Any one seen "The World At War?"

[SamMarlowPI]

flying spaceships with laser eye antenna right? ..no, wait a minute...

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I loved the lines like "and get the lady of the house to sow the skirt onto the hovercraft."

"My hovercraft is full of eels!"


Erm, sorry. fftopic:

.

 

[Micawber]

I remember watching that when i was a child.i was transfixed by it.it was on at the same time as other great little programmes were on,like: farming today ( i think it was called that ),jack hargreaves and out of town,models world and catweazle.but the world at war really stuck in my memory.laurence olivier was a magnificent choice to narrate it.my dad recently sent off for the full collection,free with a newspaper,but that was a couple of months ago.hopefully they will arrive soon.

fftopic: I know but I just bought my children a boxed set of Catweazle DVD's. Classic series.

 

[nobodyspecial]

I watched the series on PBS many years ago. The scene that sticks out in my mind is someone frying an egg on a tank in the desert.

I would really like to see a documentary made of WWII from the Soviet perspective. I find the Eastern front fascinating, the scale of the war was so much greater than on the Western front.

 

[Haversack]

nobodyspecial wrote: "The scene that sticks out in my mind is someone frying an egg on a tank in the desert."

That was a film made by some members of the Afrika Korps to show friends back home how hot it was. They used a blow torch on the tank fender first to make the story better. What I remember impressing me from that film clip was the bit about all the flies. The bit with two soldiers dumping a 50 gallon oil drum full of big black dead flies still gets a rise from my gorge.

Haversack.

 

[20thCenturyTim]

"World at War" Opened My Eyes

While I have now watched Ken Burns' "The War," it can never replace the impression on me that "World at War" did. From the opening music, you are commanded that what you are about to watch is a titanic struggle. I was glad to actually get the soundtrack last year and hear that stirring theme again.

Laurence Olivier's narration is haunting and effective, unlike the narrator for "The War". I do not want to compare the two though. I saw "World at War" in seventh grade and I was going through a "World War II" phase. So much of what I had seen in movies made it seem like such a grand adventure like "The Great Escape", which I still love. This program though brought some of the horror home. People in prison camps were not always outwitting their captors with heroic escapes. A lot were being mass murdered. Yes, I learned what the Holocaust was. That effected me perhaps more than anything else. Since then, I have always said that no more teaching for me is needed on the subject. I saw the footage on "World at War". I remember as a 13 year old thinking, "I know what evil is now."

P.S. : Off topic a bit, but last week I was honored to have met a B-24 co-pilot who lives here in Bloomington at my Lions Club. He gave a stirring speech about being shot down in Austria and being in a German POW camp. I thanked him for what he did for us. Take every chance you still can, before these heroes fade into the mists of time.

 

[Chas]

I grew up with WAW. I think that it still sets the standard.

I especially love the footage of Stephen Ambrose in his hippie long-hair phase!lol lol lol

Because I'm such a fan of his.

 

[Marv]

I vaguely remember it as a child,too young to understand what it was all about but the theme tune always sticks in my mind......my dad was a keen viewer of the series and I own myself on DVD, excellent programme.

 

[Mustang]

As I sit here and type, I am watching it. I got it for Christmas. I had wanted to buy it but just couldn't get myself to pull the trigger. Funny as it may sound, I was afraid of what the music would be like. I was worried that it would be similar to "Victory at Sea" (which I do like), but the music is overbearing and drives me nuts! NOW, I'm rather upset at myself for not getting it sooner! It is everything I could have every hoped for. Simply put: It truly is awesome! If you are interested in World War II, you are missing out big time without it.

By the way, my wife had asked me if I wanted "World at War" or "The War" (by Ken Burns). I'm glad I (and she) chose "World at War"!

 

[Naphtali]

It is a compelling, poignant series.

The PBS station, KETC (Channel 9) in St. Louis, telecast it originally for me. They finished the series with an incredible concept. "The World at War" was followed by a one-hour B&W show (actual run time about 45 minutes) I have seen only this one time. It was made in, I believe, 1946 or 1947, narrated by Trevor Howard.

The show was about the death camps then in the Soviet zones of occupation. This was the most horrifying telecast I've watched, partly because Howard's narration was so matter-of-fact, without emotion, like someone discussing the weather.

 

[russa11]

This is a really good series. I remember watching this when I was a kid with my father on Channel 2 (PBS). I now have it on DVD and really enjoy the interviews with the average person and how they got through it. This was something I never really picked up on before. If you have not watched it already, PBS did show a program called The 1940's house. This was about one british family living in a home as it would have been during the war years. I found it a good program.

 

[Estevan]

I purchased my copy from Eastman, just waiting for them to arrive in stock. Can't wait.