Ron,
Certain parts of it are on video. I recently ordered a tape of the 34th
Infantry Division and its activities in North Africa and Italy during W.W.II.
My Dad was in the 34th then and I recently retired from it, so I thought that
we would both enjoy the tape. Turned out to be a copy of "The Big Picture"
from sometime in the early 50's. Very wooden dialog, poorly delivered by a
Master Sergeant and a Colonel. We enjoyed the footage of the 34th, and my Dad
has shown it to the few remaining survivors of the Battalion that he was in.
I think, though, that we have become accustomed to more professionally
produced programs on the History Channel and The Learning Channel. The Big
Picture was produced by the Army and was not very professionally done, by
today's standards. I to have wondered why some channel hasn't begun to rerun
it. Having recently seen an example of the quality of the program, I suspect
that the network owners simply came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be
very well received. That is not to say that there wouldn't be interest in the
program concept. I think that the History Channel could take the footage from
an old episode of The Big Picture, redo the dialog and have it spoken by a
qualified announcer, and maybe add some up-to-date graphics, and they would
have a real winner on their hands.
John
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 23:18:31 PDT