Product Details

• Actors: David McCullough, David Ogden Stiers, Joe Morton, Michael Murphy, Linda Hunt
• Writers: Rocky Collins, Henry Hampton
• Producers: Katy Mostoller, Michael Rossi, Rocky Collins, Tracy Heather Strain
• Format: Box set, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English, French, Vietnamese
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 7
• Studio: Wgbh / Pbs
• VHS Release Date: March 28, 2000
• Run Time: 780 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304462522
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,804 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Exactly why was America in Vietnam? This remarkable and essential seven-volume series--six years in the making and originally broadcast on public television in 1983--tells the agonizing history of Vietnam's lengthy conflicts with some of the largest powers on Earth. While the primary focus is on the United States' miserable efforts to prop up a porous, anti-Communist government in South Vietnam as a bulwark against Chinese and Soviet expansionism, the series' makers expend no less energy detailing important antecedents to America's intervention. Of vital interest are the first two hours, which tell the compelling story of France's 80-year colonial rule in Southeast Asia and the rise of a European-educated generation of Vietnamese intellectuals turned warriors, chief among them the architect of Vietnam's prolonged revolt against the West, Ho Chi Minh. By the time a viewer comes to understand how and why America shrugged off Vietnamese independence after World War II, it is easier to grasp the tragic context for the disastrous military campaign of the 1960s and '70s. The rest of the series covers the various expansions of America's war in Vietnam through a succession of presidents from Eisenhower to Nixon, carefully explaining the sundry issues that drove each commander-in-chief to send more money, more troops, and more weapons into a seemingly unwinnable and dubious battle. The later volumes take the story into Laos and the horrible siege of Cambodia by a U.S.-supported Khmer Rouge, and examine the history of the antiwar movement in America. No stone is left unturned in this important project, which runs some 13 hours and should be considered one of the most important television series in history. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

An extraordinary, Emmy award-winning series about the people who masterminded this controversial war, and the Americans and Vietnamese who fought it. Includes 13 videos.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

387 of 393 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Big Disappointment, July 30, 2004

By 

D. A. Frost (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vietnam - A Television History (DVD)

I was a huge fan of this series when it first aired on PBS in 1983 and I taped the whole thing. So when it came out on DVD I thought I'd invest in the new format, seeing as my tapes were now 20 years old and I wanted to be able to watch it again and share it with others without fear of it disintegrating.

Boy, was I in for a letdown. First of all, this edition is loaded with commercials. That's right, commercials. That was the last thing I expected to see on an expensive DVD set. But no, every episode is prefaced with no less than 2 commercials: one for Liberty Mutual and one for the Scott lawn care company. I could have lived with a brief mention of the companies that funded the series, but not only are these full-blown commercials, they aren't even the companies that funded the making of the series! WGBH has sold commercial time to companies who had nothing to do with the making of this docmentary. If that weren't enough, we get to see the same commercials at the end of every episode, followed by a plug for PBS. I paid $60 for this???

But the most shocking thing about this set is that it's been edited down from the original series. I couldn't believe it. I haven't had a chance to compare every episode on the DVD set with my old tapes, but there is a segment near the end of episode 1 that has been deleted. In the original episode 1, a French colonel being interviewed about Dien Bien Phu talks about the end of the infamous seige and refers to the Viet Minh as "Red Termites". This has been lopped off the DVD version. I can only dismay at the thought of other expurgations. Was it purged for political correctness or to make room for the commercials? I can't say. I don't yet know if the other episodes are similarly truncated, but in my opinion none of them should have been. This series is too important to let commercial expediency diminish its journalistic integrity.

Thank goodness I still have my old tapes. Now I think I will digitize them onto DVD so I can preserve the work in the form the film maker intended.

123 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Shameful and Egregious Censorship, November 7, 2005

By 

E. Gordon - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vietnam - A Television History (DVD)

Typically, DVDs offer added features that are not found on a film's/program's earlier VHS version. At the very least, one expects a DVD to offer the same content as the video. The producers of this DVD set, however, evidently decided to buck that trend. If you are looking for the same content that the original historical and influential video series contains, DO NOT buy this item.

The first episode alone reveals several omissions, such as the "red termite" remark mentioned by another reviewer. (The remark, a memorably racist statement by a French official, clearly depicted the attitude of at least some of the French leadership at the time, who saw the Vietnamese rebels as "termites" --vermin to be exterminated. Not an unusual mind-set in colonizer/colonized relations.)

Another blatant omission concerns the French exploitation of Vietnamese rubber plantation workers. Here, the DVD not only edits out footage of workers in a plantation (with extremely vivid images of the slicing of tree bark to extract the rubber), but it omits an entire interview with a Vietnamese national who describes the brutal treatment suffered by rubber workers. This man recalled a popular expression of the time in which the plantation workers were known as "fertilizer," because so many of those who died were buried beneath the trees among which they toiled. Unless you see the video, though, you'll never know this--because the DVD cuts all of it out.

The edits I have seen so far (episode one) clearly seek to minimize Vietnamese suffering under the French colonial system. I can only imagine what the later episodes omit. The producers seem to want to put a fresh "spin" on their documentary-watering down harsh imagery and language, and thus sanitizing the war. This is a shameful achievement, and one that I find hard to believe PBS condones. It is all the more appalling given the stature of the original program.

If you want the real thing, then get the VHS. And put pressure on PBS to release the series on DVD in its true, original form. It's worth noting that, on the PBS website for the documentary, even the official program transcript has been altered to reflect the "new and improved" version. Why would this highly touted documentary seek to rewrite its own lauded history? Are there political pressures at work? Who knows-maybe these questions will lead to the creation of a new documentary. One that answers the question: Why did American Experience and PBS gut their own masterpiece?

82 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beware! 2 out of 13 episodes have been taken out!, August 10, 2004

By 

T. Duy - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vietnam - A Television History (DVD)

I am a fan of this series and when I found out that the DVD was out I immediately purchased it. Unfortunately, I was completely let down. There were way too many commercials and the 4 dvds only comprise of 11 hours as oppose to the 13 hours of the original series. The original series had 13 episode but the dvd version only has 11 episodes. They are missing episode 13 which is suppose to be titled "Legacies". This was an extremely important episode that should not have been taken out because it was the final conclusion. It's like watching a movie and missing the last showdown. There is also another episode that was taken out but I don't remember which one.