The Rosie the Reviewer Podcast

Welcome to Rosie the Reviewer, a Dutch-Canadian female-led WW2 media podcast. A new episode airs every Friday!

Episodes

Find all Rosie the Reviewer episodes here.

Ep 104 – Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man – One War Too Many

This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we talk about Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (2026), directed by Tom Harper and written by Stephen Knight. The film serves as the finale of the Peaky Blinders TV series (2013-2022) and is set during World War II, following an ageing Tommy Shelby as he navigates Nazi counterfeit schemes, the Birmingham Blitz, and a son he barely knows. We get into the writing choices that don’t land, the female characters who deserved better, the real history of Operation Bernhard and the Birmingham Blitz, and what made the original series work, and why this film loses it.

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10/04/2026

Ep 103 – Beb, Bob, and The Bombardment – When Your Liberators Drop the Bombs

In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we’re joined by Lisa Koolhoven, Dutch historian and WWII Rotterdam bike tour guide, and Kristen Hayford, American-in-the-Netherlands, who joined forces to make the podcast Beb & Bob | Collateral Damage about their journey to discover whether their grandparents’ paths may have crossed in the Forgotten Bombing of Rotterdam by the Allies.

Together, we review The Shadow in My Eye (2021), a Danish film based on Operation Carthage, during which the RAF accidentally bombed a school in Copenhagen in March 1945.

We discuss the myth of the faultless liberator, what mainstream war media consistently refuses to show, and why the words ‘collateral damage’ carry so much weight.

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02/04/2026

Ep 101 – The Swedish Connection – Can Paperwork Save Lives in WWII?

In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss recent Netflix hit The Swedish Connection (2026), based on the true story of Swedish diplomat Gösta Engzell, who helped rescue Jewish people during World War II using the power of paperwork.
We also dive down the rabbit hole of a much smaller character in the film, but a real badass dude in real life: Raoul Wallenberg. (Can someone please make a movie about him, thanks?)

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20/03/2026

Ep 100 – So Proudly We Hail – US Army Nurses on Bataan and Corregidor

It’s our 100th episode and also Women’s History Month! So it’s only fitting that in this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss So Proudly We Hail (1943), a World War II film about American Army nurses during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941–1942. The story follows a group of nurses working in increasingly desperate conditions as the war closes in, from jungle hospitals on Bataan to the evacuation from Corregidor.
We also explore how the film reflects 1940s attitudes toward women, including Hollywood stereotypes, and obviously wartime propaganda. Along the way, we look at the real stories of the nurses on Bataan and Corregidor. These women kicked ass!

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13/03/2026

Ep 99 – Nr 24 – Gunnar Sønsteby, the Most Decorated Saboteur in Norway

Netflix’s Nr. 24 (2024) follows Gunnar Sønsteby, Norway’s most decorated citizen and one of the most effective resistance operatives in occupied Europe.

Tense from beginning to end, the film uses a sparse, near-ticking score and a documentary-style framing device to press a harder question: was it worth it? An elderly Sønsteby lectures students who have never known occupation, and what he chooses not to say is sometimes as revealing as what he does.

How do resistance stories shape national memory? And who gets left out of the telling?

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05/03/2026

Ep 98 – Land of Mine – Demining Denmark, 1945

This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we’re heading to the beaches of postwar Denmark with Land of Mine (2015), a Danish film about a young German POW crew tasked with clearing a mine-affected beach and the Danish sergeant who oversees the process. It’s tense, visually striking, and explores trauma, anger, humanity and innocence. A movie about what comes after.

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26/02/2026

Ep 97 – The Sound of Music – Edelweiss and the Anschluss

This week on Rosie the Reviewer, we’re tackling The Sound of Music (1965), directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. On the surface, it’s a sweeping musical about love, family, and catchy songs you’ve known since childhood. But watch it through a World War II lens and it’s surprisingly sharp.

We revisit the Von Trapps’ romance, the Anschluss, and the film’s portrayal of Austrian opposition to Nazism.

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20/02/2026

Ep 96 – I Was Monty’s Double – M. E. Clifton James’ Role of A Lifetime

In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss I Was Monty’s Double (1958), a British WWII film based on M.E. Clifton James’ memoir. The film tells the almost unbelievable story of an actor recruited to impersonate Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in the lead-up to D-Day, as part of a wider Allied deception effort. Clifton James plays himself, and Monty. How any of this was true, we don’t know, because it really is stranger than fiction.

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13/02/2026

Ep 95 – Miracle of the White Stallions – Saving the Lipizzaners at the End of WWII

In this episode of Rosie the Reviewer, we discuss Miracle of the White Stallions (1963), a Disney live-action film inspired by the real rescue of the Lipizzaner horses of the Spanish Riding School at the end of World War II.
Set in the war’s final months in Austria and Czechoslovakia, the film offers a very Disney take on Operation Cowboy, the joint effort to save the horses as the Third Reich collapsed.
Joined by our friend Alora, we explore why the real history is more compelling than the film, and why this extraordinary rescue deserves a modern retelling.

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06/02/2026