A 2 Apr 1963 DV item announced that Guber-Ford-Gross Productions, Inc. had acquired screen rights to The Guns of August, Barbara W. Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book about World War I (WWI), published by Macmillan in 1962. Later that month, the 24 Apr 1963 Var stated that Byron Productions would produce the documentary. Eugene Gelber, who was said to have brokered the option, was granted associate producer status, and Barbara W. Tuchman was enlisted as an advisor. The project marked the first feature-length, theatrical motion picture for Nathan Kroll, who was described by Var as a “former radio conductor who has done several tv educational films.”
       The 24 Apr 1963 Var noted that the documentary would incorporate “newsreel footage, location shots and Army pictorial accounts.” New footage was slated to be shot in Europe, beginning in mid-May 1963. An article in the 20 Jul 1963 NYT listed possible filming sites in Paris, France, and the Belgian cities and villages of Brussels, Antwerp, Leuven, Loncin (at Fort de Loncin), and Tamines. Historic film clips and photographs were sourced from government archives in France, Belgium, and England, via the British Imperial War Museum and the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Hulton Film Library. In addition to a ninety-minute theatrical version, Kroll planned to make a sixty-minute version for television.
       Universal Pictures signed on to distribute, as announced in the 17 Jul 1963 Var. The picture was named as an inaugural project for the studio’s recently launched “new horizons” program for budding filmmakers. A premiere was originally planned to take place on 1 Aug 1964, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of WWI. However, theatrical release appears to have been delayed until 24 Dec 1964, when the film opened at the Beekman Theatre in New York City. A review in the 25 Dec 1964 NYT lamented that Kroll had failed to “convey the essence” of Tuchman’s work, while a critique by novelist Joan Didion in the 1 Feb 1965 issue of Vogue echoed that “very little of” Tuchman’s thesis came through in the “superficial” documentary.