Product Details

• Actors: Franz Werfel
• Format: NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Parseghian Records
• DVD Release Date: January 8, 2008
• Run Time: 145 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000NQFLJG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,716 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description Franz Werfel's world renowned classic and award winning novel is the story of one man: Gabriel Bagradian, and of one people: The Armenians. It is the courageous account of their fight for freedom and survival during the 1914 Turkish onslaught, the first Holocaust of the 20th century. As an internationally successful Paris-based businessman, Gabriel has returned home to Armenia. What starts out as an idyllic trip turns into a nightmare as he and his family get caught up in one of the darkest, yet most heroic chapters in human history. The Turkish government has embarked on a policy that will eventually lead to the massacre of 1.6 million Armenians. The choice for Gabriel is clear: to fight, and to fight he does. A brilliant military tactician, he leads his fellow Armenian freedom fighters to the top of Mount Musa Dagh which could well become their burial ground. But, from their high ground, Gabriel and his rag-tag band of warriors, against all odds, battle the Turks to a standstill. With food, water, ammunition and time running short, their position mercilessly pounded by artillery, they wage a valiant battle that rages for 40 bloody days. At last, on the fortieth day, help arrives. French warships fire upon Turkish position, forcing the Turks to retreat and the survivors of Musa Dagh live to tell their courageous story.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Dreadful, January 23, 2012

By 

Mogulmeister "mogulmeister" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forty Days of Musa Dagh (DVD)

I've read the book, "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" by Franz Werfel. It's an amazing book and a great story, and it so obviously has the potential to be turned into a truly great movie.

Unfortunately, this is not that movie.

What we have here instead is a dreadful, horribly-acted, poorly-written adaptation that is an embarrassment to everyone involved. No one associated with this film comes out of it looking good. I'm rather surprised that the director and cast use their real names rather than all choose to be credited as "Alan Smithee." There's so much wrong with this movie that it's pointless to explore the subject further.

Whether this or "Assignment Berlin" (an equally dreadful film) deserves to be called the worst film on the Armenian Genocide ever made, would be the subject of an interesting (albeit pointless) discussion. ["Assignment Berlin" tells the story of Soghomon Tehlirian's assassination of (former Turkish leader) Mehmet Talaat in Germany during Operation Nemesis, the operation organized in the 1920s by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation to assassinate Talaat and the other exiled Ittihadist leaders. Talaat and his fellow mass murderers were hiding out in Europe under false identities after they fled Turkey following its defeat in World War I. Many of them were eventually executed by Armenian assassins for their roles and responsibility in organizing and implementing the utter and complete annihilation of the Armenians in Turkey, i.e. the Armenian Genocide, which took place in 1915-1917.]

Both the Musa Dagh story and Operation Nemesis have the ingredients that would make for truly great movies. But those movies have yet to be made.