Diagonaldi Very well executed

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- Oh! What a Lovely War, 1969. Follows the major British emotions and actions of WW1 internationally all through the war with music, sarcasm, and songs.*Special Stars- John mills, John Gielgud, Ian Holm, Antony Ailey, Edward Fox, Dirk Bogard, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Maggie Smith, Susannah York, Jame Seymour. DIR: Richard Attenborough.*Theme- War is not good for people or other living things...(except when it's defensive and necessary).*Trivia/location/goofs- Every time a poppy is seen someone dies, beginning with the photographer giving poppies to Grand Duke Ferdinand at the start of the film. The song "La Chanson DE Craonne" ("Adieu la Vie"), sung by Pia Sablon in the film, commemorates a mutiny in 1917 by French troops. Merely singing it was considered an act of mutiny, and it was banned in France until 1974. During the war, a reward of one million francs and immediate honorable release from the Army was offered for the identity of the author, but never claimed. It showed the famous Christmas front-line trench truce. *Emotion- A weirdly staged simplistic preachy anti-war Broadway play feature film produced during the height of the Vietname War by the British. A terrible theme premise and an even more typically erroneous Progressive view equating the first world war with the Vietnam struggle. The film allegory is not factual but it's oddly enjoyable to watch the producers and cast to try make the wars comparable. The songs are catchy and there is dark humor in this show to personalize the comic book roles. The only worth of this production is seeing the 'time capsule' inane stupidity of the cast and crew struggling with why warfare happens between countries. WW1 was a more serious topic (millions dying) and should have been more correctly dignified with a better treatment. Those millions should not be trivialized or used in such a binary 'black & white' fantasy musical romp. Terrible!*Based On- The original Broadway production of "Oh, What a Lovely War" opened at the Broadhurst Theater in New York on September 30, 1964, ran for 125 performances and was nominated for the 1965 Tony Award for the Best Musical. Did not win.

Essex_Rider I have a real connection to this movie as one of my best childhood friends appeared in it. He was Malcolm McFee and he played one of the Smith family. This is truly a great film and a wonderful adaptation of the Joan Littlewood stage play. It shows, in a way never used before, the horrors of war perpetrated by the lunacy on all sides. While the monarchs of Europe argued, millions of men diedThere are many high points throughout the film, I thought the sermon by the priest was poignant in asking God for victory, and of course the inference is that all sides are doing the same. Haig doesn't really come off to lightly either, because he is shown for the type of war he really fought. Men to him were simply numbers, and by his reckoning, if we lost I million men and the Germans lost over that, it was a victory. For me, the most touching part is where the ghosts of the Smiths finally meet the camera pulls up to reveal the thousands of crosses. Oh What a Lovely Warshould also read 'Oh What a Bloody Waste'.

updf By Hollywood rules, it should never have been made; no studs or ingénues as leading characters, no love interest,or heroic exploits,length more than two hours.. the humor is ironic, and makes you think more than laugh... But this is a great film. The original stage production had made a deep impression on John Mills, and it seems as though he, Olivier, Attenborough, Gilegud, Richardson and probably most of the rest of the star-studded cast thought they simply had to make this film, and it shows...(Yes, actual personal commitment, what a concept..)The subject is how the British nation were sold a war, and how the British military command refused to realize it when it became disastrous, and continued to waste thousands of lives to no purpose. Not your typical musical...But despite the theatrical setting on a Brighton Pier for some of the scenes, there's real history there. John Mills, as General Haig, really uses Haig's words, from his diaries, in all their comforting, delusional splendor. I only wish the film could have been re-released prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, ( or whatever they're calling it now).

MARIO GAUCI Attenborough's directing debut is patchy but impressive (even garnering a Directors Guild Award nod), immediately demonstrating his affinity for grandiose subjects; however, it was brave of him to go against the typically romantic view of British Imperialism (not that it was an isolated case during this time - witness the comparable military caricatures depicted in Tony Richardson's THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE [1968] or, for that matter, Lindsay Anderson's irreverent expose' of the education system in IF... [1968]).The all-star cast assembled for the film looks extraordinary on paper but, actually, only a few of them are given substantial roles - Dirk Bogarde's contribution is especially insignificant if still amusing. I was under the impression that the musical numbers featured in the film were written for the stage show which inspired it: interestingly, they're really a collection of songs that were popular around the time of World War I - notably sarcastic ditties 'improvised' by the soldiers to take their minds off the grueling experiences on the battlefields; best of all, perhaps, is a sequence in which a popular hymn is sung simultaneously by a church gathering and an army troop (with the latter replacing the verses altogether to give it their typically cynical and anarchic perspective!).Production values are top-notch but the overall structure, though generally admirably transferred to the screen, remains somewhat disjointed - the film coming across too often as a series of revue sketches which alternate between the cheerfully jingoistic (Maggie Smith's stirring recruiting song), the broadly comic (as in the scenes involving John Mills' fanatical yet foolhardy Commander) and the immensely poignant (the wonderful sequence in which hostilities mutually cease over Christmas and the soldiers of both sides decide to meet in No Man's Land in order to share drinks and each other's company, not to mention the famous closing tracking shot over the endless graveyard), or else serve merely as expository passages (as in the recurring stylized pier scenes where the leaders of the various countries - among them Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Jack Hawkins and Ian Holm - are seen converging to examine the progress of the war).