'War' Deserves to Be Lost

February 29, 1968

"How I Won The War," directed by Richard Lester. Starring Michael Crawford and John Lennon. University Theatre.

By BRUCE VILANCH
Lantern Movie Reviewer

It's nice that the cast of "How I Won The War" is having so much fun. I wish I could say the same for the audience.

Never have I seen such a happy bunch of actors. They get to go around in pantaloons and funny hats, get to fall into ponds, get to run out in the good, fresh sunshine, in fact, get to do everything but act.

This sort of thespianistic therapy has worked quite well in other films (nobody acted much in "Georgy Girl") but here it is operating at a distinct disadvantage for several reasons.

No Story Line Present

There is first of all no shred of story line with which to hold our attention while the actors cavort. There is also no dramatic conflict. There are no more than three solid laughs. There is nothing particularly horrifying.

What there is plenty of is POINT. Point sticks out all over. Director Richard Lester is divesting himself of all his hostility towards war. War is absurd, he is saying, and as such should be treated absurdly.

So he proceeds to construct an episodic, vaudevillian banality aimed at pointing up the utter foolishness of war and the rank folly of glorifying it on the screen. With unbridled relish he attacks every war movie cliche in sight. The problem is that what he is doing is all too noticeable. His picture is literally pregnant with purpose.

When Mr. Lester fiendishly zooms in on a dying soldier we are allowed only a few seconds of pure Hollywood emotion before someone butts in front of the camera and exclaims, "Haven't you had enough? Go let this man die in peace." And our heads hurt from having the message thumped into our skulls.

Actors Romp Through Picture

At any number of times during the film the actors are allowed to race hither and yon in sequences which must have sounded hysterical in script conferences. No sooner have they completely taxed our patience than the scene abruptly switches to fancifully tinted beaches lined with lushly colored war dead. The effect is supposed to be one of revulsion and grim irony, but its stultifying obviousness leaves us silent--not with contemplation, but with disinterest. To add visual polygamy to mental portentiousness, Mr. Lester has taken his trusty handheld camera and gone wild. Scenes are wholly out of order, cuts are fast and furious, camera angles are dangerously artsy. The director is really reaching for effect.

What story there is has to do with a British squadron fighting in North Africa and elsewhere during World War II. Thanks to the lamebrained decisions of their youthful commander, played in desperately comic fashion by Michael Crawford, the group scrapes out of every battle it fights, but not without losing one man. Each fallen comrade returns to the fray subsequently, clad in a different pastel shade (blue for one battle, pink for the next.) By movie's end the troop is quite pretty indeed, but no funnier.

Lennon Makes Appearance

Beatle John Lennon makes an appearance as a stupid soldier, a role to which he could become easily accustomed, judging from the natural manner in which he acts this one. Mr. Lennon has been given precious little to do. He gets to do The Big Death at the end (an honor he shares this year with Jim Brown) and a few other things, all of which he accomplishes adequately.

The rest of the cast ranges from what used to be called "silly ass English" to what is still called "ballsy Greek." All speak absolutely unintelligible English.

Two Redeeming Features

There are one or two redeeming features to "How I Won The War." One is a splendid scene in which the British prisoner and Nazi commander compare their reflections on genocide. Two is the film's undisguised ambition.

"How I Won The War" aspires to much more than it is or ever can be. It would like to be shocking. It is instead only confusing. It would like to be thought-provoking. It instead leaves us cold. It would like to be the final statement on war and war movies--a noble impossibility. It would like to be all of these things, but it is unfortunately none. By assuming a frenetic, campy, unwholesomely flippant and disjointed position, it has defeated itself.

Neil's Column

Both John and I have finished our parts in the film and are back home again. That's a bit of an exaggeration, really, because I did almost nothing compared with John, who, of course, is one of the leading characters in the picture.

All I did was to dress up in various coloured uniforms and stand around in the distance. Anyone could have done it, including all of you. It certainly didn't require any great acting ability.

STRANGE

People have asked me how the film cast reacted to having a Beatle living with them. It was a bit strange for everybody at first. John didn't want any special privileges or anything, he just wanted to be accepted as one of the blokes in the film. This was a bit difficult for some of the cast during the first week or two, but then everyone realised that he was a normal human being who liked a game of cards and a laugh, and everything was all right after that. He got on particularly well with his officer in the film, Michael Crawford, and they ended up great friends. I don't think he particularly liked having his hair cut and I am pretty certain he's rather glad he can now let it get back to its normal length if he wants to.

I can't tell you what John is like in the film, because Dick Lester wouldn't let anyone see the rushes. He told us that he thought that it put actors off if they saw themselves on the screen in odd scenes. The trouble is that you only see the bits that have been filmed the previous day and these might come from different parts of the film. Also, if the scenes were taken several times, you see them more than once. So if you were particularly bad in one take, it really hurts and even though one knows that this bad take will not be used when the film is finally spliced together, you still can't help feeling really depressed and coming to the conclusion that you can't act at all.

FUNNY

The film is a parody on war, so John is funny at times and serious at others. I think, personally, that he is going to come across very well.

Anyone who thinks that we just had a lot of wild parties on location can think again. All the cast were male, of course; there were no girls around anywhere. I believe one did come out for half a day, but I never even saw her. She was forty years old or something. So all we did in the evenings was sit in our house in Santa Isabel near Almeria and play cards or some other game. Risk was very popular. Altogether it was very uncomfortable.

It was the house that was the most trouble. It was real crazy. It had no water or electricity. It was supposed to have both, of course, when we arrived, but the lights used to come on and go off all the time. Water was obtained from a pump in the yard, but it broke down before we got there, and throughout our stay it was being fixed. I believe they did manage to get it working again the day after we left. Living in that house was rough; but the roughest part of all, for both John and yours truly, was getting up every morning at 7.30. We hated it. But when you are filming you've got to start early otherwise you don't get enough done each day.

LUXURY

John did have one bit of luxury on location. He had his Rolls Royce there and his own driver, Anthony, to drive him around. Anthony is Welsh, of course, and you should have heard him swearing about the heat, the dust and the flies. All he wanted to do was to get back to Wales, but whenever he started on about it, John would just laugh. As I told you last month, Ringo came to see us, Paul also flew out, but we left the day before he arrived, so we missed him.

It's great to be back home and I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks catching up on my sleep. We've been so out of touch that I hardly know what's in the Top Ten any more.

I've popped round to see George and Ringo since I've been back. George and John are both busy songwriting, getting material ready for the next lot of recording sessions, which they should have started by the time you're reading this. But more of that next month.