"The American Experience" is always a good, well made and interesting show and "The Boys of '36" is worth seeing. However, it clearly is one of the weakest installments for the series for many reasons...the chief one being that the show never really explains WHY this is an important event that should be remembered. The show SEEMS to imply that this gold medal winning rowing team somehow showed the world something...though it really didn't. Buried underneath the show's hoopla for this team and its brief mention of Jesse Owens is one fact about the 1936 Summer Olympics...the Germans DID win it and out-medaled everyone. Sure, Owens took a few medals and the rowers also brought home one...but in the scheme of things, so what?! The Germans STILL had 27 more medals than the runner up (the USA), so I cannot see how this is a particularly important topic and of course other countries and athletes won medals. If you can ignore this, the film is still well made and modestly entertaining....but not much more.
