The Winds of War | |
---|---|
Genre | War Historical drama |
Based on | The Winds of War by Herman Wouk |
Written by | Herman Wouk |
Directed by | Dan Curtis |
Starring | Robert Mitchum Ali MacGraw Jan-Michael Vincent John Houseman Victoria Tennant |
Narrated by | William Woodson |
Composer | Bob Cobert |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of episodes | 7 |
Production | |
Executive producer | Michael P. Schoenbrun |
Producer | Dan Curtis |
Production locations | Yugoslavia Austria Italy United Kingdom West Germany United States |
Cinematography | Charles Correll Stevan Larner |
Editors | John F. Burnett Bernard Gribble Jack Tucker Peter Zinner |
Running time | 883 minutes |
Production companies | Dan Curtis Productions Paramount Television Jadran Film |
Original release | |
Network | ABC |
Release | February 6 – February 13, 1983 |
Related | |
War and Remembrance |
The Winds of War is a 1983 American war drama television miniseries, based on the 1971 novel of the same name written by Herman Wouk. It was produced and directed by Dan Curtis, while Wouk adapted his own novel to screen. Like the novel, the series follows the lives of the fictional Henry and Jastrow families as they intersect with the major global events of the early years of World War II. The series also includes segments of documentary footage, narrated by William Woodson, to explain major events and important characters. It stars an ensemble cast, featuring Robert Mitchum, Ali MacGraw, Jan-Michael Vincent, John Houseman, Polly Bergen, Chaim Topol, Peter Graves, Jeremy Kemp, Victoria Tennant, and Ralph Bellamy.
The series was aired in seven installments between February 6 and February 13, 1983 on ABC. With 140 million viewers of part or all of Winds of War, it was the most-watched miniseries at that time. [1] It won three Primetime Emmy Awards (out of thirteen nominations [2] ) and was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, [3] including Best Miniseries or Television Film. The success of The Winds of War spawned a 1988 sequel miniseries, War and Remembrance , also based on a novel written by Wouk and also directed and produced by Curtis. [4]
The series follows the plot of Wouk's novel closely, depicting events from March 1939 until the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941. It tells the story of Victor "Pug" Henry (played by Robert Mitchum), an American Naval attaché in Berlin and a confidant to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his family, and their relationships with a mixture of real people and fictional characters. A significant subplot of the series follows the activities Adolf Hitler and the German General Staff, with the fictitious general Armin von Roon as a perspective character.
Author Herman Wouk was exceedingly pessimistic about a film adaptation of his beloved and scrupulously researched novel, because he had been extremely unhappy with earlier film adaptations of his novels Marjorie Morningstar , The Caine Mutiny and Youngblood Hawke . He was convinced by Paramount Pictures and the ABC television network that a miniseries would allow the full breadth of his epic story to be brought to life onscreen. [5] Wouk required unusual control over the production in his contract, including considerable influence on the production and veto power over what products could be advertised during the miniseries and how many commercials would be allowed. Wouk also has a cameo as the archbishop of Siena.
I, Claudius screenwriter Jack Pulman was originally hired to adapt the novel. He and Wouk worked for months preparing an outline. After Pulman died suddenly in 1979, Wouk himself wrote the teleplay for the series. [6]
The casting of Lee Strasberg as Aaron Jastrow was publicly announced in February 1981. [7] Strasberg had to withdraw from the production before filming any scenes, due to ill health (he died in 1982). He was replaced by John Houseman. [8] Houseman later had to withdraw from the sequel miniseries, War and Remembrance, due to his own ill health (he died in 1988). He was replaced by John Gielgud.
Paramount produced the miniseries for $40 million ($122 million in 2023 dollars). ABC paid $32 million for the broadcast rights, then charged advertisers $175,000 for 30-second commercials and $350,000 for one-minute commercials. ABC expected simply to break even on the original broadcast and make any profits from later reruns and syndication. [9]
Principal photography began on December 1, 1980 aboard the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California and was completed (except for miniature photography) on December 8, 1981, on US Navy vessels at Port Hueneme, California, with filming of the recreation of the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
The series was shot at 404 locations in Europe, California and Washington state over 14 months. [6] The 962-page script contained 1,785 scenes and 285 speaking parts. [6] The production involved 4,000 camera setups and shot a million feet of exposed film. The production had a 206-day shooting schedule and came in four days ahead of schedule.
Principal locations were Zagreb, Opatija and Rijeka in Yugoslavia; Berchtesgaden and Munich in West Germany; Siena, Florence, Milan and Rome, Italy; London, UK; Vienna, Austria; Naval Station Bremerton in Bremerton, Washington and throughout the Los Angeles area and Southern California. [6] Scenes were filmed onboard the USS Peleliu (LHA-5) and the USS Missouri (BB-63), the latter still in mothballs.
The opening scene sub-titled "Berlin" was actually filmed in and around the Hofburg in Vienna. The OpsRoom at RAF Uxbridge, from which the Battle of Britain fighter defenses were commanded, is only rarely made available to the public. In the beginning of part 6, the train scenes were filmed at the Orange Empire Railway Museum with Ventura County 2-6-2 number 2.
Nazi concentration camp-survivor Branko Lustig was an associate producer in the miniseries and also on Schindler's List . [10]
The music was composed by Bob Cobert, a composer often associated with Curtis.
The production made use of battle scenes from other films during the attack scene on Pearl Harbor and during the German attacks on the Soviet Union, including scenes for both battles from Tora! Tora! Tora!
The miniseries was shown by ABC in seven parts over seven evenings, between February 6 and February 13, 1983. [11] It had a runtime of 18 hours including commercials, or 14 hours 40 minutes excluding commercials. Parts One, Two, Six and Seven ran for three hours including commercials, while parts Three, Four and Five ran for two hours including commercials. It attracted an average of 80 million viewers per night. [12]
Part | Title | Original air date |
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1 | "The Winds Rise" | February 6, 1983 |
2 | "The Storm Breaks" | February 7, 1983 |
3 | "Cataclysm" | February 8, 1983 |
4 | "Defiance" | February 9, 1983 |
5 | "Of Love and War" | February 10, 1983 |
6 | "Changing of the Guard" | February 11, 1983 |
7 | "Into the Maelstrom" | February 13, 1983 |
A premiere screening of the first episode was held in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center on Thursday, February 3, 1983, three nights before airing on ABC. The screening was attended by members of the cast including Robert Mitchum, Ali MacGraw, John Houseman, Polly Bergen and Peter Graves. Producer/director Dan Curtis and writer and Washington resident Herman Wouk also attended, though Wouk refused all requests for interviews, saying "I'm a very private person." Also attending were Paramount owner Charles Bluhdorn, who hosted the event, as well as ABC Motion Pictures President Brandon Stoddard, Jack Valenti, Ted Kennedy, Robert McNamara, Art Buchwald, two senators, and numerous other Washington luminaries. [13]
After running a massive year-long advertising campaign, which cost an additional $23 million, [14] ABC reported that the miniseries had 140 million viewers for all or part of its eighteen hours, making it the most-watched miniseries up to that time. [1]
New York Times TV critic John O'Connor said that the "hoopla on 'The Winds of War' has been nearly as massive as the project itself. The result, while not as artistically impressive as 'Brideshead Revisited,' is less manipulative than 'Holocaust' and at least as emotionally compelling as 'Roots.'" Mitchum, he said, "manages to carry the art of acting to the extremes of minimalism. He moves like an imposing battleship." Most of the actors, he said, are "at least 10 years older than the characters they are playing." Overall, O'Connor said, "the story does hold. It rumbles along, creating its own momentum, until it eventually becomes the television equivalent of a good read that can't be put down." [15]
Columnist Tom Shales of The Washington Post called the miniseries "bulbous and bloated" and said "a first-year film-school student could edit three or four hours out of the thing without hurting the flow at all." Watching Winds of War, he said, "ecstatic superlatives like 'competent' and 'acceptable' come to mind." He ridiculed the performances, and described the actors as too old for their roles. [16]
The show was a success throughout the United States and received many accolades, including Golden Globe nominations and various Emmy wins and nominations. [17]
The Caine Mutiny is a 1954 American military trial film directed by Edward Dmytryk, produced by Stanley Kramer, and starring Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson, Robert Francis, and Fred MacMurray. It is based on Herman Wouk's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1951 novel of the same name. Set in the Pacific theatre of World War II, the film depicts the events on board a U.S. Navy destroyer-minesweeper and the subsequent court-martial of its executive officer for mutiny.
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American actor. He is known for his antihero roles and film noir appearances. He received nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1992. Mitchum is rated number 23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.
Daniel Mayer Cherkoss, known by his pen name Dan Curtis, was an American television and film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was best known as the creator of the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows (1966–71), and for directing the epic World War II miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988).
John Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and producer of theatre, film, and television. He became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane and his collaboration, as producer of The Blue Dahlia, with writer Raymond Chandler on the screenplay. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Professor Charles W. Kingsfield in the 1973 film The Paper Chase. He reprised the role of Kingsfield in the 1978 television series adaptation.
Herman Wouk was an American author. He published fifteen novels, many of them historical fiction such as The Caine Mutiny (1951), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
Midway, released in the United Kingdom as Battle of Midway, is a 1976 American war film that chronicles the Battle of Midway, a turning point in the Pacific Theater of Operations of World War II. Directed by Jack Smight and produced by Walter Mirisch from a screenplay by Donald S. Sanford, the film starred Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda, supported by a large international cast of guest stars including James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Ed Nelson, Hal Holbrook, Robert Webber, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Pat Morita, Dabney Coleman, Erik Estrada and Tom Selleck.
Richard Owen Fleischer was an American film director whose career spanned more than four decades, beginning at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood and lasting through the American New Wave.
The Winds of War is Herman Wouk's second book about World War II. Published in 1971, The Winds of War was followed up seven years later by War and Remembrance; originally conceived as one volume, Wouk decided to break it into two volumes when he realized it took nearly 1,000 pages just to get to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
War and Remembrance is a novel by Herman Wouk, published in October 1978 as the sequel to Wouk's The Winds of War (1971). The Winds of War covers the period 1939 to 1941, and War and Remembrance continues the story of the extended Henry and Jastrow families from 15 December 1941 through 6 August 1945. The novel was adapted into a television mini-series, War and Remembrance, and presented on American television in 1988.
William T. Woodson was an American film, stage, radio and voice actor, best known for his narration of the radio series This is Your FBI, The Invaders, the animated series Super Friends and all its spin-offs, and the opening of The Odd Couple television series.
Wolfgang Preiss was a German theatre, film and television actor.
Victoria Tennant is a British actress. She is known for her roles in the TV miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, in which she appeared as actor Robert Mitchum's on-screen love interest, Pamela Tudsbury, as well as her supporting roles in All of Me (1984), The Holcroft Covenant (1985), Flowers in the Attic (1987), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), and L.A. Story (1991).
The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard two destroyer-minesweepers in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Among its themes, it deals with the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by ship captains and other officers. The mutiny of the title is legalistic, not violent, and takes place during Typhoon Cobra, in December 1944. The court-martial that results provides the dramatic climax to the plot.
Pearl is a 1978 American television miniseries about events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, written by Stirling Silliphant. It starred a large cast, notably Dennis Weaver, Tiana Alexandra, Robert Wagner, Angie Dickinson, Brian Dennehy, Lesley Ann Warren, Gregg Henry, Max Gail, Richard Anderson, Marion Ross, Audra Lindley, Char Fontane, Katherine Helmond and Adam Arkin.
Winds of War may refer to:
Target for Tonight is a 1941 British World War II documentary film billed as filmed and acted by the Royal Air Force, all during wartime operations. It was directed by Harry Watt for the Crown Film Unit. The film is about the crew of a Wellington bomber taking part in a bombing mission over Nazi Germany. The film won an honorary Academy Award in 1942 as Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. Despite purporting to be a documentary there are multiple indicators that it is not quite as such: film shots include studio shots taken from the exterior of the aircraft looking into the cockpit whilst "in flight"; several stilted sections of dialogue are clearly scripted; on the ground shots of bombing are done using model trains; and several actors appear, including Gordon Jackson as the young rear gunner. The film does give a unique insight into the confined nature of the Wellington's interior and some of the nuances of day to day operation such as ground crew holding a blanket over the engine while it starts to regulate oxygen intake.
War and Remembrance is an American miniseries based on the 1978 novel of the same name written by Herman Wouk. The miniseries, which aired from November 13, 1988, to May 14, 1989, covers the period of World War II from the American entry into World War II immediately after Pearl Harbor in December 1941 to the day after the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It is the sequel to the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War, which was also based on one of Wouk's novels.
Washington: Behind Closed Doors is a 1977 American television miniseries produced by Paramount Television, that was broadcast in six parts, airing across six consecutive nights on ABC, between September 6 to September 11, 1977.
Robert Mitchum (1917–1997) was an American actor who appeared in over 110 films and television series over the course of his career. He is ranked 23rd on the American Film Institute's list of the 50 greatest American screen legends of all time. His first credited named role was as Quinn in the 1943 western Border Patrol. That same year he appeared in the films Follow the Band, Beyond the Last Frontier, Cry 'Havoc' and Gung Ho! as well as several Hopalong Cassidy films including Colt Comrades, Bar 20, False Colors, and Riders of the Deadline. In 1944, he starred in the western Nevada as Jim "Nevada" Lacy, and a year later in the film West of the Pecos as Pecos Smith. During the 1940s, he was also cast in the film noirs Undercurrent (1946), Crossfire (1947), Out of the Past (1947) and The Big Steal (1949). Mitchum was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a world-weary soldier in the 1945 film The Story of G.I. Joe, which received critical acclaim and was a commercial success.
The attack on Pearl Harbor has received substantial attention in popular culture in multiple media and cultural formats including film, architecture, memorial statues, non-fiction writing, historical writing, and historical fiction. Today, the USS Arizona Memorial on the island of Oahu honors the dead. Visitors to the memorial reach it via boats from the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The memorial was designed by Alfred Preis, and has a sagging center but strong and vigorous ends, expressing "initial defeat and ultimate victory". It commemorates all lives lost on December 7, 1941.