Watch San Pietro For Free

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

San Pietro (1945) is a War Documentary directed and narrated by John Huston. This short film documents the Battle of San Pietro Infinite in December 1943. The narrator introduces you to the film by explaining the weather at the location of the battle at the time and the terrain of the location. It is a farming community called St. Peter's. The river was intense and the mountainous terrain made it hard to walk. The footage is good and the documentary is informative. It explains how the soldiers prepare, what weapons they use, how they transported things they need, what their battle plans are, what obstacles they will face, how the soldiers communicated, exactly how each attack went, what important information German captives revealed, the weapons and tactics enemies used, the orders given, changes made as things went wrong, how the withdrawal was indicated, the demographics of the townspeople, and how the townspeople are coping with the aftermath of the battle. The footage is old, but it is sufficient at providing imagery and context to the film. Since it is short and full of information, it would be great for showing in history class.

This documentary, narrated and directed by John Huston, focuses on the costly battle to capture and liberate a strategic Italian village 40 miles southeast of Rome in 1943.The film was heavily cut by the United States Government - much to Huston's anger - for being "anti-war". Huston's famous response to the American High Command when they accused him of being "against the War": "If I ever make anything other than an antiwar film, I hope you take me out and shoot me." The film was notorious in the 40s for being gritty and hard hitting, but today the film's footage seems very sanitized. Sequences are obviously staged, the camera turns away from the battle's horrors, and though dead bodies are shown, the film dare not look upon the true face of war. We could chalk this up to the various Production Codes of the era, but even today, in our time of relaxed censorship, war footage remains either ridiculously sanitized or romanticized.Still, the film closes with wonderful shots of the liberated villagers. These scenes aren't exultant: Huston thinks the whole affair is a trite, and very sad, waste of lives.Incidentally, this film was produced by Frank Capra. The War Office has a history of suckering cinema's most "commercial" and "crowd pleasing" (ie dumb as rocks) directors into making propaganda films. Everyone from Hitch to Capra to Ford to Spielberg has been looped into this con game. Huston got sucked in too, and though he pretended not to play their game, his film would eventually be used/misappropriated by the US military for training purposes.7.5/10 - The uproar over this documentary would lead Huston to make "The Red Badge of Courage", an anti-war film which was mercilessly cut to pieces (like Huston's own "San Pietro" and "In This Our Life") by fickle producers.

One reviewer commented that he didn't know how this film ever got released during World War II. It almost didn't.First, you need to know that Hollywood actors, directors and producers were heavily recruited by the War and Navy Departments (the Defense Dept. is a post war innovation). These celebrities got to know a lot of the senior military personnel through their activities in Stage Door Canteens, the USO, recruiting and bond drives. Few were closer to the military top brass than Orson Welles, a close friend of Houston's.Welles told this story on, I believe, a Dick Cavett Show in the late 1960s or very early 1970s. I repeat it as I remember it.According to Welles the War Department censors did not want San Pietro released. They felt that the film was too graphic and that it might have an adverse effect on support for the war. Through Welles' personal friendship with General George C. Marshall he and Houston arranged a private screening at the Pentagon for Marshall, his staff and the censors. Following the screening Gen. Marshall stood up and ordered that the film be released. He said that it was an accurate depiction and that war was horrible. He felt that the American people needed to know that horror lest they romanticize war and become fond of a monstrous act of inhumanity.So San Pietro was released. If Welles exaggerated his role, I can't say. Certainly Houston didn't contradict him. If I have misremembered the tale in some particular, it does not change the fact that San Pietro owed its release to the intervention of Marshall.Even today San Pietro is worth seeing. As has already been suggested, it is a good complement to Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front. I would suggest that it also ranks with two other great movies whose subject is World War I. Those movies are Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion and Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory. And, although it doesn't quiet rank with the three films already mentioned, Philippe de Broca's King of Hearts belongs in the insanity of war film festival we seem to be constructing here. Finally, I would point out that earlier wars are often stand ins for the more recent one as in M.A.S.H. Korea stood in for Vietnam.

i recently saw the approx. 40min version of this film and i must say, knowing what is missing from the 32min version, that it is indeed far more impactful and superior. images of more fallen soldiers in white body bags appear and reappear throughout to the point of it being a reocurring theme. i'm sure it's just as brilliant without the extra footage, but if you can, try to see the extra footage. while i have not seen the true original (running approx. 50min), i'm quite positive it's even better than the one i was fortunate enough to see. a great documentary film all-around (even if some of it was staged).