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List Price: $89.97 | | Label: Mpi Home Video
Salesrank: 7228
Released: August 31, 2004 |
| Our Price: $59.31 |
| Used Price: $64.46 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The ambitious TV event War and Remembrance was the final opus in the golden age of the maxi-miniseries. This six-disc set offers the first half (seven episodes) of ABC's mammoth 30-hour production of Herman Wouk's bestseller--itself a sequel to the landmark Winds of War--mixing fictional and real characters around the events of World War II. It starts a week after the attack on Pearl Harbor and abruptly stops in July 1943 with the fall of Mussolini. Only half of the first series' lead actors return, including Robert Mitchum as the patriarch Captain "Pug" Henry. Although Mitchum is too old and less dashing than he should be, his presence is exactly what the series needs as it wavers between pop entertainment and a graphic look at the atrocities of war. The series' multiple storylines branch from the Henry family tree, from his sons' naval battles to his daughter-in-law's (Jane Seymour) harrowing flight through Europe with her famous father (John Gielgud), witnessing firsthand the collapse of European Jewish life in the grip of Nazi power.
Director Dan Curtis said that after The Winds of War, the opportunity to show the Jews' plight led him to take on another daunting production. He takes the viewer into Auschwitz with unflinching realism (producer and former internee Branko Lustig returned to the subject a decade later with Schindler's List) and is just as deft with a few massive battle sequences combining models with colorized footage. Sometimes the soap opera of the characters' affairs seems pretty sappy, especially with some uneven acting. The DVD set also contains two featurettes from 1988 and 2002. --Doug Thomas
War and Remembrance - Volume 1 - Parts 1-7 Reviews:
War and Remembrance 
2008-08-23 - Great continuance of The Winds of War. The whole series is a can't miss.
Sad, exciting, frightening but true
2008-08-13 - I have the DVD of Winds of War, and differ from some of the other reviews in that I liked Ali McGraw better than Jane Seymore. Who else but a personality like hers would have run around in Europe and Poland even when faced with danger. I thought she played it very well. I also liked the first Aaron Jastro much better than the 2nd, and thought Jan Michael Vincent was perfect as Briny, whereas the 2nd Briny was dull. If he had played Briny in the beginning, I would have been pretty mad at her for not choosing Slote. As it was I was routing for Briny.
Robert Mitchem was too old for the part in both series, imo. But he said very little. Most of his lines were one liners, and very short clipped sentences. "I'd say so" "Could be" "It's possible" etc. He really had very little to memorize.
I don't have the 2nd W&R on DVD. I have it on Video, and the whole story begins at Part VIII when Natalie and her Uncle are already in the concentration camp. That puzzled me. The whole series about them in Europe and Paris, and the frantic escape from the Nazi who was insisting that Aaron do radio broadcasts for the Nazis was completely omitted on the video. I had never played the 2nd Video, but had taped it from TV, therefore after I got the WoW on DVD, I pulled out the Video of W&R and I was totally confused thinking a whole year had been omitted, which it obviously was. The reason I wanted to read the DVD review of W&R was to see if that part was included. From what I can gather from the reviews, it seems that it was. I'm glad it's all together again, even though I'm sorry the cast was changed. It's a great story, and now I hope to buy the DVD's of W&R.
Not very happy! 
2008-07-19 - This shipment was received with the disk for Part I missing and a duplicate disk of Part V & VI. This was disappointing since I had just completed watching Winds of War and was ready to start War & Remembrance, but could not watch the first part. Hopefully, I can get a replacement shipment.
war and remembrance 1 and 2
2008-06-26 - War and Remembrance - Volume 1 and 2 DVD Bundle
magnificent series,all the family loved the DVD's.
Accessible history at its best!
2008-04-21 - I was enthralled with this from start to finish - I had loved THE WINDS OF WAR, but this was far, far better for me. The replaced characters in the cast seemed a distinct improvement - more likeable, less jarring. But mostly, what I valued, was the sweep of the history of the war - the most important steps highlighted, explained, and put clearly into their context in the turnaround after Dunkirk and Pearl Harbour. I found the story of Midway especially illuminating. I hadn't realised that the odds were so heavily in favour of Japan (more than 3 to 1). Singapore, Guadalcanal, Stalingrad and the end of the Russian campaign were all fitted neatly into an easily accessible historical framework, so that for the first time I grasped the movement of the events. The manic side of Hitler was confronted head-on, which enabled a sympathetic portrayal of some of his generals - the extermination machine, and those who ran it (Eichmann, Himmler &c.) were brilliantly and horrifyingly shown up as the hideous distillation of evil that they were. Most powerful of all was the exposure of the cruel Theresienstadt deception - that this was done through the experience of characters we had journeyed with so long and so far and had come to love so much, turned it from cold historical fact, into heartbreaking human tragedy.
