The Big Picture (TV series)

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The Big Picture is an American television series produced by the United States Army from 1951 to 1964 and broadcast by ABC . The half-hour documentary films broadcast weekly dealt with military training, recent war history and the biographies of well-known soldiers. After the broadcast on ABC ended, it was exploited by local television stations until the early 1970s. The exact number of productions is apparently unknown, but is in the hundreds.

production

Kaufman Studio 35 Av 35 St sun jeh

The films were made by the United States Army Signal Corps in the old Astoria stages (now Kaufman Astoria Studios in the New York borough of Queens ). The films were often introduced by Sergeant Stuart Queen (1919–1981), who also lent the narrative voice. Originally the series was produced on black and white film in 35 mm format , later in color on 16 mm film . As further moderators or speakers, u. a. Henry Fonda , Walter Matthau , Ronald Reagan (at the time still pronounced “Riegen” and not “Rägen”), Walter Cronkite , Raymond Massey and Alexander Scourby .

subjects

In the individual episodes, the various branches of arms were presented such. B. the Special Forces in Special Forces . The program, produced in 1962, was moderated by Henry Fonda, who traces the history of unconventional warfare or guerrillas back to the Indian Wars. In Phantom Fighters from 1959, the collaboration between the 10th Special Forces Command stationed in Bad Tölz and German partisans is staged in the context of a stay-behind exercise . In addition to historical programs on World War II and the Korean War , the Cold War was thematized, later the Vietnam War . A number of biopics were also produced about well-known US Army generals .

The 1962 produced episode Caribbean Command derives its title from the United States Southern Command in Panama (1948-1963 Caribbean Command ). Subsequently, the training of members of numerous Latin American countries in the School of the Americas is shown, as well as images of Fort Gulick, Fort Sherman and Quarry Heights. The background to the production was the Operation Solidarity maneuver carried out in Panama in March 1961 , in which units of the US Army and the armed forces of Panama, Colombia and Peru trained to defend against a suspected communist attack. The maneuver was observed by numerous delegations of Latin American armed forces. The visit of the nuclear submarine USS Seawolf to Panama City , on which government officials are received, is also shown.

USS Nautilus (SSN-571) and USS Seawolf (SSN-575) in 1957

Members of the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua , the armed forces of Mexico and Haiti are also represented at the closing parade . Recordings for training in counterinsurgency in the Jungle Warfare Training Center are particularly rare . Latin American armed forces also practice so-called riot control . The exercise ends with a montage of images of the Statue of Liberty in the canal zone and a monument to the Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa in Panama City, which is intended to underline the joint military efforts to preserve a common way of life .

Lore

Apparently there is no complete production list. Since the films were produced by the government, they were supposedly in the public domain from the outset . Numerous episodes have been released on DVD since the early 2000s and can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet archive . Therefore, many episodes are also posted on YouTube .

Web links