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Post by yankee on Oct 14, 2019 22:20:48 GMT
I think we often assume over here that Americans don't like anything that doesn't have Americans in it cos this happens so often. Especially with WW2 stuff. Which was often annoying to people who actually had parents who went through the war. Especially when Hollywood had Americans winning battles they weren't even in. I remember my Dad having a proper strop a few times!  That makes good sense and that was particularly true in the John Wayne era. I think Hollywood became more introspective and less jingoistic after Vietnam (the Green Berets, We Were Soldiers and The Patriot not withstanding!) |
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Post by beverley61 on Oct 15, 2019 12:38:19 GMT
Oh do tell, who did Jan tell about the marriage? Lesley Manville or Sean Bean? Has much time lapsed then if he can speak English now? I have given up but this little snippet does interest me! Lesley Manville. Apparently not much time has elapsed. He still seems to speak very little English, but enough to reveal this piece of info. And more titbits, his English girlfriend who joined ENSA is having his baby and he knows because she was touring France and met up with him. |
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Post by beverley61 on Oct 15, 2019 12:39:54 GMT
There was a really funny line when he was explaining to his sergeant that he had a wife in Poland and that the singer was his ex-girlfriend who was having his baby and the sergeant said "Funny that sir, cos we was thinking of having a bet on whether you were a virgin or not"!!!!
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Post by marion on Oct 15, 2019 14:26:12 GMT
I thought she would get pregnant!
It sounds like it has perked up a bit since I abandoned ship. But I shan't come back as it would probably go downhill immediately, lol.
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Post by beverley61 on Oct 16, 2019 11:41:45 GMT
It's not the best Marion, I'll give you that, but it's better than some of the other things on offer.
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Post by goodhelenstar on Oct 16, 2019 12:45:42 GMT
I gave up after the first episode. Haven't been tempted back by anything I've read here! Nothing especially bad, just rather dull which, given the subject matter, is a pity.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2019 12:52:47 GMT
I was about to pan this because of unlikely coincidences and happenings and then I recalled war tales of people I knew. My father, a frontline medic met his brother in law taking despatches on a remote Italian mountain road - both in a rush with little time to chat beyond astonished greetings..... and by coincidence both received Mentioned in Despatches oakleaf awards for what they next did that day. And in this small world, an American first cousin was billeted down the road and then there was the child bullying - I recall being told by girls whose German mother was abandoned by their British father in 1936 suffering all hell here at a local village school for years. War is cruel, people are cruel and war is people - and coincide ever amazes. I'll stick with the series and try not to mutter too much opinion as it unfurls several story lines and assorted attitudes.
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Post by beverley61 on Oct 16, 2019 14:17:47 GMT
Yes there are coincidences. My aunt a nurse, had gone out with a junior doctor for about a year, he moved to Wales for a consultant post and they lost touch or it petered out. They met again at a concentration camp in Germany at the end of the war, some of the first in the liberation teams. They married after the war.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2019 15:59:06 GMT
And their shared and really awful experience was more bonding than the experience of others who cannot share experience and suffer. Actually everyone suffers. My father returned a different. and for a long time, a problem person. It is difficult to appraise war films because we bring along much baggage from seeing others. Even war correspondents in actual situations cannot always be believed. I know one who wrote reports that were broadcast wirldwide and he was 1000 miles away using stringers. And some of us who were there and in it made damn sure that others were told of that and the truth. He ended up with a desk job in a cupboard I am told.
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Post by undertheparapet on Oct 16, 2019 19:46:46 GMT
Well, I’ve just watched the first 3eps and, as usual, it’s the small things that spoil it for me.
Charlie Creed-Miles and Harry Chase, our romantic lead (translator) are both working for the Foreign Office in 1939, but both are wearing soft shirt collars and have estuary accents and Harry has floppy, unrestrained hair with no trace of brylcreem or fine tooth comb and decent parting. Extraordinary!
Sean Bean’s family live in Longsight, Manchester, but when you go inside the house, it has a hallway that is about 40ft long.
No!
Do the Chases also live in, or just outside, Manchester? Why? And where are their domestic staff at the beginning? No war work at that point.
How did Harry end up at the same blackshirt rally as Lois? No-one in their right mind would go there alone and start chanting.
Why don’t we see anyone feeding coal fires, a pretty constant activity at that point.
Why didn’t they dub (the actress playing) Lois’s singing voice or get an actress who can actually sing band music? Most disappointing.
Why wouldn’t Kasia be instructed to avoid being seen leaving her cafe with ordinary soldiers and surely it would be better to pick Officers rather than 19year old Privates for assassination? Agree that shooting them would be noisy and a waste of ammunition.
At this point, as suggested by others, I can’t see any reason why Jan would have anything to do with anyone else. The rehabilitation of the chilly Mrs Chase and her growing affection for the poor lad, Jan, is sensitively written and handled and may be one of the best things in the series.
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Post by Delia on Oct 16, 2019 21:03:43 GMT
Oh do tell, who did Jan tell about the marriage? Lesley Manville or Sean Bean? Has much time lapsed then if he can speak English now? I have given up but this little snippet does interest me! It was very clever - she showed him a family photo and tried to explain the terms "husband" and "wife" - then he said his sisters name and Harry's and said "husband" ....... I think it's all improved somewhat. The part where the girl was asked to seduce a young soldier into coming with her into the ruins, so they could kill him, was a test to see if she could be so cold hearted. She found at first, that she couldn't be as wicked as their enemy, as the soldier was very young, but later she was hardened by events and will now be a formidable force to be reckoned with. If Harry ever gets to meet her again he will find her very changed. In a way, though, they are trying to fit way too much into this production. Which spoils it in the storytelling. |
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Post by beverley61 on Oct 22, 2019 11:41:31 GMT
Anyone still watching.
I think it would be too simple for Kasia to die in a raid or execution during the war. I think both women in his life need to survive just to keep the plot complex.
I am quite liking the burgeoning relationship with Sean and Harry's mother. Is that taking us somewhere?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2019 12:34:15 GMT
OOOH - errrrr Missus Cor!...… but yes, as I recall Sean Bean always manages to have a lie down somewhere with someone why else give him the part.
Otherwise, I guess we have to have as many possible scenarios as they can use. We hardly want the tedium of the long waits between action which is what servicemen say got them down. So pack it all in.....yeah!
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Post by beverley61 on Oct 22, 2019 17:32:32 GMT
I do think they have tried to tick too many boxes with this.
I am presuming that the US doctor has some role overall that links with another character rather than just being gay, in France and helping the resistance or something. Wondering if Harry ends up in his hospital. Otherwise his stort is superfluous.
I also think we could have done without the US journalist who would have undoubtedly been told to leave the country by now.
I also think everyone is taking Lois's pregnancy very calmly and didn't buy that her father would guess.
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Post by geometryman on Oct 22, 2019 17:46:58 GMT
Those two Poles (one of which is another brother of Kasia) who have now joined up with the British in Belgium - weren't they fleeing from Russian soldiers in eastern Poland last week? So they've managed to get half way across occupied Poland and all the way across Germany itself to end up in Belgium, on foot and without getting caught. Pretty good going, since that's hundreds of miles!
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Anymore to come?
