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List Price: $14.99Amazon.com's Price: $12.99 You Save: $2.00 (13%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Binding: DVD
Brand: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
EAN: 0097360690149
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Region Code: 1
Release Date: November 07, 2006
Running Time: 144 minutes
Sales Rank: 13935
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: October 03, 1969
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A movie about the First World War based on a stage musical of the same name portraying the 'Game of War' and focusing mainly on the members of one family (last name Smith) who go off to war. Much of the action in the movie revolves around the words of the marching songs of the soldiers and many scenes portray some of the more famous (and infamous) incidents of the war including the assassination of Duke Ferdinand the Christmas meeting between British and German soldiers in no-mans-land and the wiping out by their own side of a force of Irish soldiers newly arrived at the front after successfully capturing a ridge that had been contested for some time. Plot Keywords: Anti War Independent Film Based On PlaySystem Requirements:Run Time: 144 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS UPC: 097360690149 Manufacturer No: 069014
Amazon.com:
It's a product of its Vietnam era just as surely as Robert Altman's M*A*S*H, and like that film Oh! What a Lovely War is ostensibly about a different war. Based on a celebrated anti-war stage piece produced by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, the film chronicles the various madnesses of the First World War. Along with vignettes involving the members of the fictional Smith family, the movie lands its punches with a two-pronged attack: by using the songs of the war, mostly patriotic; and by using the real-life words of various figures from WWI. You can see how this would have fit a stylized stage show; in the more literal, realistic realm of film, it mostly comes across as heavy-handed pretentiousness. Richard Attenborough, who would later explore the lives of Gandhi and Chaplin, first made his way to the director's chair here, and he enlisted a staggering who's who of his fellow British actors for roles in the large ensemble: Olivier, Gielgud, and Richardson among them. John Mills plays the most bull-headed of the generals, blithely measuring out yards of territory gained by the thousands of casualties involved. The songs are a historically fascinating lot, mostly given an ironic or sinister treatment in this incarnation, as jolly patriotic tunes that mask the utter carnage at the front. Among the high points is Maggie Smith singing (well, declaiming) an ode to recruitment, promising war as a grand adventure. The blending of arch content with Attenborough's realistic staging of trench warfare just doesn't take, but what does hit home are the actual quotes and the statistics of killing; World War I set a bloody standard for sheer, blind slaughter. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Oh! What a lovely war.
This was a film which originated as a west end musical play long before being made into a film.
More recently it has been playing out in London.
It is an anti-war film and it could be superimposed over Irag and the Bush Administration.
It shows how the instigators are well away from the action and destruction
And how it is fought out by die for your country concepts.
The music is sincerely constructed from the minds of the trench soldier with a great deal of resigned ... Read More
Rating: - How music informed me about world war 1
This war along with the American Civil War displayed how the songs of both
wars changed to reflect the horror war and the massive deaths that fell on the ordinary soldiers. While the civil war gave freedom to the slaves,world war 1 settled nothing except for a few border changes, freed Belgian from german occupation,freed poland and led to the communist revolution. It is clearly an antiwar film made during the vietnam war and relects the feelings of actors and filmmakers attitude towards war.
Rating: - memory
I saw this at school 40 years ago and always wanted to see it again. Excellent creative and very different approach. wife and grown up kids accepted it at face value and enjoyed something different.
Rating:  - Ageless
Still the best anti war film ever made. Still as fresh as when it was first made.
Rating:  - Not Even A Lovely Film!
I remember seeing this film when it first came out. Much of the memory is a blur (and, after seeing the film again, I prefer it that way). Only two things about it do I remember vividly - the very clever way Maggie Smith was presented first at a distance and then in grisly closeup, and how many times I kept checking my watch to see how much longer the bloody thing would last.
The film, of course, is an anti-war piece made at a time when anti-war films were terribly fashionable. This and ... Read More
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