Review of Oh! What a Lovely War

I first saw OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR! when I was living in London in 1969

and it blew me away. I dragged friends to Piccadilly Circus over and

over again and each one emerged from the theater as shaken as I. A

truly great anti war film adapted brilliantly from Joan Greenwood's

theater piece by Richard Attenborough, OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR deserves to

be seen today by a new generation of filmgoers. Here is a scathing

burlesque of the idiocy of war set in WWI and driven by to tunes of the

time, each one seemingly innocuous, but loaded with irony and acid just

below the surface. The film is in brilliant color, but the audience is

always made aware of the blackness of death hovering above it. From

early on with Maggi Smith coercing the boys to "take the shilling" and

join up, to the shattering last scene where the camera pulls back to

show row upon row of crosses, this is a genuine masterpiece. A true 10+

I believe this was a Paramount film so if any of you Paramount execs are

reading this, wouldn't this would be a perfect time for a 35th

anniversary DVD release??