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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Paramount
Salesrank: 33506
Released: November 7, 2006 |
| Our Price: $7.45 |
| Used Price: $6.49 |
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MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
It was the War to end all wars – well not quite. For with the ricochet of one bullet, the entire course of human history was changed forever...Now, for the first time, Academy Award®-winner Richard Attenborough’s* directorial debut is available on DVD. Based on the stage musical by the same name, Oh! What a Lovely War features a stellar cast that includes Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Mills, John Gielgud, Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, Ian Holm, Dirk Bogarde and Susannah York. By fusing the surreal with the factual and juxtaposing savagely funny satire with quiet sorrow, Attenborough has created the oddest and most outstanding film ever made about the "game" that became World War One.
Description of Oh! What a Lovely War:
It's a product of its Vietnam era just as surely as Robert Altman's M*A*S*H, and like that film Oh! What a Lovely War is ostensibly about a different war. Based on a celebrated anti-war stage piece produced by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, the film chronicles the various madnesses of the First World War. Along with vignettes involving the members of the fictional Smith family, the movie lands its punches with a two-pronged attack: by using the songs of the war, mostly patriotic; and by using the real-life words of various figures from WWI. You can see how this would have fit a stylized stage show; in the more literal, realistic realm of film, it mostly comes across as heavy-handed pretentiousness. Richard Attenborough, who would later explore the lives of Gandhi and Chaplin, first made his way to the director's chair here, and he enlisted a staggering who's who of his fellow British actors for roles in the large ensemble: Olivier, Gielgud, and Richardson among them. John Mills plays the most bull-headed of the generals, blithely measuring out yards of territory gained by the thousands of casualties involved. The songs are a historically fascinating lot, mostly given an ironic or sinister treatment in this incarnation, as jolly patriotic tunes that mask the utter carnage at the front. Among the high points is Maggie Smith singing (well, declaiming) an ode to recruitment, promising war as a grand adventure. The blending of arch content with Attenborough's realistic staging of trench warfare just doesn't take, but what does hit home are the actual quotes and the statistics of killing; World War I set a bloody standard for sheer, blind slaughter. --Robert Horton
Oh! What a Lovely War Reviews:
I am so glad this is now available! 
2009-11-30 - This is an amazing multi-layered movie with a stellar cast list.
I saw it first when it was in cinemas in Scotland in 1970 and the images have stayed with me ever since.
Telling the story of WW I as it impacted one family, using the popular songs of the time and the quoted words of politicians, military commanders and kings is nothing short of brilliant.
The main pleasure of having it on DVD is that you can interrupt it as often as you need to, so you can discuss at length what you have seen.
Look out for Maggie Smith telling the boys "If you'll only take the shilling, I'll make a man of any one of you"!
World War I circa 1969 
2009-09-13 - Oh! What a Lovely War
Review and Song List
I'm usually not a fan of musicals, or of the surrealistic pop-culture of the late 1960s as it was applied to the portrayal of historic events. I am an avid World War I buff/historian, as well as a fan of Richard Attenborough, and I had waited, somewhat skeptically, to see his directorial debut, Oh! What a Lovely War. When the DVD was released I ordered it from Amazon, prepared to dislike it intensely, but I was relieved and surprised to find that I found it quite good. It is definitely a product of its time. Some of the imagery, such as the convention of presenting the War as a Brighton Beach holiday pavilion, might be a little hard for some viewers to swallow. The then-current view of all British senior officers as craven, insensitive morons living in luxury far from danger has been energetically and rather effectively challenged in the last few years by such authors as John Terraine, The Smoke and the Fire, and Frank Davies and Graham Maddocks, Bloody Red Tabs, but Oh! What a Lovely War provides a graphic presentation of what remains the majority viewpoint on a still-controversial aspect of the War.
Historically the movie is sound. As long as a viewer keeps the movie's ideological perspective in mind, it's actually a very serviceable thumbnail lesson on World War I from the British viewpoint. The first 20 minutes or so lay out the background, causes, and descent to global war in a bizarre but engaging manner, but also as succinctly and as well as I've seen it done. The military uniforms and equipment have the right look, for the most part; some World War II gear sneaks in from time to time, but not enough to detract seriously from the realism of the battle scenes.
Mostly, for me, this is a tremendous collection of the wonderful music of World War I. The songs are used in an extremely effective way to portray the growing horror of the War and the resignation and anguish of the British people as it progressed. The transitions between the fanciful World War I Pavilion and the actual portrayal of the developing trench combat are sometimes jarring and disturbing but almost always effective. The symbolism, notably the appearance of red poppies as precursors to characters' deaths, is not remotely subtle, but it is heart-felt and sincere. There are a few genuine lump-in-the-throat moments - for me, "We Don't Want to Lose You", "Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire", "Keep the Home Fires Burning", and the ghostly reunion of the Smith brothers at the end qualify. I made out a song list tied to the DVD's chapter titles that might be helpful in finding favorites:
1. The Players
Instrumental medley of World War I tunes over the opening titles
2. Declaration of War
No tunes
3. The Smith Family
Instrumental: "Oh! It's a Lovely War"
"By the Seaside/ I Do Like to See a Soldier"
4. Glorious Army
"Belgium Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser"
5. Join the Forces
"Are We Downhearted?"
"We Don't Want To Lose You, But We Think You Ought To Go"
"On Sunday I Walk Out with a Soldier"
6. The New Recruits
"Send for the Boys' and the Girls' Brigade"
7. Waiting for Orders
"We're Here Because We're Here"
"Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag"
8. Christmas Truce
"Stille Nacht/ Silent Night"
"Christmas Day in the Cookhouse/ Tidings of Comfort and Joy"
9. Oh! It's a Lovely War
"Good-bye-ee"
"Oh! It's a Lovely War"
10. Gas Mishap
"Bombed Last Night (They're Over Us"
11. Army Ball
"Comrades" (Fragment)
12. Just One More Battle
"Hush! Here Comes a Whizzbang"
"The Long Trail"
13. In Vain
"Rule Britannia"
14. Song for the Soldiers
"I Don't Want to Be a Soldier"
"Inky-Dinky, Parlay-vous"
"Oh the Moon Shines Bright on Charlie Chaplin"
"Adieu"
15. Reinforcements
"They Were Only Playing Leapfrog"
16. No More Mortal Sin
"Forward Joe Soap's Army"
"The Church's One Foundation/ We Are the Rag-time Infantry"
"What a Friend We Have in Jesus/ When This Lousy War Is Over"
"Whiter Than the Whitewash on the Wall"
17. War of Attrition
"I Want to Go Home"
"The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-Ling-a-Ling"
"Old Soldiers Never Die (Fragment)
"If the Sergeant Steals Your Rum, Never Mind"
"Far Far From Wipers"
18. Attacks and Counterattacks
"Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire"
"Far Far From Wipers"
"Keep the Home Fires Burning"
19. The Yanks Are Coming
"Over There"
20. Smith Family Reunion
"We'll Never Tell Them"
For songs for which I'm not sure of the title, I've used the early-20th Century convention of using the first line of a song's chorus for the title. Any corrections in cases where that's not right are welcome.
Oh! What a lovely war.
2007-12-18 - This was a film which originated as a west end musical play long before being made into a film.
More recently it has been playing out in London.
It is an anti-war film and it could be superimposed over Irag and the Bush Administration.
It shows how the instigators are well away from the action and destruction
And how it is fought out by die for your country concepts.
The music is sincerely constructed from the minds of the trench soldier with a great deal of resigned vunerability and you must follow the leaders in command or you will be an outcaste.
The striking thing about the songs and lyrics are that they are light and bubbly when trenches are so very bad and cruel to these brave men.
It is a long film but I enjoyed every minute of it.
It can not be purchased by me in my home country Victoria Melbourne Australia so thank you so very much for the copy
How music informed me about world war 1
2007-08-31 - This war along with the American Civil War displayed how the songs of both
wars changed to reflect the horror war and the massive deaths that fell on the ordinary soldiers. While the civil war gave freedom to the slaves,world war 1 settled nothing except for a few border changes, freed Belgian from german occupation,freed poland and led to the communist revolution. It is clearly an antiwar film made during the vietnam war and relects the feelings of actors and filmmakers attitude towards war.
memory
2007-07-24 - I saw this at school 40 years ago and always wanted to see it again. Excellent creative and very different approach. wife and grown up kids accepted it at face value and enjoyed something different.
