If you want to measure how much television production and mass entertainment has regressed over 20 years you should check "War and Remembrance" and compare it with trash aired on television and theaters right now. Characters straight from Herman Wouk's original novel are dramatic , have feelings , fears , struggles , personal agonies , accomplishments and failures. They are real as much as they can be in fact too real in stark horrific reality of wartime. We see two families Henry's , Wastrows and people around them living , struggling , trying to survive and move on in these extraordinary conditions of greatest war mankind ever made. Meanwhile we witness main events and personalities of war , battles , diplomatic events etc. And yes best produced holocaust scenes ever made in television. Horror of what Nazis had done to Jews , Slavs , Gypsies , Communists and other undesirable minorities were sampled and brought to screen with dramatic acting , intense detailed production values. I fact same high production value standards is in entire miniseries itself. From cold bitter merciless concrentation camps to wartime America , from occupied France to Germany to naval battles at sea everything has an authentic look of 1940'es. It is very informative in historical sense.
Although characters are depicted like in novel not all characters are well written ( both in novel and in miniseries ) Romance story of Captain Pug Henry with Pamela Tudsburry who is half his age is very unconvincing and compared with stark brutality of what Jastrows enduring at hands of Nazis it is just pointless and trivial. Same thing can be said for Polly Bergen's character , Rhode Henry , Pug's drunk wife and her relationships and manners in comfortable US. Instead they could give us some more battle scenes and other stuff about war and contribitions of characters. Fortunetely rest of casting and character writing is very very good. Jane Symour and John Gielgund are just awesome as Aaron and Natalie Jastrow , Jews who are trying to survive in Nazi occupied Europe. Hart Borchner is also giving a good performance as US submarine officer Byron Henry who is trying to reach his wife Natalie and his child trapped in Europe. Victoria Tenant , Robert Morley are not bad either. Rest of cast and supporting characters are also showing very admirable performances. Stefan Berkoff as Adolf Hitler is quite entertaining to watch for example.....
Although characters are depicted like in novel not all characters are well written ( both in novel and in miniseries ) Romance story of Captain Pug Henry with Pamela Tudsburry who is half his age is very unconvincing and compared with stark brutality of what Jastrows enduring at hands of Nazis it is just pointless and trivial. Same thing can be said for Polly Bergen's character , Rhode Henry , Pug's drunk wife and her relationships and manners in comfortable US. Instead they could give us some more battle scenes and other stuff about war and contribitions of characters. Fortunetely rest of casting and character writing is very very good. Jane Symour and John Gielgund are just awesome as Aaron and Natalie Jastrow , Jews who are trying to survive in Nazi occupied Europe. Hart Borchner is also giving a good performance as US submarine officer Byron Henry who is trying to reach his wife Natalie and his child trapped in Europe. Victoria Tenant , Robert Morley are not bad either. Rest of cast and supporting characters are also showing very admirable performances. Stefan Berkoff as Adolf Hitler is quite entertaining to watch for example.....