Oh! What a Lovely War

A film that tells the First World War as an entertainment. The narrative begins on a seaside pier. The war is presented there like a fairground attraction: tickets are sold, signs are hung and going to the front is advertised as an outing. We follow one family. The sons of the Smiths enlist one after another and each is lost on a different front. The scenes are built on the songs of the period. The pieces soldiers sang in the trenches make up the film's text; the words are sardonic, cheerful and bitter. At the same time the commanders and statesmen are shown on another plane: card tables, dance floors, the casualty figures updated on a board. The best known image is at the end; as the camera pulls back the white crosses ranked on the hillside come into view. It was made with a large cast. Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, Dirk Bogarde and many others appear in short passages. Richard Attenborough directed; it is his first film as director. The source is a stage musical. An important production for anyone who likes anti-war cinema and formal experiment. For a viewer expecting a conventional war film, there is a stage show here instead of a front.