Oh! What a Lovely War

Richard Attenborough's directorial debut translates Joan Plowright's theatre concept onto celluloid. "Oh What A Lovely War" tells the story of World War One through the popular songs of the time, some of them sarcastically re-worded by the soldiers at the Front. Made in 1969, the film rides the wave of contemporary 'make love not war' sentiment, and uses humour and avant-garde zaniness to avoid seeming portentous. Brighton Pier represents the First World War, with the British public entering at the turnstiles, and General Haig selling tickets. The Smith family stands for the nation, and the film follows several young Smith men through their experiences in the trenches, most notably Freddy (Malcolm McFee), Harry (Colin Farrell) and George (Maurice Roeves).

The opening sequence, set in a wrought-iron Nowhere, tries to explain the diplomatic chicanery which (allegedly) caused the Great War. This passage is dull, unnatural, garbled and much too long. It does not harmonise with the rest of the story, and the film would have been better without it. Of the cavalcade of ageing English thespians which populates this sequence, only Jack Hawkins as the profoundly melancholic Austrian emperor is at all memorable.

1914 was the season of optimism, shown here by the cheerful seaside scene and the first Battle of Mons, both flooded in pleasant sunshine. When the casulaties start to mount, a shocked theatre audience is rallied by a rousing rendition of "Are We Downhearted? No!", a song which expresses something deep in the English psyche: "While we have Jack upon the sea/And Tommy on the land/We needn't fret".

The government's cynical drive to recruit a volunteer army by 'milking' the simple patriotism of the people is superbly satirised in the 'Roedean' section. Pretty girls onstage sing "We Don't Want To Lose You, But We Think You Ought To Go", and once the young men in the audience are suitably softened up, Maggie Smith lures them into taking the King's Shilling by enticing them sexually.

Class divisions are emphasised. Wounded men from the lower ranks have to wait for treatment, but officers have taxis laid on to take them to hospital. The War forces an aristocrat to converse with one of his retainers, but the conversation is hollow and awkward, as if the men speak different languages. The working-class men in the trenches fraternise with their German 'brothers', and a staff officer in the comfort and safety of England punishes them for their inappropriate behaviour. The pacifist who addresses the workers falls foul of their instinctive patriotism, and doesn't help herself by referring to her audience as "You misguided masses".

The film has many delicious ironic touches. A wounded man arrives back in England, relieved to be out of the hell of war, and is told by a nurse, "Don't worry - we'll soon have you back at the Front". Upper-class war dodgers carry on as before, but they think they are making noble sacrifices - "I'm not using my German wine - not while the War's on". The staff officer who visits the Front is patently unfamiliar with life there, and desperate to get away, but happy enough to have the men live (and die) in these conditions.

By 1915, the optimism has died. The parade of wounded men is a sea of grim, hopeless faces. Black humour has now replaced the enthusiasm of the early days. "There's A Long, Long Trail A-Winding" captures the new mood of despair, and the scene with the tommies filing along in torrential rain is powerfully evocative. Poppies provide the only colour.

We see English soldiers drinking in an estaminet. The chanteuse (Pia Colombo) leads them in a jolly chorus of "The Moon Shines Bright On Charlie Chaplin", a reworking of an American song, then shifts the mood dramatically by singing "Adieu la vie", a truly great tragic song.

The Australian troops have an easy, informal approach to discipline. They make fun of the 'proper' English reserves who are replacing them on the battlefield, and the contrast between the two cultures is depicted by the stiffness of the English drill compared with the sprawling comfort of the Aussies. Naturally enough, the Australians deride the staff officers who arrive to inspect the reserves.

Another passage in the film which simply doesn't work is the religious service in the ruined abbey. Its purpose is to point out the hypocrisy of the great religions, which all came out in favour of the War, but the scene drags horribly and slackens the film's otherwise brisk pace.

1916 passes, and the film's tone darkens appreciably. Now the songs have a wistful quality, laced with the chirpy stoicism of the British soldier - "The Bells Of Hell", "If The Sergeant Steals Your Rum, Never Mind" and "Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire". The trench scenes are terrific, powerfully evoking the squalour of the Front. The wounded are laid out in ranks at the field station, a mockery of the healthy rows of young men who entered the War. Harry Smith's silently-suffering face is one of the film's great images.

The War is drawing to its close, but still the ironies are piling up. The Americans arrive, singing (in travesty of Cohan) "And we won't come back - we'll be buried over there!" Freddy notices with disgust that after three years of this nightmare, he is literally back where he started, fighting at Mons.

As the Armistice is sounding, Freddy is the last one to die. The film closes with a truly stunning aerial view of soldiers' graves, dizzying in their geometry and scale, as the voices of the dead sing, "We'll Never Tell Them". It brought a tear to this reviewer's eye.

This is a superlative film. Though based on the Joan Littlewood stage play (itself derived from a Charles Chilton radio piece), the film has the creativity, visual sense and sardonic wit of Len Deighton throughout. Apparently, it also was Len who had the brainstorm to set the fantasy sections at Brighton, which worked brilliantly! Inexplicably, he asked for his name to be removed from the writing and producing credits. (Later, after swearing off the film industry, he got his revenge with his novel "Close-up.") Whatever "corporate changes" (in the sense of group-think) were made to his script, it still works. And it works extremely well. Not only as an anti-World War I piece, but as a powerful critique of the British class structure and the amoral diplomats and generals who sent millions, nearly a generation, to early graves. I can't think of another film that has so artfully blended satire, farce, tragedy and history. This film is "Dr. Strangelove" caliber, but it's a musical, using the patriotic tunes of the day with the sarcastic alternate lyrics that the troops themselves created.

Kudos go to first-time director (now Lord) Richard Attenborough, and a stellar cast that was essentially the British Pantheon, circa 1969.

I have never seen anything remotely like this, and I doubt if I ever will again. Emotional? If you don't have a few tears by the time they're playing "No, We'll Never Tell Them,"...better check for a pulse.

What struck me most about the film was Maggie Smith's remarkable transformation as she was at first an alluring young girl,- the Music Hall star as recruiting agent - the epitome of that era's romantic glorification of Going To Do Battle,then as the blood and death became evident, her character was transformed into a painted, ravaged whore.The heart-rending ending aside,the acres and acres of crosses dotting a hillside,her symbolism is what stays with us.My sister's-in-law first husband was next to Rudyard Kipling's son when he got blown up,and the sensitivity and denial of that time was such that the Kipling family only received notice that their son was "lost".This film managed to show just that attitude.And-- it resonates in today's view of the current lost cause.

I first saw this film when it came out. I was 10 years old, the Viet Nam war was still going on, and it blew me away completely.

I saw it again 5 years later, in a revival house. I went with a high-school friend, happy to be able to introduce its power and brilliance to someone new. It blew her away completely.

That was 27 years ago, and I would give almost anything to know if the film could still move me as much as it did those first two times. It is not available on video, and I've never seen it broadcast on any TV channel.

This is truly one of those films that burned itself into my memory at first viewing. I urge anyone who finds the chance to see it to run, not walk, to the theatre! The Great War -- the War to End All Wars -- has faded deep into the past for most people, and we forget that the death-toll from that conflict blighted an entire generation. This film makes that loss all too vivid, using the music of the war itself.

Truly a classic, in the most literal sense of the word: a film for the ages.

A clever piece of work, this film - Richard Attenborough's first as director and an adaptation of the production by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop - considers the pure futility and waste of World War One by presenting it as a 'war game' based in and around Brighton; on the West Pier, atop a Helter Skelter, etc.

The central characters are the Smith family - several sons and nephews, a grandad, mother, wives and younger children. All have tickets for the game, welcomed in at Douglas Haig's booth (Haig puts his own words to 'I do like to be beside the seaside' = 'I do love to see a man in khaki'). They are the routes by which we follow the various battles and conflicts through the war, punctuated by a soundtrack of popular songs of the period ('It's a Long Way to Tipperary', 'Keep The Home Fires Burning', 'and so on).

Oh! What a Lovely War manages to be daring, funny, and moving, and boasts a starry set of cameos including Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson, Maggie Smith, Dirk Bogarde, Kenneth More, Ian Holm, and Vanessa Redgrave. It covers all of the conflict, from the assassination of the Archduke of Austria, through to the Christmas truce in the trenches, to the war's conclusion. Poppies play their part, as well they might, to indicate the scale of loss of life; and a final tracking shot on the Sussex Downs attempts to give some indication of the wanton destruction of 'cannon fodder' by the powers-that-be.

As a pure war film, this would never work. As a satirical musical, it stands up extremely well, and has many memorable moments to reward the viewer when they see the film again and again. Attenborough himself of course would go on to greater things, culminating in the Oscar-winning Gandhi some 13 years later, but this is an excellent debut, sure of itself and without getting bogged down in cloying sentimentality.