How I Won the War

Starring:Michael Crawford, John Lennon, Jack MacGowran, Michael Hordern, Jack Hedley, Karl Michael Vogler, Ronald Lacey, James Cossins, Ewan Hooper, Alexander Knox, Robert Hardy, Sheila Hancock, Charles Dyer, Bill Dysart, Paul Daneman, Peter Graves (II), Jack May, Richard Pearson (II)
Director: Richard Lester
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

I Just Had to Look
A corrosive antimilitarist satire
Not what you expected
Beyond Lennon
Too much work watching this

How I Won the War [Region 2]
Starring: Michael Crawford , John Lennon , Roy Kinnear , Lee Montague , and Jack MacGowran
Director: Richard Lester
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
A Hard Day's Night
The Dick Cavett Show - John Lennon & Yoko Ono
The Beatles - Help!
The Beatles - Help

ASIN: B00029RDWC

Customer Reviews:

I Just Had to Look.......2006-11-15

"I saw a film today, oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
But I just had to look
Having read the book."

John Lennon sung that in his song "A Day in the Life", featuring on the Beatles album "Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", in 1967. That same year he also co-starred with Michael Crawford in the film "How I Won the War", based on the book of the same name. It's a comedy of sorts. Don't think it works as well, as it's a bit rapid fire with a fragmented and out-of-order plot, but I do think it holds together better than, say, the "Magical Mystery Tour" film.

An enthusiastic grammar school fellow named Goodbody (Michael Crawford) has joined the British army, has been appointed Corporal, and given a troop of men to lead against the Germans, including a certain Liverpool lad by the name of Gripweed (John Lennon), a young man who can go from being happy-go-lucky to rather intimidating, given the situation. Goodbody's platoon troop across the sands of Spain, while encountering mutiny, mines and madness along the way. How did Goodbody win the war?

The answer, though it makes a point, didn't really grab me that much. Kind of goes for the rest of the film, actually. There's too much satire in it to be a light hearted sillyness, yet the constant sillyness takes the punch out of the satire. It's not that there isn't some thoughtful stuff in the guise of sillyness, there's definitely a few lines that really got me thinking, but like I said, it's pretty rapid fire, so it's hard to make sense of what is happening. There was something going on between Goodbody and his platoon, some sort of relationship that was significant, but I couldn't tell you what it was exactly. Don't think it was a good relationship though. John Lennon played an interesting character, I think, a bit geekier than you'd expect him to be. He doesn't get a whole stack of lines, though. It's interesting seeing a younger Michael Crawford too, and I thought the Spanish location was pretty cool.

If you're after some 1960s sillyness with a Beatle, check out "The Magic Christian" instead, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo. "How I Won The War" takes a bit more patience and concentration. It's not neccesarily a bad film, it's just pretty difficult. Three and half stars.

A corrosive antimilitarist satire.......2006-08-30

" Absurd " humour against the absurd of war. Director Richard Lester dismounts the british establisment, the cynical lies and fabricated interests hidden under the smoke curtain of the patrotism, the military discipline, the stereotypes of epics and the delirious glorification and manipulative vision that some films do of war with his juvenile and iconoclast spirit and sardonic comicity. Lester uses techniques of strangeness to accentuate the grotesque side of war and the sentiment of alienation in which seems to move all the time the characters: the movie is conceived as a long chain of satirical vignettes or synthetic thought-provokative gags whithin a flashback narration conducted by the leutenant Goodbody ( a splendid Michael Crawford ), responsible of one of the worst units of the army. Likewise, the frenetic dialogues ( in the army the members of the high command speak loud and fast to their subordinates and don't wait that soldiers think, this is, Lester makes a caricature of the militaries' rules and their tics ) are recordered in a very deliberated artificial way provoking the effect as if we were listening the thoughts of the characters or their words didn't belong to them ( this very interesting narrative resort we can already find with a similar intention in the Fleischer brothers' " talkartoons " ). John Lennon leaves this time the rest of the Beatles to join to the disastrous unit leaded by Michael Crawford, in the role of a completely incompetent leutenant, in this tragic-comic antiwarlike movie.

Not what you expected.......2006-07-06

If you are looking for the typical Beatles movie you will be disappointed with this one. It has some funny moments but this is a war movie, war is not funny. John Lennon is excellent in this film and the movie was put together well. It takes some thinking to understand some moments, so if you are not into thinking about your movies don't watch it. But if you want to watch a war movie that has great actors and director and an interesting plot then this is one for you.

Beyond Lennon.......2006-03-22

Richard Lester's HOW I WON THE WAR has always been a controversial film simply because of all the publicity that Beatle John Lennon would be appearing in it. Put simply, John Lennon really just appears in it as one of several British soldiers under the command of the narrow minded and naïve Michael Crawford during this WWII anti war film. Michael Crawford is the main character of this film. It is Crawford that undergoes a transition in this film from his military experience and he is the central focus of all the bizarre events that occur. John Lennon's character really gets no focus at all. The publicity around Lennon distorted the impression of this film for almost all time. That is unfortunate. Richard Lester's film is not bad but it is not for all tastes.

Too much work watching this.......2005-05-04

Evidently this is supposed to be some sort of black comedy. Unless you like keystone cops, there is not much comedy; it is more of a surrealistic missing of the mark.

Michael Crawford "A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum" (1966), is supposed to be some sort of inept WWII officer. This film is full of colorful characters (painted red, blue and whatever).

There are a lot of noisy overlapping claptrap and gobbledygook statements. It is unique enough not to be anything. The only thing missing are the Muppets.

You would be much better off watching "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?" (1966) It has a moral and redeeming social value.

Average customer rating:

I Just Had to Look
A corrosive antimilitarist satire
Not what you expected
Beyond Lennon
Too much work watching this

How I Won the War
Starring: Michael Crawford , John Lennon , Jack MacGowran , Michael Hordern , and Jack Hedley
Director: Richard Lester
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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