A Great War find in a Charity Shop

[Anneca]

My car was in the garage for a valet and winter health check the other day so I put in the time by browsing around what shops now remain in the local High Street. Sadly most now seem to be charity shops so I looked through the books. In one shop I came across an 8 DVD Box Set of The Great War 1914-1918 distributed by Green Umbrella. What a find I thought for only £8. On returning home I found the eight DVD’s inside were entitled The Great War:

1914: To Arms

1915: Death in Foreign Fields

1916: Stalemate

1917: The Breaking of Armies

1918: Germany’s Last Gamble

Land Warfare Technology

Air Power Technology

Sea Power Technology

So far I have watched the first four and have found the whole thing very rushed and a lot of the action skimmed over. Considering they have tried to cram each year into an hour’s DVD this is understandable but what I found most annoying was the commentary at lot of the time was drowned out by the noise of small arms fire and artillery barrage to the extent of not being heard at all. However I was impressed by the very clear original footage on the film. Overall I felt this DVD set of approx. 6 hours 45 mins. would be ideal for using as an introduction to the Great War into the classroom, but a disappointment to me, having watched the BBC 1964 Great War 7 DVD Box Set, running time over 18 hours, several times. I should add that I am still very pleased to have made the purchase and supported the charity.

If anyone else has come across this DVD Box Set I would be interested to hear their opinion of it.

Anne

[paulgranger]

It's listed on Amazon as 'The Great War 1914-1918', £6.96, hmmm. There are several user reviews, none of which are particularly enthusiastic. Good but not great, as one of them says. I don't recall ever watching it, so i've no personal opinion

[jwp2007]

These were selling a couple of years ago in my local Morrisons supermarket as two box sets, the 14-18 in one the other 3 in another, think i paid £3.99 for the 14-18 set,

Anne , I agree with all you say and for me the most annoying thing is the machine gunfire and exploding shells dubbed on to every one of the dvd's drowning out the commentary , I found it hard to make it out.

John.

[Anneca]

I'm not surprised at the reviews Paul. John I'm glad you agree with me about the annoying machine gunfire - I was starting to think something had happened to my ears - and yes, I also found the whole commentary hard to make out. £3.99 for the 14-18 set indeed!!! Not to worry my money went to a good cause.

Anne