Hi BD, it sounds like you were alive actually during the War, I was born in 1945. We never had Anderson shelters, but brick rectangular structures with a thick flat concrete roof. There was a diamond shaped escape plate on the side facing the back street. A lavatory (tipler flush) was inside.

This is very similar to the shelter attached to my grandparents house;

No, I was born in 1950, but remember the Anderson Shelter being used as a shed/store. It was a legacy from the war, my parents didn't buy the house until 1947. Too much effort to dig them out and were quite useful for this sort of purpose.
Interesting to read of the type of shelter you remember; I've not seen that type before. Perhaps your parents had an income above the qualifying earnings and were therefore expected to provide their own or the garden was not big enough or utilities prevented it's location dug into the ground.
As we have said before, they were rather cold and damp so people were reluctant to use them even at the height of the bombings in '40/41, preferring the 'strong area' of a house, under the stairs. Surprisingly few Londoners availed themselves of the shelters, either public or private. A November 1940 survey concluded that only 27% of Londoners used Anderson shelters, 9% slept in public shelters and 4% used underground railway stations.
An Aunt who lived in a Maisonette in Deal, so no garden accessible , which was below the Battle of Britain area of conflict was issued with a Morrison type shelter, of which she was rightfully fearful of being entombed or fried should the house collapse round her.

I grabbed some tickets to see the doc at Arclight cinema. AMC also has a couple of theaters in town showing the film, but from my experience I prefer arclight for the quieter atmosphere, no late entries (can be a negative for chronically late folks), and no commercials but only 1 or 2 short previews.

My only concern is that all my local theaters are showing the 3D version. I have only see a few 3D films, but the experience has been fair at best (imho,ymmv)

https://www.arclightcinemas.com/

https://www.amctheatres.com/

The doc film is simply outstanding! check the links above for theaters near you for a December 27 viewing. I am sure it will be on streaming services, but the large screen cannot be beat imho.

The 3D work is very nuanced and fortunately did not interfere with my viewing experience. I would say that one would not miss anything if the doc is not showing in 3D.

Make sure you stay after the credits for the behind-the-scenes look at the restoration of the film hosted by Peter Jackson.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/movies/peter-jackson-war-movie.html

Some interesting info here,


https://deadline.com/2018/12/peter-...hom-events-box-office-record-1202522089/

nice! here is an update saying the same thing with newer number of $5.7 million box office for the two days the doc was screened in north america.

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/peter-jackson-they-shall-not-grow-old-1203095920/

Went to see it with my 17 year old daughter. We both loved it, and pretty sure the rest of the completely full theater did too. There were no empty seats. Not one person left after the movie either, everyone stayed to watch the footage on the making of the documentary. We agreed we'll have to watch it again when it comes to rental, feel like we missed some details the first time through. Hoping it's a success, love the see what they could do with the rest of the footage they had.

Yes, I was quite impressed with the tech that Mr. Jackson and his company brought to the production. I was also glad to see a full theater when I watched the doc, and this was on a dark and very cold Monday night.

Wow what a great documentary!
I went with some friends of mine, and we were blown away by the (3D) changes to original bad film.
It starts off for a while with normal, low quality black and white footage. And then it changes....

Really great progression from when the war started and how it affected the young men in the U.K. that went to France.
There is constant Voice Over from excerpts of men that fought in that War, and were there. Very informative.

Favorite line was the humor: "The Germans had a sign in the No Man's Land that said "God it with us" which is "Gott ist mit uns" and the Brits put up a sign that said "We got our mittens too!"

Amazing: The Germans when they were captured were treated like relatives/friends. The footage showed them smiling and laughing with the Brits, horseplay and all.
And the Brits were amazed that the captured Germans immediately started helping with ALL wounded. In other words, in combat they were enemies, but when captured they were friends.
Wow. Totally different when the Nazi regime showed up.

Does anyone know when this will be released on a streaming service like Netflix?

i believe I read somewhere that the doc will be on streaming services starting in Spring 2019...but do not hold me to that

anyone?