Isle of Wight What's On Guide: 2024 Events OnTheWight

Oh! What a Lovely War

Monday 26 8.00pmNovember
2018

Film

Ryde Film Club

Ryde Methodist Church
Garfield Road
Ryde

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Oh! What a Lovely War

Source http://rydefilm.club/

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Scathing in its treatment of First World War propaganda and the reality of the war, Oh! What a Lovely War exposes the responsibility of politicians, rulers, and generals for its barbarism. Yet it does so using the format of an end-of-the-pier show. It brings home, with a song, the culpability of so-called leaders in the manner of a musical hall satire. It's just as the men in the trenches changed popular songs to fit their everyday brutal reality. And it's brilliant!

An array of prominent British actors from the post-WW2 era, some with wartime service, give magnificent performances in Oh! What a Lovely War. Almost too many to mention, they include Colin Farrell, Corin Redgrave, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Laurence Olivier, Phyllis Calvert, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Dirk Bogarde, Mary Wimbush, Jack Hawkins, Kenneth More, Michael Bates, Maggie Smith, Susannah York, Robert Flemyng, David Lodge, Ian Holm, Joe Melia, and Paul Daneman.

Len Deighton wrote the screenplay (in homage to his father, gassed in WW1 trenches) and was the film's producer. His screenplay was based on the original play written jointly by Charles Chilton and the members of the cast of Joan Littlewood's Stratford East stage production.

Oh! What a Lovely War was the first film directed by Richard Attenborough. It was released in 1969.

Category PG, the film lasts 144 minutes.

Image courtesy of Park Circus/Paramount.