Oh! What a Lovely War

Richard Attenborough's debut film is an interesting experiment, if not an entirely successful one. Think Blackadder Goes Forth with musical numbers and an all-star cast, and you're not too far off.

How to try and describe the plot? World War I is presented as a series of musical numbers and baroque sketches, mostly focusing on the extended Smith family, who ultimately sends four sons to fight in the war. While the soldiers suffer and die in the trenches of France, the officers party and scheme for personal glory, the aristocrats bemoan downturns in business, and the civilians wonder what it's all about.

Based on a much-beloved stage musical, Oh! What a Lovely War is an odd film that's very much of its time. Tony Richardson's Charge of the Light Brigade mixes its scornful condemnation of Victorian England with Richard Williams's satirical animation, and the wonderfully bizarre The Ruling Class crams its scathing social satire with slapstick goofiness and off-the-wall musical numbers. War follows suit, adapting WWI period tunes into a left-wing musical revue, to rather odd effect.

As a series of vignettes, Oh! What a Lovely War is decidedly hit-and-miss. The film remains close to its stage roots, with Attenborough opting for an oddly Expressionist film. There's heavy use of sets in dialogue scenes and musical numbers, but the film opens up for some impressive frontline footage. Attenborough uses stagey but effective devices to make his point: the scoreboard measuring yards gained to casualties, Brighton's West Pier as a symbol of the war's effect on British society, the merry-go-round of slaughtered French cavalrymen. For all this Brechtian hooey, the strongest scene is the most straightforward: a brief but affecting depiction of the Christmas Truce of 1914, when British and German troops put aside their differences for a moment of humanity. If you want to make a pacifist statement, you needn't go further than that.

Other ideas are less inspired. The opening with statesmen reciting historical speeches is long, dry and draggy, and the scenes of the military brass and aristocrats play as crude, overemphatic caricature. The arresting image of red poppies on the battlefield is repeated four or five times too many - not surprising given Attenborough's aversion to subtlety. The historical satire isn't particularly insightful or revealing: World War I is the obvious choice for an anti-war film and Attenborough doesn't make any points not already addressed in, say, Paths of Glory. Worst of all, the film never quite connects on a human level: the Smiths get lost in the shuffle of a truly enormous cast, and moments that ought to be affecting (namely the ending) don't really register.

War begins the Attenborough trend of enlisting a galaxy of British stars for cameos and bit parts. The opening scene alone features a gobsmacking array of talent: Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Kenneth More, Ian Holm, John Clemens and Jack Hawkins. John Mills, Laurence Olivier and Michael Redgrave play boneheaded Generals; Jean-Pierre Cassell plays a French cavalryman; Vanessa Redgrave appears as a fiery suffragette; Maggie Smith is a bawdy musical hall madam; Dirk Bogarde and Susannah York have about thirty seconds' screen time as snooty aristocrats. Attentive viewers can also spot Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal), Corin Redgrave (A Man for All Seasons), Isabel Dean (A High Wind in Jamaica), Cecil Parker (The Ladykillers), Michael Bates (Patton), Maurice Roeves (Young Winston) and Gerald Sim (Ryan's Daughter). If you enjoy playing "spot the star," this is the film for you.

On the whole, Oh! What a Lovely War is an interesting film even if it isn't especially good. Buried underneath the excess and heavy-handed pacifist preaching are some good ideas and affecting images.