Fantasia Obscura: ‘Oh! What a Lovely War’

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, you feel that the product didn’t need to try and sell you with a song and dance…

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Directed by: Richard Attenborough

The enormity of what would become the First World War is still hard to fully comprehend. Even over a century out from its start, all of us are still coming to terms with its impact and repercussions. There is no easy way to try and give one a sense of the conflict and all of the changes it still puts us through.

Though Lord knows, Richard Attenborough certainly tried…

The film’s ambitions and challenges, to try and give a full sense of the experience of the war from all angles, is neatly presented during the opening credits sequence:

From there, we’re brought to a two-level set in the style of the Brighton’s West Pier where major players among the governments of the combatants share gossip and invectives, while declaring their beliefs that no one wants a war. We watch as French president Raymond Poincaré (Ian Holm) shows his disdain for Austrian foreign minister Leopold Berchtold (John Geilgud) while British foreign minister Sir Edward Grey (Ralph Richardson) declares his non-involvement in the coming mess as Kaiser Wilhelm II (Kenneth Moore) proclaims how much he doesn’t want war.

This is interrupted by a photographer (Joe Melia) who before he takes a group picture of these leaders, turns to give us a look, to let us know that he’s as aware as we are that this ain’t going to end well for anyone:

With the ‘pop’ of the flash powder as the picture’s taken, both Archduke Franz Ferdinand (an uncredited Wensley Pithey) and his wife (an uncredited Ruth Kettlewell) lie dead on the floor, and suddenly war is no longer avoidable…

The photographer announces to the leaders that they must take their places for “the ever popular war game, complete with songs, battles, and a few jokes,” as a map is rolled out for them to stand upon:

Once the ‘Guns of August’ have been deployed and start shooting, we switch to the beaches of Brighton, just east of the pier, where a military band plays as it marches on the boardwalk. The band’s purpose is to encourage able-bodied men to fall in behind them and join the army, for King and country. They march up to the pier, where admission is being collected for everyone wanting to join the ever popular war game.

Once the venue is prepped by the photographer, now dressed as a member of the army, tickets are sold to the public. This includes the Smith brothers: Harry (Colin Farrell), Jack (Paul Shelly), Bertie (Corin Redgrave), and George (Maurice Roëves). They enter the service, and along with their sister Bettie (Angela Thorne) who becomes a nurse, they experience the worst aspects of the conflict, while other characters we pop in on from time to time find themselves having far more fun.

From this point on, the film shifts back and forth between characters and styles, from using the single two-level set we opened on in different configurations, to scenes set on the pier and pieces out in the fields. And along the way, no matter the type of set the film goes to, there will be, as promised, songs, battles, and a few jokes.

We watch as Harry gets prompted to sign up when a music hall singer (Maggie Smith) entices the men in the audience to enlist with her number, “I’ll Make You a Man”:

We watch some of the Smiths later as their unit tries to set up communication lines to the front under possible enemy fire, while singing the number, “Here Comes a Whiz Bang”:

We see another Smith boy in in his unit (whose sergeant is the photographer) as they get reviewed by the general staff before going into Ypres with the number “They Were Only Playing Leapfrog”:

All the while, far from the front, Field Marshall Douglas Haig (John Mills) thinks things are going splendidly, as we see him (blithely oblivious to the casualty figures posted behind him) in the number “Oh What a Lovely War”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mufPyc1L3hc

The thing with all these musical numbers is, these are all from the period of the conflict. Over the course of the war, each song at different times were either performed in music halls as entertainment, or sung in the trenches to try to boost morale at the front. The numbers were used to great effect in the BBC Radio production of Charles Chilton’s “The Long Long Trail,” which tried to recount the war through quotes from soldiers’ letters, with the music played between readings.

This presentation encouraged Joan Littlewood at the Theatre Workshop to mount a review in 1963, which was a smash hit that was enthusiastically embraced by the critics. During the run, author Len Deighton caught the show and was captivated by it. His own account of the film’s production history notes how he took the script for original production, then graphed onto it the Smith family to give it some focus, to come up with a screenplay.

From there, Deighton became the initial producer who worked to shepherd his version to the screen. Thanks in some part his success with producing the film adaptation of his novel Only When I Larf, Deighton was able to get the production up and running fairly quickly. When it came time for finding a director, Attenborough (who had starred in Larf), persuaded Deighton to allow him to do it, as he was looking for a career change away from acting.

For a first film, Attenborough shows a lot of potential that doesn’t quite come together. The picture as Deighton envisaged it was a large production, involving shots with large crowds, plenty of seen cuts, fanciful dance numbers, and numerous practical effects shots. Even experienced directors would have had difficulty keeping it all together, and most first timers would have been so swamped that the shoot would likely have had numerous shut downs.

What makes the film even more of a miracle that it ever got released were some of the battles behind the scenes. Deighton had originally wanted no changes to the script or his production notes, and even went so far as to have everything in the movie storyboarded out. When Attenborough went off script, likely out of a need for practicality, tensions rose behind the scenes.

As a result, there’s no given screenplay credit, as Deighton felt so much of what got on screen was not his that he withheld his name. Deighton’s sense of isolation from the material extended out to the point where he also removed his name as producer of the film.

For a film from a first time director with production issues, it’s a lot better than its history would suggest. Each individual section can stand on its own, with well-staged dance numbers accompanying the songs. The cast as a whole does an outstanding job as they refight the war, especially Melia’s photographer who serves the audience the way Virgil serves Dante in the poet’s Inferno.

As far as being able to put it all together as a whole, though, Attenborough just didn’t have the ability then to helm a film that was over two hours in length and keep it focused. By the time he directs Gandhi and Chaplain, however, he’s developed these skills, possibly having picked them up with lessons learned from his time on this project.

And to be fair, the subject’s a big project in and of itself. The focus of the film is limited to the British involvement in the war on the continent; trying to bring in the British experience in the Middle East, let alone other aspects of the war like the Russian Revolution, would have been too much for any movie to handle.

And because this started out with Theater Workshop as a musical review, using popular songs from the time sung as though they were in a music hall, many of the darker aspects of the war do not come through. This conscious choice to keep the blood offset as much as possible works against it with modern audiences, who tend to lack both the sensitives and the background understanding of the war the original audience had.

The end result is a film that has problems relaying a strong anti-war message to an audience removed from the time of its premiere. Without the background about a war waged 110 years ago, the irony the movie goes for to reach its audience with subtlety can’t possess the same impact that 1917 and the 2022 release of All’s Quiet on the Western Front does.

Under all of the music and spectacle is a message about the futility and waste of war. It’s a message we’ve never taken to heart, and will likely need to be reminded of many times, probably without song but by brute force.