Word: wouk
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Among the major roles, Pug Henry was supposed to be solid and authoritative enough to stand alongside Presidents, Prime Ministers and dictators, yet young enough, 50 or so, to look like a rising naval officer. According to Wouk's book, he should also be shorter than his wife. The choice: the cool, laconic Mitchum, who is 65 and 6 ft. 1 in., but radiates authority with every word he does not speak...
...woman who played Natalie Jastrow was supposed to be about 33, "a big, dark Jewish girl," in Wouk's words. He wanted her so Jewish-looking that her ethnic background would be immediately obvious in several key scenes. The choice: MacGraw, who, though she claims some Jewish ancestry, does not look Jewish. She is honest enough to admit to being 43, but she looks ten years younger...
...making of The Winds of War was almost as full of hazards as a real war, and there were infinite opportunities for things to go wrong. Wouk's script ran 962 pages, contained 1,785 scenes and called for 285 speaking parts, along with thousands of extras. It was shot in 267 locations, in six countries and on two continents, and it took 13 months to film and twelve more to edit. There were about 50,000 costumes, and Mitchum alone had 112 changes. When the cameras stopped, Curtis had 1 million ft., or 185 hrs. of film, which...
...same might be said of Wouk. His plot is sometimes cumbersome and contrived. The wedding of Natalie's Polish relatives, for ex ample, looks as if it had been borrowed from Fiddler on the Roof, and the timing, the night before the German invasion, is ludicrous. His dialogue is often wooden. "Why did you insist on marrying me?" Natalie asks Byron. "We could have made love as much as you wanted. But now you've tied me to you on this rope of burning nerves." Furthermore, in all the hours of script there is scarcely a glint...
Still, with a little help from history, Wouk and Curtis do create an engrossing narrative. In most historical dramas, the depictions of real events often seem staged, while the author's inventions seem real. In The Winds of War, the reverse is true. The historical scenes, some of them scrupulously copied from old newsreels, are vivid and acute, while the fictional scenes sometimes look stiff and awkward. But those moments pass and the story takes over, building up momentum as it approaches its tragic conclusion, hour after hour after hour. Meanwhile, ABC hopes for a happier ending...