The World at War
The World at War is a 26-episode British documentary television series that chronicles the events of the Second World War. Produced in 1973 at a cost of £900,000 (equivalent to £13,700,000 in 2023), it was the most expensive factual series ever made at the time.[1] It was produced by Jeremy Isaacs,[2] narrated by Laurence Olivier and included music composed by Carl Davis.[3] The book, The World at War, published the same year, was written by Mark Arnold-Forster to accompany the TV series.
For other uses, see World at War (disambiguation).The World at War
The World at War Theme
United Kingdom
English
1
26
22 hours 32 minutes
31 October 1973 –
8 May 1974
The World at War attracted widespread acclaim and now it is regarded as a landmark in British television history.[4] The series focused on a portrayal of the experience of the conflict: of how life and death throughout the war years affected soldiers, sailors and airmen, civilians, concentration camp inmates and other victims of the war.[2][5]
Overview[edit]
Jeremy Isaacs had been inspired to look at the production of a long-form documentary series about the Second World War following the BBC's broadcast of its series The Great War in 1964. The BBC series, produced in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, featured a mix of contemporary film footage from the period and film recreations, which soured relations between the BBC and the Museum.[6] As a consequence, Isaacs was determined to have his programme be as authentic as possible.
The World at War was commissioned by Thames Television in 1969. The government had halved its levy on television advertising revenue, with the proviso that the money which the independent television companies saved must be reinvested in programmes. Isaacs persuaded Thames to use the money to pay for the production of his Second World War documentary.[6] The series took four years to produce, at a cost of £900,000 (equivalent to £13,700,000 in 2023), a record for a British television series. It was first shown in 1973 on ITV.
The series featured interviews with major members of the Allied and Axis campaigns, including witness accounts from civilians, enlisted men, officers and politicians. The interviewees included Sir Max Aitken, Joseph Lawton Collins, Mark Clark, Jock Colville, Karl Dönitz, James "Jimmy" Doolittle, Lawrence Durrell, Lord Eden of Avon, Mitsuo Fuchida, Adolf Galland, Minoru Genda, W. Averell Harriman, Sir Arthur Harris, Alger Hiss, Brian Horrocks, Traudl Junge, Toshikazu Kase, Curtis LeMay, Vera Lynn, Hasso von Manteuffel, Bill Mauldin, John J. McCloy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, Sir Richard O'Connor, J. B. Priestley, Saburo Sakai, Albert Speer, James Stewart, Charles Sweeney, Paul Tibbets, Walter Warlimont, Takeo Yoshikawa and historian Stephen Ambrose.
In the programme The Making of "The World at War", included in the DVD set, Isaacs explains that priority was given to interviews with surviving aides and assistants rather than recognised figures. The most difficult person to locate and persuade to be interviewed was Heinrich Himmler's adjutant Karl Wolff. During the interview, he admitted to witnessing a mass execution in Himmler's presence.[7] Isaacs later expressed satisfaction with the series's content, noting that if it had not been secret, he would have added references to British codebreaking at Bletchley Park. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes which was compiled by the British Film Institute during 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The World at War ranked 19th, the highest-placed documentary on the list.
Home media history[edit]
The series was released in various territories on VHS video as well as on 13 Laservision long-play videodiscs by Video Garant Amsterdam.
In 2001–2005, DVD box sets were released in the UK and US. In 2010, the series was digitally restored and re-released on DVD and Blu-ray. In the latter case the image is cropped from its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio down to 1.78:1, to better fit modern widescreen televisions.[12] The restored series was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2016.[13]
Books[edit]
The original book The World at War,[14] which accompanied the series, was written by Mark Arnold-Forster in 1973. In October 2007, Ebury Press published The World at War, a new book by Richard Holmes, an oral history of the Second World War drawn from the interviews conducted for the TV series.[15] The programme's producers shot hundreds of hours of interviews, but only a fraction of that recorded material was used for the final version of the series. A selection of the rest of this material was published in this book, which included interviews with Albert Speer, Karl Wolff (Himmler's adjutant), Traudl Junge (Hitler's secretary), James Stewart (USAAF bomber pilot and Hollywood star), Anthony Eden, John Colville (Private Secretary to Winston Churchill), Averell Harriman (US Ambassador to the Soviet Union) and Arthur "Bomber" Harris (Head of RAF Bomber Command).