The Great War (documentary)

"The Great War" is a 26 episode documentary series from 1964 on World War I. It was a co-production involving the resources of the Imperial War Museum, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The main narrator was Michael Redgrave, with additional readings by Marius Goring, Ralph Richardson, Cyril Luckham, Sebastian Shaw, and Emlyn Williams.

Each episode is approximately 40 minutes long.

Episode listing

The episode titles are taken from quotes, the origins of which are shown in brackets.
# "on the idle hill of summer..." (A. E. Housman)
# "for such a stupid reason too..." (Queen Mary)
# "we must hack our way through" (Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg)
# "our hats we doff to General Joffre" (1914 jingle)
# "this business may last a long time" (Rudolf Binding)
# "so sleep easy in your beds" (Admiral Fisher)
# "we await the heavenly manna..." (Russian General)
# "why don't you come and help!" (Lloyd George)
# "please God send us a victory..." (soldiers prayer)
# "what are our Allies doing ?" (Russian General)
# "hell cannot be so terrible" (a French soldier)
# "for Gawd's sake don't send me" (1916 song)
# "the Devil is coming..." (German soldier)
# "all this it is our duty to bear" (Lord Lansdowne)
# "we are betrayed, sold, lost" (French soldier)
# "right is more precious than peace" (President Wilson)
# "surely we have perished" (Wilfred Owen)
# "fat Rodzianko has sent me some nonsense" (Czar Nicholas II)
# "the hell where youth and laughter go" (Siegfried Sassoon)
# "only war, nothing by war" (Clemenceau)
# "it was like the end of the world" (German soldier)
# "damn them, are they never coming in ?" (F. S. Oliver)
# "when must the end be ?" (Hindenburg)
# "Allah made Mesopotamia - and added flies" (Arabian proverb)
# "the iron thrones are falling" (British officer)
# "...and we were young" (A. E. Housman)

Two "Extra" episodes exist (only on the dual layer DVD edition):

# Voices from the Western Front
# The Finished Fighter

The series, unparalleled at the time for its depth of research, range of source material and historical accuracy - all presented in a sequence of clear narratives - is now considered one of the finest achievements of BBC documentary. Many of the interviewed participants in the First World War were still relatively young - only in their sixties - and their memories are still fresh, vivid and disconcertingly frank, giving the series an honesty and a sense of charting still recent history. For that and many other reasons, it remains arguably the definitive television account of the First World War.

Musical score

The music for the series was composed by Wilfred Josephs. It was performed by the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Hurst. His expressive yet unsentimental score was widely acclaimed at the time, and many have recalled the strong contribution it made to the series: in August 2007, Guardian columnist Ian Jack remembered how at the start of each episode Josephs' 'ominous music ushered the audience into the trenches'.

In addition to Joseph's original score, much use was made of some great 20th Century symphonies; Shostakovitch's 11th and Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antartica, to name two. Such musical references do not appear in the credits, therefore a full list of these extra musical elements would be welcome.

Awards

Following transmission of the series by the Republic of Ireland's national TV station, Telefís Éireann, "The Great War" won a Jacob's Award at the 1964 presentation ceremony in Dublin. ["The Irish Times", "Television awards presented", December 2, 1964]

DVD Releases

There appear to be two releases as of mid-2007, both in the UK, both Region 2.

The first shows copyright © 2001 and consists of five volumes, each housing two DVDs (single-layer). On the cover descriptions [ [http://www.cdcovers.cc/view/115387/front/the-great-war-disk-1-2 Cdcovers.cc / DVD / The Great War Disk 1-2 / front ] ] [ [http://www.cdcovers.cc/view/115388/front/the-great-war-disk-3-4 Cdcovers.cc / DVD / The Great War Disk 3-4 / front ] ] [ [http://www.cdcovers.cc/view/115389/front/the-great-war-disk-5-6 Cdcovers.cc / DVD / The Great War Disk 5-6 / front ] ] [ [http://www.cdcovers.cc/view/115390/front/the-great-war-disk-7-8 Cdcovers.cc / DVD / The Great War Disk 7-8 / front ] ] [ [http://www.cdcovers.cc/view/115391/front/the-great-war-disk-9-10 Cdcovers.cc / DVD / The Great War Disk 9-10 / front ] ] there is no mention of the Extra episodes

The other shows copyright © 2002 and consists of seven DVDs — six containing the original 26 episodes and one with the two Extras. These discs are dual-layer. It is distributed by DD Video, North Harrow, Middlesex, England. They are available on the United Kingdom site of Amazon.com.

More recently, The Daily Mail from October 13th 2007, began giving the series away via WHSmith to readers who cut out the daily vouchers from the Mail and exchanged them at WHSmith's high street branches.

See Also

* The World at War

References

External links

* [http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/greatwarlost.htm How the Great War Was Lost - and Found] , First World War.com (N.b. This review wrongly implies the score for the series was either indebted to, or possibly written by Sir William Walton, whom it also erroneously cites as having written the score for 'Scott of the Antarctic' - in fact by Ralph Vaughan-Williams).
*