"The World at War" (1973) TV series

User Rating:

9.7/10   

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

1976 (Denmark)

Genre:

Documentary | War

Plot:

A series of accurate documentaries about World War II.

Plot Keywords:

Germany | Resistance | Japan | Sicily | Luftwaffe

Awards:

1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

Laurence Olivier

...

Himself - Narrator (26 episodes, 1973-1974)

Also Known As:

"Die Welt im Krieg" (West Germany) [de]
"El mundo en guerra" (Venezuela) [es]
"En värld i krig" (Sweden) [sv]
"En verden i krig" (Denmark) [da]
"Maailma sodassa" (Finland) [fi]
"The World at War" (Finland) (DVD box title) [fi]
"The World at War" (Greece) (DVD title) [el]

Runtime:

52 min (26 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English | German | French | Japanese

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-15

Company:

Imperial War Museum

Movie Connections:

Edited into "Screenwipe: (#3.1)" (2007)

Far Superior to any other documentary. Should be an 11 * rating.

Theo Robertson has commented that WAW didn't adequately cover the conditions after WWI which lead to Hitler's rise and WWII.

Perhaps he missed the first ONE and a quarter HOURS of volume 8? Covers this period, and together with the earlier volumes in the series, shows clearly the existing conditions, I feel. A friend of mine grew up in Germany during this period, joined the Hitler Youth even, and his experiences were very similar to that mentioned in WAW.

This documentary is SO far above the History Channel's documentaries I also own, that there is no comparison.

The ONLY fault, and it is a small one, that I have with WAW is this: the numbers are not included, many times. For instance, if you're talking about lend-lease, then how much war material was lent/leased? How much to Russia, how much to Britian? How many merchant ships did the U-Boats sink, and when? How many ships did the German or Japanese Navy have, total, in 1941? What type were they? How many troops? How many troops did the allies have, in total, and by country? Lots of numbers could have made a lot of viewers nod off, but I would have preferred MORE! And naturally, I always want to see more military analysis. Like WHY didn't Patton & Clark trap the German army that was at Cassini, after they had it surrounded, instead of racing Monty to Rome, and letting it escape? I don't think you can begin to understand war until you've seen some of these video segments on "total war", like the fire bombing of Dresden. It's like trying to understand Auschwitz, etc., before you see the clips of the death camps: you just can't wrap your head around it - it's too unbelievable.

Unknown at that time, and of course, unfilmed, were the most egregious cruelties and inhumanities of the Japanese, including cannibalism, (read "Flyboys"), and some LIVE vivisection of medical "experimentation" prisoners, w/o any anesthetic!

Dave