Oh! What A Lovely War

This multi-award winning anti-war satire from 1969, based upon Joan Littlewood’s stage musical of the same name, is primarily told, how else should it be, through the medium of popular music hall songs. Richard Attenborough delivered his directorial debut and the result is a mixed bag which sometimes works and at other times doesn’t quite - featuring pretty much every actor of rank and name and of course, countless musical numbers.

The main song (about the brutal conditions of life in the trenches) gave the film its title and the gradually unfolding action, together with most sets (which are symbolic rather than realistic) both criticise and satirise the conduct and absurdity of the First World War, while at the same time pointing its finger on the divisive class system. Thus the military upper crusties are portrayed by the bigwigs of the film world (well, from that era that is), such as John Mills as Sir Douglas Haig, Laurence Olivier as Field Marshal Sir John French, Michael Redgrave as Sir Henry Wilson, Kenneth More as Kaiser Wilhelm II, John Gielgud as Count Leopold Berchtold and so forth and so on - all of them deliberately made to look like the pompous buffoons they were while safely stacked away from the trenches.

The trenches, ah yes. Here it is the archetypal British family of the time, the working class Smiths, whose naive sons are cunningly enlisted to participate in the dirty war thanks to Maggie Smith (sporting garish make-up) frivolous music hall star, whose recruitment song “I’ll make a man of you” lures many eager young lads, including the Smith brothers Freddie (Malcolm McFree), Bertie (Corin Redgrave), George (Maurice Roeves) and Jack (Paul Shelley) into signing up. Meanwhile, the female members of the Smiths family, together with many other mothers, sisters and daughters hailing from families whose sons and brothers will eventually end up as cannon fodder, spend a jolly day out on Brighton pier, as if the war was a mere inconvenience that will soon pass.

The opening scene sets the tone of the film when, in a slightly surreal location inside a pierhead pavilion, various dignitaries including generals, foreign ministers and heads of state walk and dance over a map of Europe. Eventually, the gathering results in a photo session, during which a photographer takes a group photo. The click of the standing camera turns into the sound of shots and the seated Archduke Franz Ferninand and his missus keel over, shot dead and well, it’s kick-off time for the First World War!

During the course of the film, the scenery (some scenes are actually set in the countryside) changes from the unfolding horror in the trenches (always plenty of poppies), to more domestic scenes back home in Ole Blighty and the wounded being carried away from the blood-drenched battlefields, while upper crust generals and field marshals discuss the next steps. Vanessa Redgrave (who else) delivers a passionate and controversial speech as feminist and political activist Sylvia Pankhurst, who, in 1914, refused to enter into a wartime political truce with the government.

Of course, whether the younger generation will be familiar with the numerous songs, from the title song to ‘Your King and Country Want You’ to ‘The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling’ to Ivor Novello’s sentimental ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, is doubtful but OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR wouldn’t be the same without it.

This Limited Edition (2,000 copies only) Blu-ray release is presented in an O-card slipcase together with a collector’s booklet. Other bonus material includes optional English subtitles, audio commentaries, the interview ‘Your Country Needs You’ with film historian Simon Brown on the various depictions of World War 1 in British cinema, plus a three parts making-of-documentary (about as long as the entire film…) with director Richard Attenborough and various other actors from the film.