I am revisiting this series after not having watched it since it was a mini-series on TV so many years ago. I cannot believe how bad Ali McGraw is! I honestly thinks she effects the other actors. Despite that, I am really enjoying it.
shareExactly. IAC, it amazes me they would choose a woman in her mid-40s to play a woman in her mid 20s when she looks her actual age. As for her acting. she is like a mother mimicking her college-age daughter.
shareI swear, you can see her saying the other actor's lines in her head. I'll bet if the camera zoomed in close enough, you could acually see her lips moving. Above all, I think it is that constant smirk that annoys me the most. BTW - one of the funniest movies of all time is, "Love Story." Ali at her comedic best. Love means never having to say you're sorry for being such a pathetic actress.
shareI have the dvd set of both W of W and W & R.you have to see how MISCAST Jane Seymour is and then you'll think more of Ali and Jan Michael. Except for the "prancing" by Ali...she really wasn't as bad as first reviews. You get used to her after watching it about two dozen times! She wouldn't have made it in War and Rememberance though...but why Curtis selected a "beauty" like Seymour is beyound me.
Stanmajor:
Interesting perspective. Thanks. I am renting the Winds of War DVD's from Netflix so it might be a few weeks till I have seen the whole thing. I will let you know what I think of Jane Seymour. She HAS to be better than Ali. What is your overall opinion of the series? I haven't seen it since it was first out but I remember loving it. That is obviously why I am revisting it.
The first series...Winds Of War is incredible (even with Ali!) It is beyond doubt the finest mini-series ever...beating some pretty good ones like..Shogan and the Thornbirds, Blue & Gray etc. Mitchum is awsome...but Victora Tennant was delectible.....fell in love with her overnight. David Dukes...Peter Graves Jan Michael and of course Polly Bergan...who really did a job in the second series. Her drunk scene with Pug in W&R has to go down as one of the most compelling of its type ever filmed.She should have won an Emmy(if they had em at the time) The whole cast was something remarkable...everyone.
War and Rememberance was well...different. Really long...needed a good editor(or script)...far too much submarine stuff and...I know not popular to criticize...but in my opinion far too much final solution. Because of this we missed some pretty big things. They put Patton in as an afterthought. Hess' flight to England barely mentioned. Other stuff that should have been included. If Himmler betrayed Hitler we'd like to know when and how. A lot of the main characters just disappeared in the final few hours of a long long mini series.
In short...both are worth watching...but if you have to make a choice...it's Winds of War and not race.
Enjoy.
I think Curtis liked beautiful women. From his commentary for the DVD I infer he cast McGraw first and everything else afterwards, and despite what he says about her, she looks ever bit her age at the time. Beautiful but not young. Vincent was picked in part because a young actor would have made her maturity apparent. He looks considerably older than Murphy. Mitchum was picked, despite his age, because they needed a star, and none around the age of 50 was available. Say what you will, Mitchum dominates every scene he is in.
shareI agree with stanmajor. Jane Seymour didn't have charisma, but MacGraw sure did! I enjoy every single scene with her and think this was her best role ever. And regarding MacGraw's age...I had no clue that she was in her mid forties, to me she looked like late twenties/early thirties.
share
Here we go again with the Ali McGraw bashing. It's OK, of course, as everyone is entitled to their opinion, and it seems like quite a few people hate her in the role....I seem to be one of the very few who likes her. I think she and Jan-Michael Vincent have really great chemistry. As I wrote in another thread:
Sometimes I think I am the only McGraw/Vincent fan (in these roles) on the planet. Theirs is my all-time favorite screen romance. I think they had great chemistry. McGraw was the feisty, headstrong, stubborn, yet vulnerable, Natalie. Vincent was the alienated, angry, yet talented Byron. Vincent also did a great job portraying Byron's complicated relationship with Pug.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085112/board/flat/103699084
As for Jane Seymour/Hart Bochner, I think they did a fine job, but it does take some getting used to. It took me several viewings to really be able to honestly evaluate them, as I really wanted McGraw/Vincent in these roles. But once I was able to get past that, I must say that Seymour/Bochner did a very fine job--perhaps it was Seymour's greatest performance ever, though I haven't seen everything she's done.
This space intentionally left blank
well said...although I might add that I doubt Ali could have handled all the really heavy stuff in War and Rememberance but I just don't think Seymour was a good pick. Jan Michael gave Curtis too much trouble so I think they both wanted to part ways. I was VERY unimpressed by Hart Bochner. Surely there must have been someone else floating around in Hollywood who could have done better.also it was a shame Ben Murphy was dropped. He and Sharon Stone would have made a heck of a couple.
shareI am convinced that Ali McGraw is the worst actress ever. I am literally translating each of her scenes in my head to that of a good actress. From doing that, I can tell it's not the dialogue that's bad.
Just glad Ali and Chuck Norris were never in a flick together!
She has virtually zero acting abilities - even in her smash Love Story! You don't have to have talent to have celebrity...
shareI have just started watching the series and to be honest, she is pretty bad. I have yet to read the books and I never saw Love Story, so I am really watching her for the first time. She goes from zero to over the top every other scene, maybe it is how she is written and maybe this was not the role for her. But while watching her, she comes off as someone with a death wish. I am also on the 2nd disc, what comes to mind is her being upset in the bombing of Warsaw. Screaming, how they can do this. In that scene, i wanted to scream "Everyone told you not to go but you had to be stubborn, please evil Nazis, take her out"
The minute God crapped out the third caveman, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them!
I am almost through with the sequel, War and Remberance and it is so good! As bad as McGraw was, it is still hard to adjust to Jane Seymour although she does a very good job. An infinitely better actress than McGraw but you get the faces of characters in your head. If you have not seen War and Rememberance, I hope you will. The scene with Natalie and her son with the two Nazis where she is begging for her Son's life is painfully memorable. It really stayed with me. It made me wonder how humans can be so cruel towards one another. Hell, the whole series makes me wonder.
share[deleted]
Thanks for the suggestion. I am so damned frustrated! I rent movies from Netflix and it appears that I mixed them up. I don't think I saw the last War and Rememberance episode but I can't tell. When you are done with it, please let me know how it ends so I can tell if I did see the last one or not. It is the best mini series I have ever watched hands down.
share[deleted]
[deleted]
I agree. Ali makes me cringe everytime she's on the screen. The overemphasis on some words - it's like a drama student who has been told to put some variety into her delivery and thinks that if she emphasisis every third word it will work. It's too bad since that storyline is fascinating.
Vincent does a far better job and helps save the scenes.
Jane Seymore was a far better Natalie. I would have liked to see what she would have done with the Winds of War. It actually seemed like two different characters although a lot of that can be attribute to Natalie becoming a mother and her main concern would have been her son instead of having adventure. Seymore was also beautiful, something that I didn't see in Ali although they kept saying it throughout the movie. Good grief, Seymore was so beautiful that they couldn't make her ugly no matter how they tried with the make-up, and it was her beauty that saved her from the gas chambers. In fact it made her look all the more haunting when she survived the horrors she went through. I don't think Ali could have handled the War and Remembrance Natalie.
Hart was fine in his part. There wasn't great chemistry between him and Seymore, but there wasn't much chance for it. He does a wonderful job in the scenes when he finds Louis. Other than that he does lack the emotion and twinkle that Vincent had. However again we're dealing with characters that change due to war and the light heartedness that the Winds of War Byron had was changed when Byron had to go to war and take on heavy responsibilities.
I think that Hart and Jane were the better couple mainly because of the train wreck that Ali was.
[deleted]
I disagree, ali and vincent where great together and I was very dispointed in thier replacements. Whenever I saw seymore and Horst together I kept wanting to see ali and vincent. Ali and vincent reminded me of my marraige (a little bickering before making up.. But I enjoyed all three segments, even thou the 2nd and 3rd parts were long, especially the the final solution parts. But they were really needed, dont you think?
ED
[deleted]
In my opinion Ali McGraw was not suitable for the role Natalie, she did not look the character's age. Also, she had her way of Jennifer in Love Story (chin up and looking down) and I didn't find that fit either.
I am a fan of Robert Mitchum, it was really nice to see him in this movie.
Ali McGraw was a model, not an actress, that really says it all.
shareAli McGraw's three movies from 1969-1971 saved Paramount Studios. While filming Love Story, she married Robert Evans, the film producer at Paramount who brought the studio from 9th to 1st. Evans had been ousted by the time of this miniseries but Ali must have had some pull with the studio.
I think Ali would have been a good choice 10-20 years earlier. She was 30 years old when she became a star, playing college-aged women.
But, I felt she was stilted in this series.
"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne
Agree completely. Just watched it again and I had forgotten what a terrible acting job she does in an otherwise wonderful series. She seems to be continuing the same Love Story smart ass Radcliffe girl character. But she looks OLD. Maybe the camera was getting too close. They could have done much better casting someone else. She was supposed to look older than Byron, but not look like his mother!
But again the series is amazing and a production level that economically could not be repeated today.
Just watched this again, not since I was a child back in the 80s. Personal reason - some family members were extras in one of the "on location" scenes.
Had to come by and see if anyone else thought either
a. Ali MacGraw sucks as an actress
or
b. Ali MacGraw was woefully miscast as a beautiful woman
I see I was not the only one thinking these thoughts.
MacGraw was cute for like 20 minutes. Back in the 70s. This movie was made in the 80s. There would have been many other actresses they could have cast at the time who would have been far superior and credible in the role.
No offense and nothing personal - but I now have to watch War and Remembrance to get another woman's face in my mind's eye of Natalie.
Savoir, c'est pouvoir
I was just coming here to say the same thing. She's awful!
I can understand the character being a bit headstrong - but she's ridiculous. UGH!!
Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it
If anybody can make Steve McQueen look bad like she did in Getaway they have to be pretty bad. One of the reasons you should keep your spouse or girlfriend out of movies. Peter Bogdanovich put Cybil Sheppard in lead roles in his movies. She actually turned out to be a ok actress after many years. And he was ready to work on Dorothy Stratton before she was murdered.
shareI must say I agree with your take on Ali McGraw, she just gave me the impression of a spoiled brat who needed a spanking and then sent to her room. She didn't come off as "feisty" at all, Victoria Tennant was feisty without being totally obnoxious about it.
I enjoyed the series so much more when Ali McGraw wasn't in the scene!