Alfred Drake

Howard Young is a coast guardsman who has been on shore duty for three years despite his efforts to be sent into action. His nearest approach to sea duty was on a harbor-moored life raft for 21 days as part of an experiment with a new type of vitamin gum for the government. He meets Christine Bradley, a SPAR, sent to take over his communications job and, by things he leaves unsaid, she thinks his life-raft experience was the result of a ship-wreck at sea. (imdb)

The highly successful 1964 Richard Burton Broadway production of "Hamlet", deliberately staged in the style of a "dress rehearsal", but performed in front of a live audience. (imdb)

"Strange Victory" is about racial bias in post World War II America. Folowing "Native Land" in Leo Hurwitz' filmography, it uses some of the same techniques: dramatized scenes interspersed with scenes of compilation news reel footage, and scenes of evocative imagery. An epilogue about the civil rights movement, added in 1964 makes the arc of the film more complete.

Harold Russell, an American soldier who lost his hands in a training accident, tells the story of his medical rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, how he and his fellow amputees at the hospital at first despaired and then found new hope in the prostheses and training available to amputees through the Army's medical corps. Russell learns to wear and to operate the hooks which replace his hands and becomes competent to perform many tasks.