).
A fictional recreation of the WWII Battle of Arnhem featuring performances from soldiers who fought in the actual battle, Theirs is the Glory is a docu-drama depicting General Montgomery's plan, put into operation on Sunday, September 14, 1944, to drop two American Airborne divisions and the British First Airborne Division behind the German lines to capture the bridges which would open the way to the German plain. A dramatic and hard-hitting insight into the experience of war.
