San Pietro (1945). US Army Pictorial Service. Held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
San Pietro
Huston's account of the battle for a village in the Liri valley, filmed with the 143rd Infantry, and for years the most argued-about film the Signal Corps ever produced.
- Year
- 1945
- Made by
- US Army Pictorial Service
- Directed by
- John Huston
- Free to use because
- A work of the United States government — no copyright, anywhere
The note
The controversy is the point. Huston came back with something that counted the cost so plainly that senior officers called it anti-war; Marshall reportedly decided it should be shown to troops precisely because it would prepare them. Some sequences were reconstructed after the fact, which Huston later acknowledged, and the film is stronger for being read with that known. His own narration carries it. Federal work, no copyright.
San Pietro, 1945. US Army Pictorial Service. Directed by John Huston. This is the film’s soundtrack: narration, score and location sound, streamed from the Internet Archive’s master. No picture — the audio is the work. A work of the United States government, and therefore free of copyright anywhere it is used.
The soundtrack