This TV mini-series starts from March 1939. Victor 'Pug' Henry (Robert Mitchum) is the new US Naval attaché in Berlin. On board the trans-Atlantic crossing, he meets traditional German General Armin von Roon (Jeremy Kemp) and Pamela Tudsbury (Victoria Tennant). His wife Rhoda (Polly Bergen) has a flirtatious affair with Palmer Kirby (Peter Graves). His oldest son Warren (Ben Murphy) is in the Navy. His second son Byron (Jan-Michael Vincent) goes to work for author Aaron Jastrow (John Houseman) in Italy. He joins the niece Natalie Jastrow (Ali MacGraw) on a trip to Poland for her Jewish family wedding meeting patriarch Berel Jastrow (Topol) and then the Nazis invade. They seek help from her boyfriend embassy bureaucrat Leslie Slote (David Dukes) forming a love triangle. Pug returns to America as President Roosevelt's secret adviser and finds his youngest daughter Madeline (Lisa Eilbacher) working for CBS. The cast of characters encounters the wide ranging historical drama that is highlighted by Hitler's scenes climaxing with the attack on Pearl Habor and the Phillippines.This is an epic TV miniseries. The cast is headed by the great Robert Mitchum. Some may dismiss Jan-Michael Vincent's acting skills and the elderly Ali MacGraw. Vicent was 80s hot and MacGraw still had her charms. The story covers most of the major historical aspects. It may be too convenient in sending its major characters to the various hot spots. However it's done very well for an 80s TV miniseries. That also includes the action considering it's pre-CGI. There are plenty of extras and the sets are big for TV. Overall, it's a vast sprawling epic hitting all the important points of history.

Well, a prologue for the USA anyway. The war had been going on for two years before our enemies attacked us.Mitchum and his family are our eyes and ears as things heat up overseas and in the White House. As a favorite of President Roosevelt, Victor "Pug" Henry gets to meet just about everyone of importance. I mean, he chats over breakfast with Roosevelt; he gets drunk with Stalin.Throughout it all, he's a man of genuine principle and something of a bore. He only insults people twice -- once when someone suggests a double date with a woman not his wife, and another when a German bureaucrat offers him a bribe. Otherwise, he sits and listens, intently and politely, something Mitchum was very good at doing.His wife, Rhoda, played by Polly Bergen, is a chatterbox and an airhead, easily impressed by pomp. She was the same character in Wouk's novel, which is at least as interesting as history as it is a story about characters.However, like "War and Remembrance", it sprawls all over the place like a fly on the wall with hundreds of lenses in its eyes. The story follows Mitchum's extended family and certain political notables all over Europe. Some, like Churchill and Von Roon, are rendered well. Hitler is a made-up stereotype, a cartoonish figure who lacks the charisma he had in the novel. Poor Gunter Meisner, who is saddled with the role, has had make up turn him into Frankenstein's monster as if, without the hint, we wouldn't understand that he's a bad guy.Wouk was a naval officer in World War II and served aboard several minesweepers in the Pacific theater. I love his "The Caine Mutiny" and re-read it every few years. It's focused on the character arc of one person, Willie Keith, and has practically no political overtones, although it has enough action and insight to satisfy whoever sits on the Pulitzer Prize committee.Willie Keith's romance is neatly sketched in and parallels his development as a man. Here, the romance is all over the place, compounded with pregnancy and allegiances that form cross currents. Rhoda has an affair with a peregrinating scientist. Pug is attracted to a much younger woman. Ali McGraw once loved Sloat but now she loves Byron, and she's a Jew and he's some kind of high-church Protestant. Gosh. Will it all work out? Mitchum is fine as Captain Henry. He has little to do except sit there with no expression on his face while someone voices an opinion. Wouk had one problem, here and elsewhere, that he seems unable to overcome. He simply CANNOT get inside the heads of any enlisted men. I don't know what the author's background was. He sounds working class when he speaks, yet he's a graduate of Columbia. But he seems far more comfortable with the upper echelon. I speak to you as an ex radioman second class.Whatever its flaws, it's an ambitious story and reflects an awesome amount of research, as well as some twisting of history for dramatic purposes.

This is an attempt to produce a big epic about World War II. Its strengths are the location shooting, with lots of variety of settings, costumes and background incidentals, a huge cast of extras to make city and crowd scenes effective, and a story that weaves the narratives of a number of individuals into the great events of World War II.It does not, however, have much in the way of special effects or the kind of spectacle that we're generally used to seeing in big war movies. We see the bombing of Warsaw, for example, by watching two characters sitting on a couch with some plaster falling from the ceiling while the sound track plays booming noises. Completely inadequate.The worst weaknesses are in the acting. (I do wonder, though, whether maybe the bad acting had something to do with weaknesses in the script, as Wouk was not exactly a Shakespeare.) In any case, two of the main females, Ali McGraw and Polly Bergen, are immensely irritating. While McGraw is the chief love interest, she does not manage to make herself in the least bit attractive. In order to make her character appear spoiled and willful, McGraw makes far too much of a very annoying self-satisfied smirk and a way of flouncing around that made me want to scream "Stop!" Polly Bergen plays an older woman, wife of the protagonist, Robert Mitchum, who in the middle of very serious political situations is concerned only with the surface of things. She could have made the character someone you felt a little sorry for because of her shallowness, her pathetic failure to grasp the world around her, but in Bergen's characterization she becomes someone for whom I felt only anger and contempt. Mitchum has always had more screen presence than acting ability; in The Winds of War he makes very little use of what acting ability he does have, most of the time merely looking like Robert Mitchum. Jan-Michael Vincent, playing one of McGraw's love interests, seems only capable of looking handsome and occasionally raising an eyebrow as a mark of insubordination. John Houseman's elderly scholar speaks. like. THIS. pronouncing. each. word. SEPARATELY. and. EMPHASIZING. about. every. THIRD. word. in. a. MOST. annoying. WAY. The director thought that the right way to depict David Dukes as a career diplomat who might not be quite as manly as the big, brave soldiers around him was to have him carry a pipe absolutely every second of his life. All this bad acting seriously undercuts the tone of the film.As long as I am listing annoyances, I must mention the music whenever the U.S. president is about to come on stage, or even when Mitchum picks up a letter from the president. The music is heavenly, prayerful, worshipful in an offputting, even disgusting way--not so very different, in fact, from the kind of musical accompaniment you might get in a North Korean propaganda film about Great Leader Kim Il Sung. Horrid moments.All in all, the movie is worth watching because it includes so much historical background and for the variety of scenes. For me, though, the enjoyment came at a significant cost.

I first watched this miniseries when it was broadcast on TV and I videotaped it at the time. When it came out on DVD, I rented it several times from my public library. Finally, I bit the bullet and purchased the DVD set for myself. Needless to say, I have watched the 'Winds of War' many times. I also own the book, which I read before I ever watched the miniseries. Of course, there are some differences between the book and the miniseries, but nothing that matters. Robert Mitchum is perfectly cast as Pug Henry. Can't think of anyone else for that part. Polly Bergen is perfect as Pug's wife Rhoda, too, and the rest of the cast seems true to their characters. Bergen's wardrobe is gorgeous. Rhoda is a fashion plate in every scene. Victoria Tennant shines as the much younger Pamela Tudsbury. Very beautiful. Contrary to some other reviewers,I really liked Ali McGraw as Natalie Jastrow and was disappointed when she was replaced by Jane Seymour in the sequel 'War and Remembrance.' One thing the book didn't have that the TV series has is the great background music. Awesome. Don't miss 'The Winds of War' if it is ever rebroadcast or try to borrow it from your public library. Don't miss