Special features of this DVD: chapter search ; bonus film.

Films originally released between 1916-1917.

The moving picture boys in the Great War: winner, Gold Medal, 1975 Chicago Film Festival.

Fighting the war / photographed, edited and titled by Donald C. Thompson -- The log of the U-35 & The exploits of a German submarine U-35 / directed by Lothar Arnauld de la Perriere ; both films adapted from The enchanted circle / photographed by Loeser ; edited and titled by Hans Brennert -- The secret game / directed by William C. de Mille ; photographed by Charles Rosher -- The moving picture boys in the Great War / directed by Larry Ward ; produced by David Shepard.

The secret game: Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Holt, Florence Vidor, Mayme Kelso, Raymond Hatton, Charles Ogle.

Narrator of The moving picture boys in the Great War: Lowell Thomas.

Fighting the war (1916): the work of 26-year-old American adventurer Donald C. Thompson, who managed to get to France on Canadian credentials with English troops. He photographed some of the most amazing front line films of the entire war. This film was taken February-June 1916 during the Battle of Verdun in which the French suffered staggering losses defending the same-named town and its associated forts. With his keen photographic eye and iron nerves, Thompson shows not only troop movements and trench life but also authentic battle from positions within a few hundred feet of the German lines. Then Thompson takes to the air and photographs an actual dogfight between British and German aircraft from an open-cockpit plane.

The log of the U-35 (1917): a totally authentic filmed account of sinkings on one Mediterranean cruise in April 1917 by a submarine commanded by Lothar von Arnauld de la Perriere, Germany's U-Boat Ace of Aces during the period of unrestricted submarine warfare. This edition is a combination of the 1919 British and the 1920 American versions of a jaw-dropping German film of 1917, Der Magische Gurtel (The enchanted circle).

The secret game (1917): Reported when new as a "timely release," it's a detective story in which representatives of Japan and the U.S. work hand-in-hand to frustrate German agents in their effort to get information about American transport sailings on the Pacific.

The moving picture boys in the Great War (1975): a compilation documentary illustrated changing attitudes toward the war and its participants, as well as toward the movies themselves. Every shot is an image preserved from those days--actual and faked news films, government propaganda films, fiction films that range from the sensational excesses of "Hun brutality" to the sentiment of D.W. Griffiths, as well as magazine covers, posters, lantern slides and still photographs.

Not rated.

DVD.