Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-tn8tq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-27T04:34:16.520Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2024

Get access

Summary

The National Broadcasting Company launched its long-awaited World War II documentary program Victory at Sea on 26 October 1952, when America was mired in a “police action” conflict of ideologies in Korea. Victory wasn't US television's first such WWII series, but it quickly captivated both critics and viewers. Television, not yet in color then, was rapidly expanding across the United States; by 1953, half of the country's homes would have receivers.

Each week, Victory's audience viewed a skillfully edited array of wartime footage, much of it shot in combat by US armed forces cameramen or taken from military training films. The perspective, however, wasn't solely American. Newsreel and battle footage was sourced from fourteen different nations, including the Axis powers Germany, Japan, and Italy who had fought the Allies around the globe.

The twenty-six Victory episodes weren't war college studies or history lessons for the uninitiated. All but the youngest of Victory's 1952–53 viewers had experienced WWII either in military service or on the home front, and they remembered Pearl Harbor, Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Normandy, Yalta, and Hiroshima from the war years’ headlines. Each installment aimed not to be a blow-by-blow documentary, but rather to take a compelling and emotional approach to its subject.

Victory's producer Henry Salomon sought to let the filmed sequences speak for themselves as much as possible, with terse and often poetic scripts. Sound effects were few, with some episodes using none whatsoever. What audiences mostly heard was the music: a non-stop score credited to Richard Rodgers, as arranged for orchestra by Robert Russell Bennett. Bennett, too, conducted the hallowed NBC Symphony Orchestra's musicians at the soundtrack recording sessions.

NBC had funded Victory with expectations of modest post-1953 returns in syndicated re-runs, but the series’ durability shattered expectations, eventually being aired in dozens of countries on six continents. The music proved to have notable staying power independently; three LP records of orchestral excerpts generated strong sales for RCA, the first becoming a $1million-selling “Gold Record.” Richard Rodgers was known worldwide in the early 1950s for his stage musicals, especially Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, and The King and I, and Victory at Sea added a new dimension to his celebrity.

Victory is now celebrating its seventieth birthday. Its several decades as NBC's valuable syndication property were followed by home video and then online access, making it available to seemingly anyone, anytime.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Music for Victory at Sea
Richard Rodgers, Robert Russell Bennett, and the Making of a TV Masterpiece
, pp. vii - viii
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Preface
  • George J. Ferencz
  • Book: The Music for <i>Victory at Sea</i>
  • Online publication: 10 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800109575.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Preface
  • George J. Ferencz
  • Book: The Music for <i>Victory at Sea</i>
  • Online publication: 10 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800109575.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • George J. Ferencz
  • Book: The Music for <i>Victory at Sea</i>
  • Online publication: 10 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800109575.001
Available formats
×