The World At War DVD Set Review
For Time Life’s Official The World At War website click here.
The ultimate visual history of World War II, The World At War is seen as the premier actual-footage documentary on the war by military history enthusiasts everywhere.
It is a dream come true for war buffs, and is the only documentary to attempt to chronicle the war in detail from beginning to end.
No other documentary has ever provided a more thorough and complete chronological analysis of the war through such excellent vintage footage and eyewitness accounts.
The World At War DVD collection contains all 26 original television episodes, and a bonus 12 additiontal hours of extras commemorating this 30th anniversary release.
The World At War won many international awards, including an International Emmy. In the U.S., it was given the Award for Best Documentary by the National Television Critics’ Association, and it also received a George Polk Award for the Most Outstanding Documentary on American Television.
The World At War DVDs By Time Life
Click Here For Actual Eyewitness Footage!
Its creator, Sir Jeremy Isaacs, earned a knighthood for his work in this documentary. Although documentaries don’t leave much room for artistic license or allow much of a dramatic opportunity, Sir Laurence Olivier did a remarkable job of narrating.
Nonetheless, the powerful photographic images, the rare military home movies, newsreel footage, and the constant parade of witness, many of which were as close to ground zero as possible, were extremely compelling… people like Hitler’s secretary and interpreter, Rommel’s chief of staff, a U-boat captain, and a concentration camp guard make an appearance and tell their story.
The World At War is mastered on 11 discs that are kept safe in collector’s quality clear, slender cases with descriptions of the episodes on the back cover. The glossy cardboard box is sturdy and will remain a keepsake for several generations to come.
The entire series comes in a set of seven discs, plus 4 bonus discs full of extras.
In each Time Life The World At War DVD set you get the following:
Disc One
A New Germany: 1933-1939
Distant War: September 1939-May 1940
France Falls: May-June 1940
Bonus Documentary: The Making Of The Series
Disc Two
Alone: May 1940-May 1941
Barbarossa: June-December 1941
Banzai!: Japan 1931-1942
On Our Way: U.S.A. 1939-1942
Disc Three
The Desert: North Africa 1940-1943
Stalingrad: June 1942-February 1943
Wolf Pack: U-Boats In The Atlantic 1939-1944
Red Star: The Soviet Union 1941-1943
Disc Four
Whirlwind: Bombing Germany September 1939-April 1944
Tough Old Gut: Italy November 1942-June 1944
It’s A Lovely Day Tomorrow: Burma 1942-1944
Home Fires: Britain 1940-1944
Disc Five
Inside The Reich: Germany 1940-1944
Morning: June-August 1944
Occupation: Holland 1940-1944
Pincers: August 1944-March 1945
Disc Six
Genocide: 1941-1945
Nemesis: Germany February-May 1945
Japan: 1941-1945
Pacific: February 1942-July 1945
The World At War DVDs By Time Life
Click Here For Actual Eyewitness Footage!
Disc Seven
The Bomb: February-September 1945
Reckoning: 1945 . . . And After
Remember
Disc Eight (Bonus Footage)
Hitler’s Germany: The People’s Community 1933-1939
Hitler’s Germany: Total War 1939-1945
The Two Deaths Of Adolf Hitler
Disc Nine (Bonus Footage)
Secretary To Hitler
Warrior
From War To Peace
Disc Ten (Bonus Footage)
The Final Solution Part 1
The Final Solution Part 2
Disc Eleven (Bonus Footage)
Making The Series: A 30th Anniversary Retrospective
Experiences Of War
Moments like home-movie color footage of Hitler and his top aides shot at a Bavarian castle by his famous mistress, Eva Braun, keep you in your seat and totally captivated.
Black and white footage of a cigar-chomping Churchill in a pith helmet with a spring in his step pays a surprise visit to the British soldiers in Africa.
Londoners huddled together in the Underground during the Battle of Britain, make the best of a bad situation.
The strength of this series is that in addition to stock war footage, there’s also more unique and obscure footage of non-battle action, including such things as Mussolini on horseback reviewing the troops, Brits engaged in tank repairs, Nazi sailors inside U-Boats, British airman at a dance, experimental bombs failing miserably, and plenty of footage obtained from enemy Axis sources—such as P.O.W. footage and graphic film of the bombing of Hamburg and the resulting firestorm that reached temperatures of 100 degrees C.
And the images are tied to some pretty specific talking heads, not the usual “general expert” or professorial sort.
Following images of the Hamburg firestorm, for example, viewers hear from the Hamburg fire marshal at the time, telling how 30,000 died in the raid and speculating that just one or two more raids like that would have demoralized the German people so much that it may have brought a quick end to the war.
But we’re told the Allies did not have the resources to stage another raid of that magnitude, and Germany got the time it needed to regroup. The eyewitness accounts, though the men speak slowly and deliberately at times, are a strength rather than a liability, as they can be with documentaries such as this. But the constant parade of eyewitnesses so close to the actual events make this series feel like an insider’s look at the war.
Other talking heads include the late actor Jimmy Stewart, who at the start of the war filmed “Winning Your Wings” for the war effort—a short go-for-glory recruitment film that was shown in movie theaters across America. But there are also plenty of interviews from the opposition, and that kind of balance makes “The World at War” not just television entertainment, but an original and important contribution to history.
The World at War DVD set will remain the definitive visual history of World War II. No serious historian should be missing The World at War in a collection, and no student should leave school without having been given the opportunity to learn from it.
The World At War DVDs By Time Life
Click Here For Actual Eyewitness Footage!
