Watch Oh! What a Lovely War For Free

How sad is this?

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

In 1985 I attended a VE + 40 Party in a Village Hall near Cambridge, where I live, with a friend who later became a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. We dressed as far as possible in 1940s clothes. I had a bowler hat, and he borrowed one from one of the King's porters. One of the attractions was a good band, dressed in 1940s British Army uniforms, with a brilliant tenor soloist who sang "When this Lousy War is over." There was complete silence afterwards for about 15 seconds or so, then tumultuous applause, after which the party really livened up, I decided to eat some Woolton Pie, a terrible erzatz ration dish named after Fred Marquis, First Earl of Woolton, one of my mother's cousins, I think. My father always insisted my mother serve it when cousin Fred came over as a kind of ironic payback. He'd been Minister of Food and Supply in Churchill's War Cabinet (I have one of his Red Boxes still). Since my fortieth birthday was coming up within a fortnight, to be celebrated in a big dinner At King's, I had not planned to drink anything much, but after that song and the feelings of pride and loss and heartbreak and beauty that it summoned up, I'm afraid I did drink quite a lot and in fact woke up next morning in a hedge. This film brings that evening flooding back!

This allegorical musical based on the British view of World War I found a friendly audience in America which was going through the Vietnam war protests at the time it got to the big screen in 1969. It had run on Broadway for 125 performances in the 1964-65 season.One of the things that director Richard Attenborough did is populate the cast of the major war figures with some of the biggest names in British cinema. That certainly guaranteed a bit of box office for him, but I also think that Attenborough being a very well liked man he was able to get people like Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, John Mills, and Ralph Richardson and many others for probably less than the usual going rate.The musical numbers however were done by a cast of unknown folks for the most part. Songs of the era and the acidly satirical versions of them popular in the trenches at the time are heard. The music is from a variety of sources, most I'm sure had passed into the public domain. As for satirical to give you an example the finale has a male chorus singing a version of Jerome Kern's They Didn't Believe Me. But Herbert Reynolds's lyrics get no credit and when you hear this version you'll know why.The causes of World War I is one of those great historical topics that historians amateur and professional will be writing about for years. My own opinion is that the end of it involved a race between how fast trained American troops could get to the western front to make the difference as Germany was transferring troops from the now abandoned eastern front against the Russians. The eastern front and the various far flung world wide fronts have stories all their own.I believe the same film could be made in Russia, France, Germany, and the Austrian remnant of the Hapsburg empire as they were the major players. The British and French colonial and commonwealth powers and other allies have a different slant on it. The American version is unique because the war had been going on for four years before appreciable American participation started in the spring of 1918.It was a colossal piece of human stupidity that people then could not comprehend after 100 years of relative peace in Europe. Automatic weapons made for the ultimate in defensive war, the trench. From about Antwerp in Belgium, through France to the Swiss border was a line of trenches as the Allies and Central Powers sought to just have that one big push that would make victory. An entire generation of the continent was wiped out, by the war and by the great influenza epidemic that followed as health services were depreciated badly because of the late conflict. Small wonder that a strong peace movement developed in the Twenties and Thirties. And smaller wonder that Germany who lost the attrition essentially was given total blame for the catastrophe and saddled with war reparations that crippled it. It's what made Adolph Hitler.World War I was also an era of magnificent poignant melodies that gained popularity. There's A Long Long Trail a Winding, Roses Of Picardy which had certainly no martial spirit gained eternal popularity and they're done straight. As is It's A Long Long Way to Tipperary whose lyrics have nothing to do with the war, but was enormously popular in the era, naturally among the Irish soldiers.Oh What A Lovely War was a great triumphal directorial debut for Richard Attenborough. For someone with no appreciable musical background he did well directing a musical. And the film absolutely betrays no stage origins, in fact it's almost hard to imagine it on stage. Try not to miss this one.

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 is this film exactly? It certainly isn't history or documentary. If it's a musical, then it's rubbish. No, the word for this stuff is agit-prop.This is a film very much of its time. And the time in question....the 1960s, flower power, war is wrong, give peace a chance, etc etc etc.It unthinkingly subscribes to the discredited 'Lions led by Donkeys' mantra beloved of the Luvvie mindset.All of these opinions have, thank goodness, fared poorly with the passing of time, hence the very dated feeling engendered by this film. Nowadays the war-guilt of the Kaiser's Germany is much clearer, and those who have thought with clarity on the subject are perfectly aware that we didn't need a Neville Chamberlain in 1914.So, watch this as an interesting period piece, very revealing of the attitude of its makers. Otherwise, give it a pass.