Customer Reviews

The Indomitable Teddy Roosevelt

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this tape! I saw it as an ABC television special over ten years ago. About five years ago I found out that a friend had made a copy of it and managed to talk him into giving it to me. Teddy had a full life and this tape does a good job of fittng it into roughly two hours. The archival photos, pictures, and films are clear and are accurately placed in the historical narative. The Sousa music creates a mood that takes one back to the energetic turn of the 20th century with all its brash color and jingoism. I like this film so much that I show it in its entirety each year in the U.S. course that I teach.

ABC Presidential documentaries are always stellar efforts and this is no exception. The magnificent life of TR is told is painstaking detail and everything is beautifully photographed and arranged. When the film details TR's childhood asthma, they photograph a small boy, meant to be TR, in a darkened room, as the wind batters the curtains. It's an ethereal moment and makes the viewer think they are in the room with Roosevelt.

TR's entire life is depicted, with generous amounts of time being spent on his early years in New York. But the majority of the program is rightly devoted to TR in the period 1898-1909, where he went from Rough Rider to President. His private side is illuminated and one realizes he was a fascinating, though sometimes infuriating man; stubborn, headstrong, yet brilliant. It's all here: his ability to speak languages, his amazing memory, the fact he read a book every day, his passion for the outdoor life, his years at Harvard. His romances are here as well, including his early passion for eventual wife Edith, whom he threw over for his first wife, Alice. She died on the same day as TR's mother, and this dual blow is examined in detail.

This is a gorgeous film, photographed with care and produced with exquisite flair. If you're not especially interested in Roosevelt, you will be after viewing this documentary. If you are already a fan of TR, this will make you love him all the more.

A 94-minute historical documentary, THE INDOMITABLE TEDDY ROOSEVELT, Directed and Produced by Harrison Engle, Written by Theodore Strauss, with a beautiful musical score compiled from suites, operas and marches of John Philip Sousa and recorded by the Detroit Concert Band, with narration spoken by George C. Scott, it's quite possibly the best historical documentary I have ever seen-- the first episode of "Unknown Chaplin" being its only close rival in my mind.

As one would expect from such a subject much use is made of silent era film footage. There are clips from fiction films ranging from THE `TEDDY' BEARS (1907) to THE ROUGH RIDERS (1927), and miles of amazing, unfamiliar newsreel, mostly selected with a dual eye upon its content and its pictorial splendor. Most of the footage is fresh to our eyes, being from the long-guarded Roosevelt Memorial Association collection which was assembled and maintained in impeccable condition beginning immediately after TR's death in 1919. Of course there are also stills and some extraordinary moments of re-enactment including one goose-bump shot of TR and family, portrayed almost entirely by his direct descendants, which dissolves eerily into the original group portrait upon which it is based.

It is beautifully structured, inspiring, saddening, everything one would ask of a great film. THE INDOMITABLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT, completed in 1983, is also impeccably produced. The thought and skill and passion in it, the uncompromised quality evident in its every image and sound, make it also a heartbreaking reminder of the glory one aspired to achieve in documentary film before the days of hasty, formulaic and cheaply-produced programs of this sort demanded of struggling producers by cable networks.

Tom Shales, perhaps the most waspish of movie critics, said of this film: "Brilliant! I was bowled over. I was fit to be tied. This is history with a wallop and a heart. It makes you want to cheer and then it makes you want to cry."

No one can watch this and not be amazed at what a whirlwind of fun and energy Theodore Roosevelt's life was. The best line from many in this film? "You'd have to hate the colonel a whole lot-- not to love him". Quite true.

Great teaching tool, rather hero-worshippy, but who cares so long as it gets through to American high schoolers that this best and brightest of America's hero / boy scouts was a true leader, a great patriot with no loyalties to be hidden away.

Brilliant film. As a documentary aficcionado,I find the production is great and the narration and music befitting Theodore Roosevelt's long and illustrious career. Makes a great reference film for grade school history classes.

Strike One: The annoying task of trying to listen to the narrator above blaring music (albeit very good blaring music) makes this documentary nothing more than standard fare. As in many (too many) cases, the viewer's attention is split between music and narration and much potential for learning or subject appreciation is lost. Ideally, an option should have been included to turn either one off. Money the filmmaker spent to hire George C. Scott was wasted; narration could have been by Donald Duck, for all that it matters.

Strike Two: Add to this the fact that in many cases the narrative, when able to be heard, is speaking about events that do not match the generic film footage, and you have what I call the coin of the realm: standard sophomoric fare.

Strike Three: Too much time is wasted with Woodrow Wilson and America's entry into World War One, and here the filmmaker shows us that he was lost and needed some filler: this is a subject that is not mainstream TR, except as it applies to the death of his son, Quentin. Some of the footage here is not even WWI vintage.

I'll give it two stars only because of the irrepressible attraction of the subject matter and hope the filmmaker gets employment in another industry.