ABC – The Liners: A Voyage of Discovery (1997) – Part 2: Ships of War
English | Documentary | Size: 1.16 GB
Ocean liners were far more than simply giant ships that carried passengers across the seas. They were bold statements of national power and technological might; pawns in a giant, volatile game of one-upmanship between rival nations. Like rocket ships in the space race of the 1970s, liners were the symbols of ultimate power in the early struggle between the superpowers for dominance of the world.
The Liners is a unique and exciting four-part series exploring the History of the World’s Great Passenger ships, the lines that operated them and the remarkable people they carried. The Liners tells for the first time the global story of these great ships — an epic story inextricably linked with epic world events. t’s a remarkable voyage from the earliest days of the first paddle-wheeled superliner; through their use in times of war as well as peace; into the present and beyond, for a preview of giant ocean-going cities already in the advanced planning stages.
With a combination of superb archive footage, expert commentary and fascinating interviews this series is much more than simply a story about big, beautiful ships. It is a saga of the volatile changing world of the last 150 years, a world in which these giant transoceanic people movers became the conduit for enormous technological, social and political change.
Directed, Written and Edited by Peter Butt ; Rob McAuley Production with Channel Four, The Learning Channel, Primetime/Pathe and Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Part 2: Ships of War
Ships of War focuses firstly on the invaluable role that ocean liners played during the First World War, from Winston Churchill ( who was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time ) ‘taking the attack to Germany’ and the huge vessels being used as ‘hospital ships’, all the way to the sinking of the Lusitania and the subsequent entry of the Americans into the war. The programme then moves into the immediate post-war years as the greatest migration of people in history, from the old world to the new, continued. The Roaring Twenties really roared and the rich had never had it so good, and the introduction of prohibition saw the liners capitalise by offering ‘booze cruises to nowhere’. Then in 1927 France introduced the Ile de France, and a new era in liners began. It was now not so important what the liner looked like from the outside, but more how they were fitted and decorated on the inside. This was the dawn of the Art Deco era and new luxury liners that excluded taste and style would re-define sea travel forever.
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