Winds of War/ War abd Remberebce miniseries

Ali got terrible reviews for the first one. Since her role was so dramatic and important in War and Remembrance the network insisted they recast it and they even gave them a list of only a few actresses who were big enough TV draws. They had to get one of those women to take it or else they wouldn't do the sequel. Jane Seymour accepted it.

[quote]Why was Ali replaced?

Because for the sequel, they wanted someone who could act?

Why did they cast her in the first place?

Oh, man. I just read Herman Wouk passed away. He was 10 days shy of his 104th birthday.

The second series totally pivots on that character. McGraw never would have been able to handle it. I rented the series a number of years ago. Some of it was very bloated and long but as soon as the Seymour parts came on it was like OK here we go. This is the good part.

I guess McGraw was a movie star and it was the early 80s and people weren't crossing back and forth between the two mediums. McGraw may have seemed like a "get" for them. (plus the role in the first part is that demanding---although she still got bad reviews.) The network demanded they get rid of Jan-Michael Vincent too but that was more out of fear that he would be on drugs and cost them money.

Dan Curtis wanted Mitchum for the role, saying no one could replace him. He knew Mitchum was too old in actual age for it, but that he wasn't too old to play Pug.

^The last sentence paraphrases Curtis from an article.

Seymour won an Emmy for it.

Ali was also considered way too old for the role but after all these years the only scene I remember from the series is when Ali tells a Nazi her name is Mona Lisa.

Seymour was nominated but didn't win.

My memory is playing tricks on me. I remember she made a joke about A concentration camp when she won so I assumed it was WOW but Jane won an Emmy for playing Maria Callas.

what was the joke

[quote]War abd Remberebce

The Polish translation?

My memory may be wrong again.

I think the only ones who carried over from WOW to W&R of the primary/first tier cast were Polly Bergen and Robert Mitchum.

Jane replaced Ali; Hart Bochner replaced Jan-Michael; John Gielgud replaced John Houseman. There were also a number of second tier cast that were also replaced.

Apparently, Herman Wouk had quite a bit of control over the mini-series - much more than had been the standard before or since. It was he who insisted the Holocaust scenes air without commercials, and he even got the network standards division to allow full frontal nudity in the horrific gas chamber scenes.

I remember when both series aired, I was in grammar for WOW and HS for W&R, and we were required to watch both series. Even with the mixing in of family drama, and romance, both were probably the best mini-series to cover the lead up to and WWII itself.

[quote]Hart Bochner replaced Jan-Michael

Thank God. Nothing in the book suggested Jan-Michael Vincent as Briny. He was the worst miscasting. Hart Bochner was a gift in W&R. These days, Andrew Garfield comes closest to my mental picture of Briny as I read the book.

It inspired me to go out and buy a Navy Peacoat to wear that winter.

I remember a scene where Mitchum is with FDR (who knows why) and FDR says that the British have located the Bismark at such and such longitude and such and such latitude and are planning an attack. Mitchum uses the longitude and latitude figures to calculate the Bismark's. position in his head and tells Roosevelt exactly where the ship is on the Atlantic Ocean.

For some reason I thought that being able to do that was the coolest thing ever, even though I realize now that any good sailor could probably manage it.

I’d love to see it again. Is it available anywhere?

You can watch it on youtube. The last time I watched it, I took it out of the library (DVD).

I was in grade school during W&R and remember being traumatized by the concentration camp scenes. It was my first real introduction to the Holocaust and I couldn’t wrap my 11 year old brain around that kind of cruelty and brutality. Some of those scenes have stayed with me. Just shattering. I felt so invested in Jane’s Emmy nomination and was so upset when she lost. There’s your Mary! moment.

Same about the holocaust scenes R19. I still think about the scene where John Gielgud looks up at the moon before descending to the gas chamber knowing he was going to his death.

David Dukes and Victoria Tennant played in both series. I assume Sharon Stone replaced Lisa Elbacher.

[quote]I was in grade school during W&R and remember being traumatized by the concentration camp scenes.

Yes, me too.

I read the books back-to-back after the miniseries aired - they were about two thousand pages altogether - and I found them so riveting, I went out & bought two other Wouk novels - The Caine Mutiny and Marjorie Morningstar. I never got to read them. But some day . . .

And W&R was the beginning of my pining for Hart Bochner.

I saw Apartment Zero right before War & Remembrance. I remember being so excited about being able to see Hart Bochner so soon in something I'd liked the OSM of so much.

I wanna know how Pamela was able to follow Pug everywhere like it was no problem, despite the fact that they were from different countries and Pug was in combat zones more than once. “Oh, Victor, you’re going to Moscow? I can arrange a post there!”. It was preposterous.

The heart of the miniseries was the story of the Jastrows. I cried for Aaron during his walk to the gas chambers. All the other characters seemed so whiny and selfish and their problems so trivial.

Many of the elderly extras in the Auschwitz selection. We’re Holocaust survivors The books is especially generous to Aaron, detailing how he grew from poverty and ignorance into a scholar. When he returns to Auschwitz to be murdered, he is being returned to his roots.

r25, Pamela's father, Alistair "Talky" Tudsbury, was a WWII journalist. She was his assistant until he died, then she took over where he left off. Their reportage on the war gave them access to every place Wouk needed them to be.

Agreed on the Jastrows (Including Briny). I've watched and read several times, and I often skip the other parts.

The Jane Seymour scene that had the most impact on me for some reason is when they are on the train cars. They open the door and it’s the first light they have seen in a long time. You realize they have had to use the car for EVERYTHING and they are getting the first food they have had for a while. They are given a bags of old apples and I remember Jane devouring the whole apple, core, seeds and all. That and the rest of it made a huge impact on my understanding of the Holocaust and how desperate it all was for them.

I started watching it again after posting the youtube link above. (5th time?) What is it about this story?

Ali was miscast from the start, Jane made the role her own. R18 Even today impressive series. I was young when it was on tv and those holocaust scenes stayed in my mind until few years ago I found it on youtube and watched the entire series. Everyone should watch it. R14 He was right, commersials would have ruined them. I read in the Auschwitz selection scene there were extras who were real Holocaust survivors and had gone through the selection in real life.

R14 I loved Polly Bergen in this, her character was naive and silly but lovely in her own way.

Herman Wouk was one of our greatest writers. It's a disgrace that his death has been largely ignored, while Grumpy the Cat's demise made the newspaper headlines.