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Dom Robinson reviews
The Complete Series
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 8573-847702
- Running time: 150 minutes
- Year: 2000
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 65 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Extra footage, Diaries and Letters, Key Facts, British WWII Posters,Booklet
Producers:
- Stewart Binns and Lucy Carter
Music:
- Chris Elliott
Narrator:
- John Thaw
The Second World War was the most catastrophic in humanhistory. For six years the British people fought and endured. Using originalcolour film, letters and diaries, this is their story.
That is how this series is introduced in the first of three 50-minutes episodes,narrated by John Thaw (Inspector Morse, Kavanagh Q.C.), entitledDarkest Hour, The Beginning of the End and Unknown Warriors,all of which serve to cover every aspect such as Blitzkreig: The Invasionof Western Europe, Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister and his speeches,Rationing, Vera Lynn, D-Day, the Outbreak of War, the Land Girls and V.E. Day,to name but a few.
At the age of 28 as I write this, I certainly wasn’t around at the time- although my granddad was a Para – but this programme certainly goes someway to providing a fascinating insight into everything that went on at thetime, those in authority and how it affected the men and women who are stillalive to tell the tale.
Film fans may be interested to view any or all of the following WWII-relatedfilms:
- The Land Girls
- Memphis Belle
- Saving Private Ryan
- U-571
I never saw this on TV so don’t know if it was originally shot in 16:9, likemost prime-time material these days. Part of me doubts it because it featuresplenty of 50-year-old 4:3 material which would look badly window-boxed ifcropped top and bottom for 16:9 presentation and then cropped again at thesides. The vintage footage looks as good as can be expected, but the only timeyou notice artifacts are during the vox-pop interviews with members of thepublic.The average bitrate falls between 4-5Mb/s depending on which episode you’rewatching. The stereo is fine for dialogue and Chris Elliott‘s hauntingtheme is excellent.
Approximately 68 minutes of extras are here beginning with Extrafootage not seen on TV including London and Southern England 1940-1945,Battle of Midway 1942 and a 37-minute documentary about the Memphis Belle.
There are five diary and letter pieces with additional footage, ten originalBritish WWII posters and Key Facts presenting a year-by-yearbreakdown of historical events from 1935-1945 with 24 hotlinks to relevantfootage within the series to exemplify each point. A booklet is also includedthat contains info about the series itself.
65 chapters break up the series, the subtitles are in English only and themain menu is the only one to feature animation and the theme tune.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.