Siege
About the DVD
The train stopped with a lurch. No conductor shouted, “Last stop! All out for Warsaw!”—but it was clear that we had reached the end of our journey. It was one o’clock in the morning, September 7, 1939…
– Julien Bryan
Arriving in Warsaw a week after the Nazi German invasion of Poland, American photojournalist Julien Bryan was the only neutral reporter who remained in the city. He survived two weeks of devastating bombardment—risking his life over and over again to record this unprecedented new form of warfare: Blitzkrieg, Adolf Hitler’s “Lightning War”—and the agony and bravery of Warsaw’s civilians under the merciless German attack.
Mr. Bryan’s film and still photos of the Nazis’ tragic destruction of Warsaw shocked the American public into awareness of the devastation of modern warfare, and the looming danger as the Nazis conquered country after country.
Nominated for an Academy Award in 1940, and inducted into the U.S. National Film Registry in 2006 for preservation as one of the nation’s most “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films,” this rarely seen historic newsreel Siege has been newly restored and is now available on DVD for the first time.
Aquila Polonica is pleased to offer this special edition of Siege, which includes additional Special Features in the nature of text and still photos, as well as an historic audio essay by Julien Bryan entitled Friendship Is a Passport, recorded for Edward R. Murrow’s This I Believe radio series in the early 1950s.
The Newsreel: Siege
• Black and white film
• Original footage of the Siege of Warsaw, narrated by photojournalist Julien Bryan
• Run time: 10 minutes
Special Features
26 color screens of text, photos and maps:
• Prelude to War
• Blitzkrieg
• Biography: Julien Bryan. Includes 4-minute audio clip of Julien Bryan on Edward R. Murrow’s famous 1950s radio show “This I Believe”
• The Making of Siege
• Awards
• Praise
