Richard Lester's "How I Won The War" is a confusing, absurdist fantasy satirising attitudes to class, comradeship and of course the war. That's about all I got from it I'm afraid as its offbeat, experimental structure and technique left me cold.
Michael Crawford's Captain Goodbody leads a motley troop of musketeers (in the Second World War?) with the avowed aim of creating a cricket pitch behind enemy lines. He's answerable to a madcap, gung-ho general, played by Michael Hordern, but the film is more concerned with his interaction or lack of same with his troop members, who comprise the likes of Roy Kinnear, Lee Montague, Jack Hedley and in his first and last acting role, John Lennon on furlough from the Beatles.
I found it all something of a mess, with Lester throwing every film school trick he can at it, whether that be his actors stepping out of character, breaking the fourth wall in addressing the viewer directly, changing the colour tone and interspersing the action with vérité war footage.
To tell me what exactly? That war is hell, mad and class-driven? I sort of knew that already before I submitted myself to nearly two hours of unfunny, head-scratching tedium.
Crawford's affectations irritate the longer the film progresses, Hordern and Hedley at least bring some gravitas to proceedings and Lennon sort of does okay although it's noticeable that most of his scenes are done directly to camera and not in interaction with his fellow-actors, perhaps betraying his lack of experience. He's certainly no worse than the succession of musicians who followed him into straight acting roles, like Jagger, Dylan and Bowie to name but three.
As a whole though, the movie just didn't connect with me at any level which may in the end say more about me than the direction of the piece. Still, there is consolation in that it inspired, in different ways, two of Lennon's greatest songs "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day In The Life".
Overall as far as this film was concerned, for me at any rate, to paraphrase another 60's song, I fought the war and the war won.
Michael Crawford's Captain Goodbody leads a motley troop of musketeers (in the Second World War?) with the avowed aim of creating a cricket pitch behind enemy lines. He's answerable to a madcap, gung-ho general, played by Michael Hordern, but the film is more concerned with his interaction or lack of same with his troop members, who comprise the likes of Roy Kinnear, Lee Montague, Jack Hedley and in his first and last acting role, John Lennon on furlough from the Beatles.
I found it all something of a mess, with Lester throwing every film school trick he can at it, whether that be his actors stepping out of character, breaking the fourth wall in addressing the viewer directly, changing the colour tone and interspersing the action with vérité war footage.
To tell me what exactly? That war is hell, mad and class-driven? I sort of knew that already before I submitted myself to nearly two hours of unfunny, head-scratching tedium.
Crawford's affectations irritate the longer the film progresses, Hordern and Hedley at least bring some gravitas to proceedings and Lennon sort of does okay although it's noticeable that most of his scenes are done directly to camera and not in interaction with his fellow-actors, perhaps betraying his lack of experience. He's certainly no worse than the succession of musicians who followed him into straight acting roles, like Jagger, Dylan and Bowie to name but three.
As a whole though, the movie just didn't connect with me at any level which may in the end say more about me than the direction of the piece. Still, there is consolation in that it inspired, in different ways, two of Lennon's greatest songs "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day In The Life".
Overall as far as this film was concerned, for me at any rate, to paraphrase another 60's song, I fought the war and the war won.