Customer Reviews

World War I [VHS]

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

 

 

This video set is both compelling and accurate but it is also incomplet. In its original showing, and in a showing on PBS a few years ago, there are 26 episodes. In this set there are only 22 episodes. The missing episodes are: "The Doomed Dynasties", "Year Of Lost Illusions", "The Allies In Russia" and "Tipperary And All That Jazz".

A superb and wonderfully narrated documentary on this complex subject. The film footage and its presentation alone make this a superior work. I have seen but few other documentaries on this war and none have covered the entire breadth of the war as powerfully or in more detail than this. Gaps do exist, but for the most part, they do not seriously curtail the quality of this documentary.

Highly recommended for anyone with even an inkling of interest

In 1964, the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Great War, CBS produced "World War One". The documentary ran to some twenty episodes, with one half-hour program airing each week. Narrated by Robert Ryan, the documentary covered the period immediately before the war began -- the cultures, innovations and nationalistic currents which came together in August of 1914 -- and every major phase of the war through the Armistice and creation of the Versailles treaty. The production also had an exceptional musical score (created by Alfred Neuman or George Bernstein). The documentary was created wholly from archival footage, much of it shown for the first time on television in 1964, and seldom seen after the program's release. The recent 1997 documentary on PBS, "The First World War and the Shaping of the 20th Century" also used this technique. For armchair historians, students of both the period and of film, this thirty-four year-old series has never been equalled.

The best collection of footage and photos of the "Great War". Robert Ryan's voice is perfect and the music by Mr Gould is superb and chilling!

CBS's documentary World War 1 is comprehensive and very evocative. The film footage is extraordinary and masterfully edited. I must correct one error in the previous review: the powerful music score is by Morton Gould.

Perhaps the gold standard when it comes to video documentaries of the Great War. Extremely comprehensive and well balanced.

I first saw this series many years ago and taped most of the episodes on VHS. This series is now on DVD
by the way. I always thought the footage and Morton Gould's music were far and away the best features of
this series, which tended to be depressed, not without reason,I might add. But if you want to learn
about the war, this series barely scratches the surface and is rather misleading in much of its oversimplified
dialogue. Also, none of the major actors (the Generals) are drawn in anything other than very broad strokes -
they're more or less cartoon figures here. The major mystery of this war is why so many of the military leaders
were so wrong for so long in their choice of strategy and tactics. This series doesn't even attempt to
answer that question, which is THE major lesson provided by this war. You might almost characterize this series as "World War One for Dummies." A relatively short text that will both enlighten and occasionally amuse (there was humor in this war, believe it or not, although of the dry, deadpan variety)then I can recommend no better text than S.L.A. Marshall's one volume history : World War 1. Marshall was not a New York scriptwriter who was given less than a week to produce each of these CBS episodes. He was a bona fide military officer and army historian who knew all the brass of WWII and was familiar with the military activities of WWI and in a position to make valid judgments - he never is biased in these - he clearly explains the situation faced by the military leaders, giving the reader insight as to the reason for many of the really dumb mistakes made by the Generals in WWI. One can say, however, that the
major military leaders in this war are most aptly characterized as mediocre. However, the very same thing can be said about the high commanders so the following war. Neither war produced Generals (at the highest level) that had the ability to impress the following generation to any great extent. Having said that, this series is worthwhile and awfully cheap.

This, to my mind, is the World War 1 equal of The World at War narrated by Lawrence Olivier. Robert Ryan's voice seems to belong to a different era and fits perfectly with the subjct matter. Highly recommend this series.

WWI is an excellent documentary series. I enjoyed it as a young student, and recommend it to all who are interested in 20th Century history. The score by Morton Gould, who I knew and worked with, is outstanding.

Why are they slow to offer a DVD collection of the 20+ episodes? If some episodes are missing from the VHS version, they should definitely be added to a DVD collection.