Russians meet Americans at Torgau; refugees

Color film coverage of Americans linking up with Russians on the Elbe River in April 1945. Jeep passing another on country road. Road sign reads: "Torgau." Stevens and others at Bahnhof Drogerie. Parked jeeps on road in town. Group of Russian soldiers and a woman. Pan to Russian soldiers and brief shot of Ivan Moffat. Stevens with goggles on, pan to group of soldiers. CU of Russian soldier holding a machine gun. More CUs of Russian soldiers. Stevens with helmet and goggles and Russian soldiers, cameramen kneeling taking a shot of the scene. Stevens in FG, bombed out bridge in BG. Lieutenant shakes hands with two Russian soldiers. American soldier flirting with young woman. Russian soldier laughs. Refugees with carts. Stevens and other soldiers with river in BG. Refugees loading onto ferry raft. Shooting across fast flowing river and to green field on other side. Motorboat with troops coming across the river toward the camera. Old vehicles with refugees going through the streets of the village followed by bicycles passing through the town. The following sequence is part of the Berlin footage. Camera mounted in back seat of jeep going along highway. Troop trucks passing in the opposite direction. Over shoulder shot of Stevens in jeep, pans over to road marker with signs: "Berlin" straight ahead, "Halle, Leipzig" to the right. Jeep turns to right in front of sign showing "Leipzig" to left and "Berlin" to right. Returns to scenes along the Elbe River. Shots of barge activity with civilians on Elbe at Torgau. Shots in field, refugees in FG, soldiers chasing after someone and firing at them (possibly Russian soldiers joking around with each other, shooting playfully at comrades - as indicated by Library of Congress catalogers in 1983). A dozen soldiers set across the river with bombed out bridge in BG in what appears to be a racing shell. Sign board with poster reads: "East meets West", Russian soldier shaking hands with American soldier standing on swastika. British soldier comes ashore and talks with Stevens and the Russians. Strange, clownish man in black top hat drunkenly carrying a dead rabbit, he shows it to the GIs. Cameraman photographs him, he falls. MCU of young woman in a kerchief reacting to the drunken man falling. George Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. During World War II, Stevens joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and headed a film unit from 1943 to 1946 under General Eisenhower. His unit shot footage documenting D-Day — including the only Allied European Front color film of the war — the liberation of Paris and the meeting of American and Soviet forces at the Elbe River, as well as horrific scenes from the Duben labor camp and the Dachau concentration camp. Stevens also helped prepare the Duben and Dachau footage and other material for presentation during the Nuremberg Trials. In 2008, his footage was entered into the U.S. National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress as an "essential visual record" of World War II. The Special Coverage Unit (SPECOU) was placed under the control of the Supreme Headquarters' Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). The SPECOU consists of 45 people: writers like Ivan Moffat, William Saroyan and Irwin Shaw; cameramen like Dick Hoar, Ken Marthey, William Mellor, Jack Muth; sound operators as Bill Hamilton, who comes from Columbia, assistant directors, as Holly Morse, who has worked with Hal Roach.