Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18928 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-10-30
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Formats: Collector's Edition, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 138 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's a product of its Vietnam era just as surely as Robert Altman's M*A*S*H, and like that film Oh! What a Lovely War is ostensibly about a different war. Based on a celebrated anti-war stage piece produced by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, the film chronicles the various madnesses of the First World War. Along with vignettes involving the members of the fictional Smith family, the movie lands its punches with a two-pronged attack: by using the songs of the war, mostly patriotic; and by using the real-life words of various figures from WWI. You can see how this would have fit a stylised stage show; in the more literal, realistic realm of film, it mostly comes across as heavy-handed pretentiousness. Richard Attenborough, who would later explore the lives of Gandhi and Chaplin, first made his way to the director's chair here, and he enlisted a staggering who's who of his fellow British actors for roles in the large ensemble: Olivier, Gielgud, and Richardson among them. John Mills plays the most bull-headed of the generals, blithely measuring out yards of territory gained by the thousands of casualties involved. The songs are a historically fascinating lot, mostly given an ironic or sinister treatment in this incarnation, as jolly patriotic tunes that mask the utter carnage at the front. Among the high points is Maggie Smith singing (well, declaiming) an ode to recruitment, promising war as a grand adventure. The blending of arch content with Attenborough's realistic staging of trench warfare just doesn't take, but what does hit home are the actual quotes and the statistics of killing; World War I set a bloody standard for sheer, blind slaughter. --Robert Horton

DVD Description
The tragedy of World War I is redefined in bawdy music-hall terms, presented as the "new attraction" at the Brighton Amusement Pier, complete with syrupy cheer-up songs, shooting galleries, free prizes and a scoreboard toting up the dead The Story focuses mainly on the members of one family (last name Smith) whose five sons enlist and end up as cannon fodder Much of the action in the movie revolves around the words of the marching songs of the soldiers, and many scenes portray some of the more famous (and infamous) incidents of the war, including: the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand the Christmas meeting between British and German soldiers in no-mans-land the wiping out by their own side of a force of Irish soldiers The final image is a veddy proper British picnic on a graveyard. Of the many fleeting satiric images parading past the camera, one of the most indelible is the sight of several generals playing leapfrog as the world all around them goes to hell in a handbasket.

Special Features
Also includes 16 page booklet and A4 poster

Customer Reviews

Unique little gem
A musical about WW1 ?
Very hard to believe, and I can't imagine how they managed to 'sell' the idea to whoever financed it, but thank goodness they did.

Although this concept should never have worked, it breaks every rule in the book to successfully convey the shift from eager anticipation of a walkover victory, to the anguish and futility of mass slaughter.

Just don't expect 'Saving Private Ryan'. It's not about guns and bloodshed, but about how people actually felt as the fight dragged on and the horrors mounted. And because you associate with the characters, you care about them.

On the off-chance you don't like this film, can I suggest you fast-forward to the final five minutes. The closing shots are amongst the most moving scenes you will ever see. As the camera pans out I guarantee you will be just a little shocked...and just a little wiser.

A excellent satire
This film has not dated since I first saw it in the late 60s, the height of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations.

From the first scene where we see Maggie Smith on her recruiting drive in a music hall, to the numbing ending panning out on a huge landscape filled with crosses of the war dead, I think that the message here had, and still has, far more impact than so-called anti-war pictures of the time that concentrated purely on the graphic brutal horror of it all.

The subtle, sometimes silly, yet always poignant satire is evident throughout, and it's really well done too. The generals in the Great War, who were often criticised for not being at the front line with their troops, are brilliantly lampooned conducting the campaign from Brighton Pier, with cricket-type scoreboards as back drops- "Battle of the Somme. Today's dead 60,000, ground gained NIL". General Haig, admirably played by John Mills, kneels down in prayer, instead of concentrating on strategy, and says 'I know it didn't go too well today, Lord, but...'

The start of hostilities takes place on a floor-covered map on the pier, and politicians move around as in the game of Risk. The period songs are amusing, yet moving when viewed in the context of soldiers who knew they were heading for unprecedented slaughter.

The switches between the luxury of HQ and the abominable conditions of the trenches are timed perfectly.

A very fine cast, who were unfortunately the sole topic of the Special Feature. Richard 'Dahling' Attenborough in his first DVD interview, is on top form. From 'Larry to Kenny to Johnny to Dicky' and their performances 'Charming, exquisite, wonderful'... well you can just imagine. Actually, the acting was pretty good, nice and over the top in keeping with the format.

Film worth watching, but scan the Special Feature only if you fancy a trip to Luvvydom.

60's avant-garde musical review mangling the Great War
This film (that started as a radio play) takes a bought as long ad the war and mangles the history and substitutes words (one respirator for the four of us) for standard songs. For a little while one can put up with metaphors and Monty Python skits. However after a while it gets quite boring. You have to know history to keep up with the skits; if you know history then this is a waist of time emulating it.

Very ingenious settings in a pavilion (Brighton) by the sea set up the prolog to describe the positions before the war. The scattered reference to red poppies are quite fascination but not worth plugging through the film. There is a brief but good emulation of the Christmas meeting in no-man's land.

In the tradition of "The Longest Day" we get to see cameos of many famous actors of the day. It is quite fun to guess where we saw them before. Some of the song and dance is reminiscent of the quality that went into "Springtime for Hitler."

Bottom line is if you missed this film you haven't missed much.

The DVD version includes Richard Attenborough's excuse for the way this was displayed.