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Category:    Home > Reviews > War > Drama > Musical > British > Oh! What A Lovely War – Special Edition (Paramount DVD)

Oh! What A Lovely War – Special Edition (DVD)

 

Video: B-     Audio: B-     Extras: B     Program: B-

 

 

Sir Richard Attenborough’s 1969 feature film directorial debut, Oh! What a Lovely War, has finally made it to DVD.  There aren’t many movies that occupy a space on the World War I musical list, as this piece does, and in fact it might be the only movie musical set during the Great War.  Boasting a stellar cast of some of Britain’s greatest talents — Ian Holm, Dirk Bogarde, Lawrence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Maggie Smith and John Mills, to name a few (even Jane Seymour turns up in an uncredited cameo performance) — Oh! What a Lovely War, based on a play by Joan Littlewood and Charles Chilton, follows British involvement in World War I through elaborate, fantastical set pieces (a pier operates as the World War One amusement park, recruitment site and headquarters for British officers), musical numbers based on period songs, and the experiences of the Smith family, which sends all of its men to the front.

 

There are a couple points of interest with this movie.  One is that it’s Attenborough’s first crack at directing.  He would win the Academy Award for direction in 1982 for Gandhi (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and watching his work here is revelatory as much for planting the stylistic seeds of his later triumphs (Gandhi, Chaplin) as for its lack of distinction between theater and cinema.  On one hand, Attenborough humanizes the inhumanity of the war by focusing not on the carnage but on the people in the trenches.  Bombs go off, bullets zip by, but it’s always about the people and their reactions and their relationships to one another and to the enemy.  The scene between British and German soldiers singing carols and, later, exchanging food, alcohol and tobacco in No Man’s Land at Christmastime is an immensely powerful moment. On the other hand, Attenborough at times adheres too strictly to the machinations of the theater.  The opening scene, a stagy dramatization of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the formation of allegiances and the beginning of the war, plays out like the opening scene of a stage production.  The glistening white set, with its wrought iron and steel ribbing making it look like the inside of a ship and its map of Europe carpet, is an excellent piece of design. However, it serves a non-cinematic moment, a posturing of players on the stage complete with a chorus of sorts, a winking-and-nodding character nudging us along as we witness the outbreak of The Great War.  It’s a glaring misstep from an otherwise excellent director who becomes surer of his skills as the movie progresses.

 

The other way to engage Oh! What a Lovely War is through its place as a World War I musical.  The World War I piece of the equation is spot on.  This is primarily due to the filmmakers’ (and certainly playwrights’) commitment to accuracy.  After the credits, we are given the following piece of information: “The principal statements made by the historical characters in this film are based on documentary evidence and the words of the songs are those sung by the troops during the First World War.”  This is an excellent thing to see because we’re set up for a picture that will sound authentic rather than how some screenwriter thinks people in 1914 might have talked.  For the most part, the actuality of what is said is woven seamlessly into the movie.  One notable exception comes during the ill-conceived opening scene.  Sir Edward Grey (Richardson), after hearing of allegiances being made across Europe and judging war to be inevitable, says, “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”  This is a fairly famous quote, and when it’s coupled with an uncharacteristically stilted delivery from Richardson, stands out as an “Oh, someone really did say that” moment.

 

As a musical, the movie struggles a bit, mostly because of the expectations the term “musical” brings.  There are a few traditional numbers in Oh! What a Lovely War, but these come in fairly motivated forms: a recruitment song sung by burlesque actresses at a dancehall, a lively song sung by a lady at a bar full of troops, an upbeat song of triumph sung by a French soldier on a carousel at the amusement park on the pier.  The other songs are equally motivated but they aren’t numbers.  When a group of soldiers sing in the trenches, for instance, it makes sense for them to be singing.  There’s a war on, after all, and they’re trying to liven their spirits.  These moments are more common, happening within the context of the scene as opposed to parallel to it, and no one simply breaks into song because it tickles their fancy to do so.  In this way, to call this movie a “musical” is a bit misleading, yet as a musical it expands the genre’s boundaries, the way another British artist, Dennis Potter, would do almost a decade later with Pennies From Heaven.

 

Oh! What a Lovely War has quite the reputation in Britain, as well it should, yet it’s relatively unknown in the United States.  Paramount’s DVD release might not change the lack of American recognition, but it’s a start.  The anamorphic widescreen presentation is crisp and clean, with only the occasional mark showing up on the source print.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono soundtrack leaves something to be desired, however.  Dialogue is more common here than explosions, but there is a lot of ambient sound that could use the space a 5.1 surround mix.

 

There aren’t many extras here despite Paramount calling this a “special collector’s edition.”  There are two features, a commentary with Attenborough and a one-hour documentary about the making of the movie, broken into three parts: “Welcome to World War I,” “The Smith Family Album” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”  The documentary covers a lot of ground, with Attenborough going into excruciating detail about his love of the movie, how it was made, how he got all the actors into it, and on and on.  Some of the actors and a couple members of the crew appear as well, and while they’re interesting voices it’s hard not to think that if they weren’t there Attenborough would go on and on and on for the entirety of the documentary.  Bless his heart, the movie is still special to him and he’s still excited about it.

 

Oh! What a Lovely War is a little long at 144 minutes, and Attenborough, as an unseasoned director, tends to ramble on screen and play it too close to the play, but it’s necessary nonetheless.  It’s stark and brutal, the way any war film should be, while sympathizing with the common man duped into being led to slaughter and painting a none-too-flattering portrait of the commanding officers, the way any anti-war film should.  Most importantly, it presents an interesting approach to dealing with World War I on film — presenting it was a musical rather than a straight war film — which is something not many movies, from Britain or the US, can claim.

 

 

-   Dante A. Ciampaglia


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