“War and Remembrance” was the sequel to “Winds of War” (1983). It continues the saga of the Henry family set in the chaos of WWII. The mini-series was directed by Dan Curtis who also helped with the screenplay. Author Herman Wouk was a cowriter as well. The mini-series was a massive undertaking and at $110 million, the costliest mini-series up till then. It was shot on location in numerous countries. There were 2,070 scenes, 757 sets, and 358 speaking parts. The mini-series ran 1620 minutes and was shown over two one-week spans. It was a ratings success and got 15 Emmy nominations. It won for Best Mini-Series. John Gielgud, Jane Seymour, and Polly Bergen got acting nods. Gielgud and Seymour did not originate their roles (replacing John Houseman and Ali McGraw). Another significant acting change was Hart Bochner replacing Jan-Michael Vincent as Byron Henry.
The mini-series opens the week after Pearl Harbor. “Pug” Henry (Robert Mitchum) is now captain of the heavy cruiser Indianapolis. He is still having troubles in his marriage with Rhoda (Bergen) as she is still seeing Palmer and Pug is playing footsie with Pamela (Victoria Tennant). Natalie (Seymour) and Aaron (Gielgud) are still trying to get out of Europe to avoid the Holocaust. Byron (Bochner) is a submariner in the Pacific and his brother Warren is a dive bomber pilot. Let’s look at the three main arcs.
Byron is the exec on a submarine skippered by the cigar (and scene) chewing Aster (Barry Bostwick). These scenes are heavy with sub clichés starting with a command conflict as Byron believes in the rules of war and Aster doesn’t. We get the obligatory depth charging scenes. There are three set pieces and all have ridiculous aspects.
The Pug / Pamela / Rhoda arc continued from “Winds of War”. It is still a small world with Pug and Pamela meeting in the unlikeliest of places. Basically, Pug is still globe hopping (ex. Russia) and rubbing elbows with the big boys (but not Hitler and Mussolini any more since the war has begun). Pamela is still showing up wherever he goes. I think she planted a homing device on him.
Meanwhile Natalie and Aaron continue their inevitable march to Auschwitz. They are headed for Palestine when baby Louis develops a cold and Natalie panics (again). They go from Italy to Elba and then Corsica. Byron gets transferred to the Atlantic and masquerading as a diplomatic courier is reunited with Natalie. He wants to go by train to Spain, but Natalie decides it’s too risky. Would you believe this turns out to be a bad decision? They both have run-ins with the malevolent unstable German commander, but as of episode 10 still have not made it to their final destination. This changes with the train ride to Auschwitz. Finally! One of them dies there.
Besides the three main character arcs, the miniseries concentrates on some major historical events. The Battle of Midway is covered in episode 3. Warren Henry participates in the dive bombing of a Japanese aircraft carrier. The use of actual footage is problematical as some of it is from later battles (ex. there is some kamikaze footage) and some is from “Tora! Tora! Tora!”. Raymond Spruance (J.D. Spradlin) and his decision making gets nice coverage. He actually gets to defend himself against the historical criticisms of his lack of a killer instinct.
There are two threads that deserve mentioning. The mini-series does an excellent job on the Hitler assassination conspiracy. We are in from planning through execution to aftermath. The other thread is the Holocaust. The mini-series is a great tutorial. One scene has Himmler visiting Auschwitz for a chilling “Special Action” where the commandant walks him through the process from the Nazi perspective. Step by step. Very efficient. Aaron’s brother Berel (Topol) is in the camp so we get the Jewish perspective as well. Aaron and Natalie’s train trip is not horrific enough, but you get the idea. The gas chamber scene is the best I’ve seen and does not cop out like its equivalent in “Schindler’s List”. For a TV movie, the mini-series is amazingly uncensored. There is realistic nudity. This is one of several powerful and emotional Holocaust scenes that take the series to a high level.
Besides the drama of the fictional characters interwoven in the historical events, the show takes the viewers behind the scenes at the highest government levels. Churchill (Robert Hardy), FDR (Ralph Bellamy), and Hitler (Steven Berkoff) are recurring characters. Hitler’s descent into madness is well-chronicled. In a similar vein, the storyline is bridged with footage and narration keeping us abreast of developments in the war. The footage matches the transcript which is a great tutorial for the ignorant masses.
“War and Remembrance” is a commendable accomplishment. The effort invested is obvious and noteworthy. You can see why it cost $110 million. Dan Curtis was serious in making a blockbuster. It is hard to imagine anyone duplicating the effort in the future. In fact, W&R has been described as the last miniseries. It brought a nice close to the heyday of these types of TV spectacles. The location shooting was especially laudatory. Curtis was the first to film on site at Auschwitz. The foreign locales add authenticity to the story and give it a sightseeing aura.
The cast changes are an upgrade from WoW. As great as Houseman was as an actor, Gielgud does a better job depicting the naivete evolving into bravery of Aaron Jastrow. Seymour is simply a better actress than McGraw which is important because Natalie goes through a gut-wrenching roller coaster ride. Hardy and Berkoff (a Jew, by the way) are improvements over the earlier Churchill and Hitler. Berkoff deserves recognition as one of the best Hitlers and Hardy has made a career of playing Churchill.
As far as the acting in general, it is good. The exceptions unfortunately are some key roles starting with Pug. Mitchum definitely shows his age and sleep walks through the role. He was almost seventy when the film was made. His heart was not in it although he got to play out the fantasy of having a woman (Tennant) who was 33 years younger than him wanting to jump his tired old bones. Tennant is weak as an actress although at least she manages not to look disgusted when pretending to be infatuated with the lackluster laconic lump of a career sailor. Barry Bostwick jazzes things up as “Lady” Aster, the unstable sub captain who has an affair with Byron’s sister-in-law (Sharon Stone who appears at one point in a mini-skirt circa 1942). The fact that Byron also jumps in the sack with Janice while pining for Natalie and his son Louis emphasizes the soap opera nature of the mini-series. This, of course, pales in comparison to the Pug / Rhoda / Pamela goings on. Naturally, in mini-series that clocks in at 1620 minutes, this love triangle gets tedious to go along with the creepy aspects of the May-December Pug and Pamela affair.
The length of the mini-series also means that we have the interminable arc of the Jastrows’ path to the gas chambers. It’s almost laughable the twists the screenwriters have to go through to prevent this arc from coming to a premature (but realistic end). Two things have to come into play here. Aaron has to be played as a hopeless optimist until they are completely trapped. Although it is implicit, not explicit, Aaron’s behavior could be argued to accurately reflect the naivete that caused many Jews to disregard the omens. As to Natalie, she has to consistently wimp out when opportunities arise to save herself and her child. I did not feel sorry for either one of them.
A poor decision was made to make Byron Henry the action figure of the series. The submarine scenes are the biggest whoppers in the series. The interiors and operations are fine, but the tactics are abysmal. Twice the sub surfaces for no logical reason. The surface battle with the destroyer shows a complete ignorance of submarine warfare on the part of the writers. (I do not know if Wouk staged it this way in the novel.) That sub would not have survived that encounter in reality, let alone left the destroyer crippled.
In conclusion, it’s unfair to harp on some of the obvious weaknesses in W&W. When you look at it in totality, it is a remarkable achievement. While I found the romance interludes to be lame and repetitive, if you spend $110 million, you better bring in a female demographic. The action loses out to the drama, but it is spaced out to keep people like me tuned in. As a big fan of history, it’s fun to see the behind the scenes stuff like Hitler’s conflicts with his generals. Most importantly, the Holocaust is covered in great detail through two story lines. you certainly learn more about the event than you do from watching “Schindler’s List”.
GRADE = B
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