Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

calvinnme Gigantic, lumbering TV mini-series written by Herman Wouk, and based on his book. Robert Mitchum stars as a Naval attache that gets shuttled around the various hot spots of Europe in the early parts of WWII. The story starts a few weeks before Germany invades Poland, and ends with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The other main characters include Mitchum's wife (Polly Bergen), who is having an affair with an atomic engineer (Peter Graves). Mitchum himself is having romantic feelings for a young British woman he has met (Victoria Tennant). Their three children are also featured: Madeline (Lisa Eilbacher), who wants to work in commercial radio; Warren (Ben Murphy), who has followed his father into the Navy; and particularly Byron (Jan-Michael Vincent), an amiable layabout who has fallen in love with a Jewish girl (Ali MacGraw) in Rome. MacGraw's father (John Houseman) is a famous author, and she is also wooed by Leslie (David Dukes), an employee of the U.S. State Department. Chaim Topol as a Czech Jew who witnesses German atrocities, Jeremy Kemp as a German general, and Ralph Bellamy as FDR round out the cast.Filled with many other recognizable faces from TV and films of the past, the cast keeps you interested even when the script doesn't. The script is reasonably well done, though, so that isn't much of a problem. Those interested in the vagaries of the international diplomacy leading up to the European theater of WWII will find much to chew on here. The performances are adequate for the most part, although the actors playing Hitler and Churchill are a bit over the top. At around 14 hours and 45 minutes, this is quite an undertaking, but I had always wanted to see it, and I watch anything with Mitchum in it at least once.

justin-fencsak After watching one chapter of this epic miniseries on DVD, I thought that this miniseries truly captures the moment when WWII arrived. The casting, music, and visuals are pretty good although dated by 1980s standards; the success of this series spurred an even longer miniseries, War and Remembrance, which won more emmys than its predecessor and was favored more than WWW.

slabihoud Looking back at this series 30 years after it has been made it is easy to find many faults.Beginning with the casting of Mitchum and Ali MacGraw as the principal characters both too old for their respective role. But one has to admit that Mitchum is perfect as the duty-driven naval officer who wishes to get the command of a ship but continues to fulfill every other position to serve his country and his president.Ali MacGraw on the other hand plays Nathalie to the point, in fact her performance led me to buy the books and read the whole story through. I think it is a pity they did not let her play the part in the second series too.Many reviewers pointed out many other casting problems but overall the series clinks to the book as best as they can and this is very relieving. I had to order the DVDs again, first I had a German version but it turned out that it was severely shortened it ran only 5 episodes instead of 7! They had most of Hitler and the German officers scenes edited out!! I watched it now in English only DVDs.

WWIIFan I recently watched Winds of War for the second time. I agree that some of the actors were miscast (definitely Ali McGraw) but for all that it is a great mini-series. If you haven't read the book, McGraw may not annoy you that much. I agree with the reviewer who said to look for acting gems in the supporting cast. I especially liked Jeremy Kemp as General Armin von Roon. Robert Mitchum did do a great job despite his being over the age of the character Victor Henry. Historically, the major events were accurate and besides a good story it is also a good history lesson.Highly recommend.