World War II: When Lions Roared

The grand alliance of the United States, Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R. during World War II is portrayed through the personal contacts between the countries' leaders—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin—in this 1994 miniseries. As a work of popular history, filmmaker Joseph Sargent's World War II: When Lions Roared is reasonably effective, melding dramatic recreations with black-and-white archival footage (and linking narration) to fashion a simplified but essentially sound account of the military actions and diplomatic maneuvering that marked the conflict from 1939 to 1945. In dramatic terms, however, it's more problematic: while Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, and John Lithgow work very hard at mimicking Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, respectively, all ultimately seem to be playing dress-up. The script, fashioned as much as possible from the documented record, works well in the sections when the three characters actually meet (as at the Yalta Conference near the close), or in the episodes where Churchill is addressing the House of Commons, or Roosevelt is talking with his trusted aide Harry Hopkins (Ed Begley, Jr.), or Stalin is conversing with Molotov (Jan Triska). Much less convincing are the frequent points during which characters simply mouth the words of letters and telegrams as though they were part of direct conversations. Still, while this three-hour telefilm—presented on an extra-less two-disc set—is hardly a masterpiece, it does serve as a decent general introduction to the strategic side of the war, as well as a showcase for its three somewhat miscast but nevertheless impressive stars. Recommended. (F. Swietek)