MovieChat Forums > The Winds of War (1983) Discussion > On my 6th (or so) viewing...some thought...

On my 6th (or so) viewing...some thoughts

posted 12 years ago by nyctc7
11 replies | jump to latest

Natalie & Byron is still my all-time favorite screen romance.

I still seem to be one of the only people who actually likes Ali McGraw as Natalie.

I have become a little less enamored of Pug and Pamela's romance.

More than ever, I am super-pissed at Aaron Jastrow. He's a stubborn idiot for not getting himself back to America much sooner. It's one thing for him to destroy himself through his obstinacy and delusions of safety, but as a result Natalie and Louis suffer as well. I've really come to dislike him intensely. For some reason I hate him more when played by Houseman than by Gielgud.

The theme music is as memorable and as haunting as ever.

Perhaps my favorite scenes are with the Germans. Seeing Hitler and his generals, and Nazi scum like the banker, plot, plan, scheme, argue, etc. is infinitely fascinating. Of course I also like seeing American generals and admirals discussing strategy, so often war films are about the foot soldier and what is going on on the ground, I really like hearing the top guys talking strategy and tactics and politics.

Some stuff I now FF through, the two weddings (the one in Poland and the one in Florida) are too long, maybe that was fime the first time around (to make us feel like these are real people) but I just FF now.

Honorable Mention: Charles Lane as Admiral William Standley. Yes, he may be hamming it up a bit, but I think he is wonderful. Lane passed in 2007, at the age of 102!

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[–] BertramWilberforceWooster 12 years ago

More than ever, I am super-pissed at Aaron Jastrow. He's a stubborn idiot for not getting himself back to America much sooner. It's one thing for him to destroy himself through his obstinacy and delusions of safety, but as a result Natalie and Louis suffer as well. I've really come to dislike him intensely. For some reason I hate him more when played by Houseman than by Gielgud.

Don't blame Aaron for Natalie staying. Especially after Louis was born. She had plenty of chances to leave, and she put herself and her child at risk. Even worse is when she is given the option of giving Louis an escape in Terezin (Remembrance), but doesn't until AFTER his life is threatened. That's just one example.

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[–] nyctc7 12 years ago

Natalie's bad choices are more glaring in W&R, that's for sure.

But in WOW I do blame Aaron. He is something of a father figure to her, they are obviously very close. So she very much wants to save him. But he shouldn't have needed saving. At some point, yes, she really should have gone back without him: while Pearl Harbor hadn't happened yet, Europe was well plunged into war. But I can't really fault her for wanting to save her uncle.

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[–] mandrake62 12 years ago

One thing about their decisions, they were reasonable until they were undone by sudden turns in world events.

[–] nyctc7 12 years ago

>One thing about their decisions, they were reasonable until they were undone by sudden turns in world events.

I wonder. In Germany there were anti-Jewish boycotts and anti-Jewish laws starting years before the actual outbreak of WWII. Aaron was no dummy but pitifully wrong about his situation in Europe. Many people didn't have the opportunity to get out that he did. He stared that opportunity in the face and stubbornly refused to get out when it would have been relatively easy. And he paid for his obstinancy with his life, but not just his life, Natalie went through hell.

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[–] mandrake62 12 years ago

Aaron was definitely too concerned with his comforts and was too much in denial about the way the Winds of War were blowing. One of the frustration in reading the book and the watching the TV series is seeing how they were sucked deeper and deeper into the Nazi net with one bad decision after another. Aaron was a rather spoiled man who basked in his creature comforts and did not take care of the little details of his life including maintaining his official status. It has been a while since I watched the series or read the book but i think he let his passport lapse and that then that resulted in problems getting it renewed and their problems just cascaded into one trouble after another.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] BertramWilberforceWooster 11 years ago

Personally, I think that spoiler warnings for movies that are nearly 30 years old is unnecessary. It'd be akin to putting a spoiler warning about Rosebud being a sled. If you haven't seen it by now, there's been more than enough time.

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[–] DrZaat 11 years ago

Rosebud's a sled!!! You just spoiled it for me! :-)

I understand what you're saying, but new people are being born all the time and they haven't had thirty years to watch this. So, perhaps, spoilers for older films aren't entirely useless.

[–] EmilMuzz 11 years ago

I usually will watch the whole series 1-2 times a year. Makes sorting monster boxes of baseball cards easier. The only parts that bore me are the Pug and Rhoda scenes.

Love or hate the show, Family Guy did a WoW spoof episode (Road to Germany) a couple of years ago. Was ROFLing thoughout the whole show.

- or so the Germans would have us believe...

[–] thbryn 11 years ago

Happy 30th anniversary (to those it applies to)

I hope to see it again this summer. Missed the 1983 date (a time in commercial TV gone forever).

[–] waldenpond88 7 years ago

The chemistry between Ali MacGraw and Jan-Michael Vincent was the most obvious I've ever noticed on the small screen or big screen (even more than in "Love Story").
I congratulate Dan Curtis for bringing these two actors together!