A/V Geeks June 6th

hi I'm skipper Alzheimer thanks for joining me for this impromptu screening I've I'm striving to do a Friday lunch ish screening what time is it 1:30 ish every Friday this summer as an opportunity to bust out some films that we haven't seen before here at a be geeks and we have a lot of films we have 25,000 and that collection grows all the time and sometimes we have stuff that we just haven't watched yet and so opportunity to come up with some micro themes or just randomly pull some stuff I'm gonna take these glasses off because I can see the glare of the computer in them anyhow so yesterday June 6 not only is it a bunch of my friends birthdays but also it is it was d-day and so I have a film queued up literally we're gonna watch film and this film is about d-day and it was it's funny it was a little actually licensed and distributed through different courses so it actually was made for television by David L whoppers production company and produced and directed by Mel Stewart there might be a trivia question related to Mel Stewart at the end of this film and then it was like picked up by Encyclopedia Britannica and then it was distributed by film incorporated so I'm not sure this seems like this has a long history but there's some beautiful footage in here and it kind of sets the tone for how immense and the crazy sacrifices that were made for d-day and it was a turning point of course and they'll talk about that and then I have another film called 6th of June which I have never seen that I got from a local University and it looks like it is a its raw material shot for a student film but I haven't watched it so that's what we'll probably spend the second part of the the the screening watching no guarantees whatsoever it's silent so I'm sure that's gonna raise some hackles for some people but thanks so much everybody for joining again impromptu but if you like what you saw patreon go to AP geeks comm buy some DVDs or tell people about it that's this is actually the best thing you can do is just share what we're doing because we're trying to watch as many films and show you as many films as we can so here is d-day [Music] London spring 1944 two million soldiers of the Allied nations wait on the eve of a great battle wait for the command of one man who is to make a crucial decision which will alter the course of world history the man is General Dwight the Eisenhower the decision d-day [Music] at Tehran in November 1943 the most important political meeting since the variscite treaty brings together Stalin Roosevelt and Churchill for the first time since the start of World War two their prime objective is to set a date for the invasion of Nazi held Western Europe there is however a clash of opinions on strategy Stalin demands an invasion through France to relieve pressure on the Russian front Churchill argues instead for strengthening and extending the present campaign in the Mediterranean Roosevelt settles the debate by voting for the invasion through France the first week of May 1944 is set as the target date a week later in Tunis North Africa Roosevelt designates General Dwight Eisenhower supreme commander of the new Allied expeditionary force Eisenhower's orders are simple and direct you will enter the continent of Europe and undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of our armed forces that same month in Berlin Adolf Hitler summons Field Marshal Erwin Rommel the legendary desert fox to prepare German defenses against the expected Allied invasion Rommel will be the field commander but on the day of the invasion Hitler intends to direct the strategy against the Allies himself Ronald's first mission for Hitler is to inspect the Atlantic Wall the highly publicized line of defense fortifications along the coast of Western Europe he's appalled by what he sees the defenses are shockingly inadequate and in many places non-existent he calls the wall a gigantic fake a paper hoop for the Allies to jump through Rummel warns that if the Allies are not stopped at the water's edge during the first 24 hours of battle the war will be lost Rommel convinces Hitler the beaches will be the main line of resistance and that the Atlantic wall must be reinforced in a furious race against time the invasion might come at any point on the three thousand miles of coastline from Norway to Spain but Hitler knows that the most likely invasion points are in France one in Normandy close to shurberg in the hub the other at Calais only 20 miles from England Engineering battalions combat troops slave laborers a half million men are pressed into service to build an impregnable Atlantic Wall that will hurl the enemy back into the sea all through the spring of 1944 supreme headquarters in london plans proceed for Operation Overlord a secret code name for the invasion of France assisting Eisenhower are his three top invasion commanders British chief air marshal Trafford leigh-mallory it will command the air forces Admiral Bertram Ramsay of the Royal Navy who will be the naval chief and British general Bernard Montgomery the famous Monty who defeated Rommel in North Africa will command the ground forces a new date is set the invasion will take place in the first week of June southern England now becomes a bad start the greatest in military history the massive concentration of men and machines is the subject of a joke in every British pub England they say would sink into the sea if it went to the barrage balloons holding her up on April 30th 1944 all of southern England is suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world the war is most important secret the time and plates of d-day must be kept from the enemy one place in England where security measures are intentionally relaxed is it General George Patton's headquarters 20 miles across the channel from Calais here at Dover the flamboyant Patton commands a mythical army comprised of dummy tanks dummy trucks and even a mock invasion fleet Patton the general most feared by the Germans stages noisy highly conspicuous maneuvers in order to make the Germans believe that the invasion will come at Calais although Hitler is now convinced that Calais only 20 miles from England is the invasion target Hitler immediately orders Panzer units and infantry divisions brought up to strengthen the Calais district by June there will be more than 150,000 men ready in Calais to repel the great Allied invasion Donald first line of defense is 100,000 mines planted in the channel backed up by four million more buried along the beaches Rommel has utilized every diabolical mechanical device imaginable to block the invasion and if the Allies get past the beaches the I am the guns behind the obstacles are the battle-hardened soldiers and Panzer units of the mighty German Wehrmacht ready to drive them back into the sea fields are flooded beyond the beach to drown paratroopers in the event of airborne landings his ultimate fate in his newly developed secret vengeance weapons the v1 Robert bomb and the b2 supersonic rocket he hopes he can perfect and launch enough of these in time if so he is confident he can destroy any Allied invasion force early in May Eisenhower and his commanders finalized the major invasion plan provided the weather is right June 5th 6th or 7th will be d-day only on those days in June will conditions be ideal for invasion a full moon to light the way for the airborne troops and allo morning tide for the landing operations primary objective of the invasion is to secure a beachhead in Normandy then capture the port of shurberg in the first hours of d-day paratroopers will drop behind coastal defenses to isolate the beaches meanwhile 5,000 ships carrying the main assault forces will rendezvous and mid-channel to await h-hour at 6:30 a.m. small landing craft will take the troops to the five invasion beaches the Americans will land at Utah and Omaha the British and Canadians at gold Juno and sword phase one begins the air force bombs enemy roads railways and airfield by d-day only about 200 German planes are left in the world all transportation is virtually at a standstill and the Luftwaffe is incapable of giving any air support [Applause] [Music] it is June 3rd now the spring is called the weather is good the men are ready d-day will be June 5th Eisenhower gives the command to go for the men the waiting is over the march to the sea begins [Music] the first ships are on their way to the rendezvous in the chad or when they're hit by unexpected storms whether the one element beyond the control of the Allied High Command threatens the success of the invasion tiny landing craft would be swamped by the heavy sins [Music] Eike reduces the risk disaster and postpones d-day for at least 24 hours the advance convoys of the fleet already on route to invasion are ordered back [Music] German weather stations tracked the storm and their forecasters make the same prediction as the allied meteorologists the worst storm in 20 years is approaching the English Channel and the weather will continue bad for at least a week lulled into a sense of security the German Navy cancels mine laying operations and its nightly evil patrols all planes are grounded Rommel estimates that an allied invasion is not possible during the next two weeks exhausted from overwork he decides to go home to Germany for a few days rest besides Tuesday June 6th will be his wife's birthday in England at the embarkation ports the Allied forces are confined to their ships as the men wait Eisenhower faces another tortured decision if the bad weather continues the invasion will have to be put off until June 19th when the tide will be right again and if he does postpone how can he keep the invasion secrets locked up among a quarter of a million men how were the long delay affect them around the storm at sea now moves inland striking southern England with its full fury the situation looks more hopeless than ever [Music] the Allied weather stations report from far out in the North Atlantic from Greenland from places where German meteorologists cannot get information they predict the possibility that the storm brought may lived for a 24-hour period on Tuesday June 6th and the news is relayed to Eisenhower's headquarters [Music] now at an old English mansion near the invasion Harbor of Portsmouth a dramatic conference takes place Eisenhower and his commanders meet to consider whether they should launch the invasion on Tuesday the opinions are defied some doubtful some yes but the final word the fateful decision must come from Eisenhower there is a moment of silence then he says okay let's go d-day will be Tuesday June 6th from Plymouth and Dartmouth from Spithead and Falmouth from Brixham and Yarmouth from Toby in Portsmouth they come battleships minesweepers destroyers rocky barges tugboats and landing craft 5000 vessels in all the greatest invasion Armada in the history of man meanwhile at Hitler's luxurious mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden the Fuhrer enjoys a peaceful day with his mistress Eva Braun he will hold to military conferences with his staff and spend the late hours of the evening listening to Vaadin along the Atlantic wall there's nothing unusual to report all is quiet on the Western Front [Music] the airborne phase of Operation Overlord begins from a dozen British airfields on the night of June 5th a thousand planes will take off for France before midnight they will carry 18,000 paratroopers five hours before the Seabourn invasions this advance army of paratroopers will drop behind the Atlantic wall to soften the enemy defences and block off reinforcements [Music] Ike watches the last of the airborne pass over the long weary months of planning and preparation are over it is reported that there are tears in his eyes it is now 12:01 a.m. June 6th d-day [Music] in the English Channel the freak slowly approaches friends the Navy is already cleared pass through rummells minefields or the men aboard the transports and the men flying overhead this day will be one they will always remember but for some it will be their last day on earth [Music] first invaders to touch French soil are the Pathfinders their mission is to light the drop zones for the airborne troops to follow an hour later the main force of the paratroopers arrives over friends the German sound the alarm [Music] clouds and heavy anti-aircraft fire through the planes of course and paratroopers are dropped miles from scheduled zones some land in the ocean and the rivers are in the fields Rommel is flooded and drown under the weight of 70 pounds of equipment widely separated men meet only light resistance on the confused German troops everything is quiet on the beaches of Normandy in spite of paratrooper landings behind the beaches German headquarters regard the action as merely diversionary they still believe the invasion will come at Calais 12 miles out the Allied fleet transfers the men to small landing craft it is no longer the war of generals and admirals it is now the war of the men [Music] the beach commanders call for reinforcements to crack armored units under Hitler's control are only a hundred miles away but general yodel Hitler's chief of operations refuses to disturb the Fuhrer the tank divisions he says are being saved for the main landings at Calais meanwhile he suggests they clean up the minor operation at Normandy with the forces at hand it's now 10 minutes to 6 the first waves of men head for the shore the Navy's giant guns begin to open fire on Rommels coastal batteries and Beach in place the ships knock out 50% of the German defenses at the same time Air Force bombers sweep across the channel to aid the Navy and destroying the German beach fortifications but the sky is overcast in order to avoid the risk of hitting the approaching landing craft the Bombardier Tsar ordered to delay their releases for several seconds because of this the bombs fall from 300 yards to 3 miles back from the coast and so the first wave of men rushed toward Omaha Beach unaware that Rommels Atlantic wall still bristles with deadly fire at our cross this Beach and on their way inland by lunch you [Music] Omaha Beach [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Omaha Beach is a disaster in the confused nightmare of sudden death the few survivors are pinned up against the cliffs by a shower of enemy crossfire bewildered by landings on the wrong beaches and shocked by the suffering and death around them the men on bloody Omaha desperately begin to regroup frantic calls for fire support has sent two destroyers lying offshore [Music] finally the beach is secure and succeeding waves of men pour onto Omaha commanders who were ready to write off Omaha as a total failure now say the victory is a miracle at the British beaches of gold in Juneau the first waves meet heavy resistance but within hours the beaches are secure at Utah Beach at sword Beach the Allies break through light opposition and by noon the entire invasion force is moving forward inland they advance to link up with the airborne forces still fighting in the interior [Music] [Music] the Germans desperately tried to halt further advances hoping to prevent consolidation of the various Allied assault forces for the Germans the battle is not yet lost the German General Staff now recognises the extreme danger of the situation the two cracked Panzer divisions assigned to Calais by Hitler must be rushed to Normandy immediately a desperate call is put in to the Fuhrer although far removed from the battle Hitler will not allow his generals to dictate strategy to him he orders his aides to inform ramstad that the situation at Normandy does not require the transfer of the two Panzer Division he is saving them along with his entire fifteenth army for Calais where he feels the real invasion is sure to come he then retires to take a nap Rommel the one man who might persuade him to change his mind he's in a car racing back to the front and so while Hitler sleeps at Bettis garden his fatal blunder prevents an immediate major counter-attack it allows the Allies to land more men and supplies on the hard-won shores of Normandy Rommel had warned that if the Allies were not stopped at the water's edge during the first 24 hours of battle the war would be lost if Aldous tears over the Allies will plunge ten miles inland they will capture and hold a score of villages and small towns in Normandy for the oppressed people of Europe d-day the 6th of June marks the beginning of their liberation [Music] you so sorry about that silence basically I am working today so I got a call from somebody who had a client so that's a take that call as I was rewinding so anyhow so this next film is it's kind of interesting like I said I got this from a local university and they had a film program and they were basically gonna throw these films out and so there was some interesting things in there oh yeah trivia question Mel Stuart what's the most famous film that Mel Stewart did put it in the comments I actually met him he was awesome he was really cool before he passed away and I met a Film Festival think about Mel Stewart did a bunch of documentaries I got him to sign my copy of China roots of madness anyways Nell Stewart so this next film student film I don't even think it's edited I think this is raw footage it might be a work print we'll see if there's like little marks that say so there's no sound so we'll kill the sound but here it's called the 6th of June and I've always wanted to watch it and it seems like today's the day so enjoy you Wow so there was June of six or sixth of June it looks like I the clapboard I want to say it was shot in April but the calendar that's in there is June 6 1956 and I have no idea what this film is about absolutely no idea so it's a student film it was obviously not edited because there's you see the clapboards and you see the different takes there's no sound sound was usually recorded separately on magnetic tape and then married at some point before they would strike a print but I got nothing on this I don't know anything about it there's that you could look at probably at the clapboard and see a director's name but this is a student so we don't know where this went but uh yeah so sometimes the films that AV geeks are not finished pieces they're kind of in some sort of state of progress and I don't know what happened with this this might have just been a shooting exercise too you know if it was a film school they might have said like alright everybody's gonna set up a shot and then shoot it that's possible too but or this could have been done like a you know a graduate project or it could have been like a project for you know senior year who knows but uh there it is and before that was a d-day film that was made by David Wolper which was then they was shown on television and it was directed by Mel Stuart so Mel Stuart I kind of put it out there nobody responded what did Mel Stuart direct well one thing he directed this awesome besides a bunch of David Wolper documentaries he did some other things for David Wolper he did a great documentary you might have done this on his own like called wat stack which was documenting this concert that was filmed after the Watts Riots featuring a lot of Stax Records Sol performers phenomenal film really really great features a very young Richard Pryor ted'll Ange the bartender from love boats in it and the music performances are great there's a very young Jesse Jackson in there as well so I recommend seeing that if you haven't seen it but the other thing that Mel Stewart did is he's probably most famous for or infamous for was he was the director of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory David Wolper was hired by Quaker Oats who had just bought the rights to the name Willy Wonka and they were gonna introduce a line of chocolate bars and they were gonna capitalize on a really lankan name and so they were given a budget and they shot this film and it was essentially a big commercial for these chocolate bars which came out which when the film came out it was so weird that people were just like whoa this is really strange it's they're being very mean to kids they're everybody's behaving poorly like they didn't like it and then when the chocolate bars were sold there was actually a formulation problem with the wax so all of them melted and they just didn't sell well so it just kind of tanked until it started going to syndication on television and being shown all the time and us our generation the Generation Xers probably thought that this was awesome and it started gaining legs and made a cult following and now it's a phenomenon and like I said I met Mel Stuart and I got him to sign one of my films that he had made China roots of madness which is a film about the Cultural Revolution in China and then the history that led up to it and he signed it he said and I told what I did he's like well you're doing the Lord's work he didn't say those words but he said you're doing great work yes we got to get all these films onto video because they're all deteriorating and I was like well the problem is that video was also deteriorating so we're kind of stuck but he was he would didn't want to hear that but anyways he was very kind person and I got to be a little bit of a fanboy which is rare in my field anyways thanks so much for tuning in I know that last film was weird maybe you were sitting there eating a bologna sandwich while you were watching it or porridge or I don't know what'd you have for lunch a smart meal or something anyways I guarantee that future films will will be more interesting but come on it was a sixth of June that's the name of it and I wanted to I wanted to watch it and it would be another time to watch it in one line so I don't want to wait a year so thanks for indulging me on that hopefully we'll be back next Friday I'm have to look at my calendar but we'll try to do it it will be very impromptu I'll try to get better about scheduling in it so that it's roughly kind of between lunchtime Eastern Standard and Central Standard Time you know somewhere in there and we'll do it like a roughly an hour or so but well I don't know we'll see again if you like AV geek donate on patreon thanks so much have a good weekend we will see you soon