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Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Actor: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Director: Speechworks
Genres: Educational, Documentary
G     2006     0hr 45min

Original footage of dramatic speeches, from Fireside Chats to addresses before Congress, from the Great Depression to World War II, given by the only four-term President. (1933 - 1945)

     
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Movie Details

Actor: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Director: Speechworks
Genres: Educational, Documentary
Sub-Genres: Educational, History
Studio: Speechworks
Format: DVD - Color
DVD Release Date: 07/17/2006
Original Release Date: 01/01/2006
Theatrical Release Date: 01/01/2006
Release Year: 2006
Run Time: 0hr 45min
Screens: Color
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaDVD Credits: 1
Total Copies: 0
Members Wishing: 0
MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)
Languages: English
 

Movie Reviews

A valuable disc, but not so many snippets please
Paul Houle | Vancouver, Canada | 12/08/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is an especially useful disc for college and high school teachers as it provides 29 separate tracks of speech excerpts by Franklin Roosevelt. It's easy to play an individual track to illustrate a particular period or speech from F.D.R.'s eventful four-term administration. I particularly like his famous "Grilled Millionaire" speech from 1938 and his "Fala" speech from the 1944 campaign.

The disc is well edited and the excerpts carefully chosen. All of them appear, however, to have been copied (or scalped) from previous major documentaries done on Roosevelt over the past 10 to 15 years. Given that the total disc is only 45 minutes in length, why couldn't the producers have included more material and longer extracts? The disc credits the F.D.R. Presidential Library for assistance in the production. The library has extensive holdings of F.D.R. filmed material, including complete films (assembled from newsreel material) of such important speeches as the First Inaugural Address, the December 8, 1941 Pearl Harbour Address, the 1942 State of the Union Address and the 1941 Navy Day Address. How exciting it would have been if the producers of this disc had supplemented the excerpts with one or more of these complete items. There was certainly room on the DVD to do so.

Most of the excerpts seem to be dated correctly although I detect date errors on two tracks. Track 15 "Fishing Vacation" ("I'm a tough guy") should be from April 13, 1934, not from August 1939. Track 22 "Campaign for Defense Bonds" appears to be one day off - it should be from April 30, 1941 and not May 1, 1941. I base this on dates given in Roosevelt's Public Papers and Addresses. "Chautaugua" is misspelled on the disc label. It should be "Chautauqua" - where F.D.R. spoke in 1936 ("I hate war").

In summary, not a bad production, but in future please give us some complete speeches and more and longer extracts. Roosevelt was a wonderful speaker to listen to - and watch - and he deserves a fuller presentation than some of these short snippets. The staff at the F.D.R. Library can be really helpful in this regard."