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"Completely Indispensable" "Most effective piece of TV ever" "monumental historical record"
"Needs to be seen"
"26 episodes, plus 6 special programmes"
"The finest visual history of WW2 ever made!"
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The World At War
with Laurence Olivier (mainly) |
Includes 'A New Germany
1933-39', 'Distant War 1939-40', 'France Falls: May-June 1940', 'Alone -
Britain: May 1940 - June 1941', 'Barbarossa: June - December 1941' and
'Banzai: Japan Strikes', 'Desert - The War In North Africa', 'Stalingrad',
'Wolf Pack', 'Red Star' and 'Whirlwind', 'Tough Old Gut', 'It's A Lovely
Day Tomorrow', 'Home Fires', 'Inside The Reich - Germany 1940-44',
'Morning' and 'Occupation', 'Pincers', 'Genocide', 'Nemesis', 'Japan
1941-45', 'Pacific - The Island To Island War', 'The Bomb', 'Reckoning'
and 'Remember'.
Total running time 32 hours (11 tapes or 5 DVDs).
Review
When this series was first shown in 1973 it
redefined the gold standard for TV documentary; it remains the
benchmark by which all factual programming must judge itself. Originally
shown as 26 one-hour programmes, it set out to tell
the story of the Second World War through the testimony of key
participants. The result is a unique and unrepeatable event, since many of
the eyewitnesses captured on film did not have long left to live. Each programme is carefully structured to focus on a key theme or
campaign, from the rise of Nazi Germany to Hitler's downfall and the onset
of the Cold War. There are no academic "talking heads" here to spell out
an official version of history; the narration, delivered with
gravitas by Sir Laurence Olivier, is kept to a minimum. The show's
coup was to allow the participants to speak for themselves. Painstaking
research in the archives of the Imperial War Museum also unearthed a vast
quantity of newsreel footage, including on occasion the cameraman's
original raw rushes which present an unvarnished and never-before-seen
picture of important events. Carl Davis' portentous theme underlines the grand scale.
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