Sadly Over-hyped

Best movie ever!

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Casting Mitchum was the worst possible choice the producers could have made. In each scene in which Mitchum appears, your eyes immediately notifier your brain that something is very wrong here, RM was 25 years too old to play the part. And with Mitchum and his sunken, hound dog face, age could not be erased through makeup or some other miracle the make up people dreamed up. Mitchum was regarded as "the worst pain in the ass, we have ever worked with" by many of his co-stars, his directors and producers. You might say that he paid the producers back double for handing him the role. I didn't find Polly Bergen convincing, her talent runs quite shallow when playing a character through such a long period of time and in so many changes. With so many 1 hour segments (44 minutes w/o ads) you have to be pretty disciplined to devote the time to see each in order. There is some review of the previous segment but not enough to catch you up if you missed one. It's very worth seeing, but be prepared to shake your head at Mitchum's miscasting.

War and Remembrance picks up after where the Winds of War left off. It's late dec.1941 and captain Victor "Pug " Henry fights to get the command of a battleship. and he receives the U.S.S. Northhampton. The beginning of War and Remembrance shows the Allies getting involved in the war and the early losses. It also depicts two major story lines which are both powerful. One is the effect the war has on a military family and the battles they fought. And the other is the Final solution as it effects the Jews . It pulls no punches. It tells no fairy tales it hits you where you live. The Story is powerful and the acting is superb. If you liked The Winds of War you'll like War and Remembrance. But in my mind the Winds of War is the superior of the two. War and Remebrance has the same power. It seeks to tell simply the main story of World War II using the two main families the Henry's and the Jastrow"s and thru them we see the horrors of war. The loss of a son. The persecution of the Jews and the hate that drove men to commit horrors in the names of their country. My one simple complaint is that there simply is not enough of Robert Mitchum in this one. If Winds was Pug's Story then War is Pug's sons story. Byron steps out of the supporting cast and takes center stage. Hart Bochner takes over the role the Jan Michael Vincent did in Winds and makes it his own. Compelling TV at its best.

There is little doubt, Herman Wouk's comprehensive novel " War and Remembrance " will become a True Classic and it follows too, the film version directed by Dan Curtis will too. Upon viewing the 12 part Mini-Series staring Robert Mitchum, I was most impressed. The acting, the dialog and the international cast was superb. The mesmerizing story concerning two families is told in segments and when traced across continents reminds one of a great novel; once begun, hard to put down. A serious assemblage of fine actors have gathered to create a remarkable movie. They include Robert Mitchum as Capt. Victor 'Pug' Henry, Hart Bochner as Byron Henry, Sami Frey, William Schallert, Jeremy Kemp, Steven Berkoff as Adolf Hitler, Robert Hardy, Topol and Ralph Bellamy, as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with Jane Seymour, Victoria Tennant and Polly Bergen. Together this fine cast creates a touching and heartfelt series not to be missed and which also lays the foundation to be easily recommended for anyone interested in seeing living history in the making and that includes the Jewish Holocaust, which I highly recommended as a great tribute to great theater and should be kept and shelved as a Classic. ****

This epic series is the sequel to the equally unforgettable Winds of War (WOW). I recall WOW being on TV when I was a kid and the imagery and mournful main theme being quite powerful, although I did not see the WAR series until many years later when I bought DVD set. It must be said that WOW is more easily digestible for the young and not nearly as bleak and violent as WAR. The networks were hesitant to show WAR uncut and I suspect would still resist showing it even today for these reasons, along with the practical matter of taking vast amounts of air time, but it is WELL worth your time if the subject of WWII from a human perspective interests you.I had mixed feelings about replacing several key characters from the original going into this series. The only replacement I truly regret is Byron's character, which would have been better left to Jan-Michael Vincent if that had been possible. Jane Seymour brought much more depth to Natalie Jastrow, although she was quite serious from the start and didn't have any of the freewheeling lightheartedness that made WOW fun (I'm glad Ali MacGraw had that role in WOW). I can't help but think of how chilling it would have been to see Ali MacGraw's Natalie descend from her relatively happy life to the hell that lay ahead. Aaron Jastrow's character gained much depth via John Gielgud.Although this also has the (sometimes distracting and overly long) romantic subplots of the original, the most consuming story here is that of Natalie and Aaron's attempts to escape persecution from the Nazis and their eventual capture. With so many hours of film to work with, the director was able to take his time to slowly build the paranoia and tension until it reaches fever pitch with great effect. Every time Natalie looked over her shoulder, her fear intensified (with good reason). The Eichmann character was done very well and added much menace to his scenes.The camp execution scenes are given real impact by pulling no punches whatsoever on realism. The shock of the victims young and old forced to disrobe and march to their deaths is absolutely heartbreaking...they only knew at the last minute what lay ahead for them. I still cannot stand to watch the scene that follows Himmler's visit to one of the camps to witness the extermination process where even Himmler is shown to have been greatly disturbed (historically accurate). I've since skipped that scene in subsequent viewings, it's too disturbing to relive. During WWII, many of the even the most hardened SS guards were severely disturbed by their own grim duty as well to the point of cracking. Also horrifying was the tension when Natalie and Aaron arrived at their final destination and the Nazi guard decides their fate with a single flick of the wrist based on looking at them to judge if they were fit for work or not. It's incredible that all of these scenes were filmed at the actual locations including the death camp scene where Aaron draws his last breath. Natalie's dreary train ride to the camp was also draining to watch and such a contrast to the beautiful scenes in Italy and Switzerland before they were captured. The loss of freedom really sunk in during the last few discs of the series to the point of feeling like you were a prisoner there with them. The massive scope of this series and it predecessor helps you understand what an important and complex story this is, and this is only the European theater. The only real weaknesses to me were of casting for Hitler and Himmler, neither of which captured the evil of the real men, which could have brought even more weight to this towering achievement. I've never seen anyone fully capture Hitler other than Bruno Ganz in the excellent Downfall (2004) and I've never seen anyone capture Himmler or Heydrich (who was not included in this film but should have been as he was the true mastermind of The Holocaust and probably the most heartless and intimidating Nazi of them all). But overall, this series is the best of its kind and I doubt it will ever be matched. As unpleasant as some scenes in WAR are, this should really be watched by everyone, because it did happen, and we must never forget that. After watching these two series, your perspective will be changed forever regarding what a movie can be. Although WAR alone was more than 25 hrs long, it never felt like a chore to me to watch the entire series (I finished within 1 week). It makes most other movies seem lightweight by comparison.Again, I don't recommend this for children. I didn't even show this to my parents (who loved Winds of War) because I know it would have traumatized my mother. It's not for everyone. I consider myself hardened to horror movies, but reality is much more terrifying than make believe any day.