Oh, What A Lovely War

[Terry_Reeves]

A good piece of entertainment for me. It doesn't have to be taken seriously.

TR

[PBI]

Any ideas he had on war are likely to have been coloured by his own service in WW2

I would have thought serving in an RAF Film Unit in the UK and at the SAME TIME Persuing an Acting Career would make His Ideas rather Different to those of His Generation that Had Experienced actual Combat.

[david12656]

i watched the film and liked it ,is it me or does anyone else agree after the leaders on both sides watched hundred of thousands of men killed in a futile attempt to capture mud and bomb craters they still carried on killing even more so if they were not incompetant they were criminal

[Staffsyeoman]

Two (vaguely) interesting points:

1.) The film was directed by Sir Richard Attenborough. I jokingly suggested a few years ago that he should forfeit his knighthood ....

2.) Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig is portrayed totally unsympathetically by Sir John Mills...

Actually, on this logic... it might be suggested that John Mills' knighthood be posthumously stripped as it was he who bought the film rights and cajoled a reluctant Dickie to take the director's chair for the first time...

Yes, it's utterly lousy as history (but I defy you to better the opening 'ballroom' sequence for all the politicking, inter-marriages et al as an encapsulation of the path to war; plaudits for Gielgud and Joe Melia in that regard..). Yet two things never fail to make me wistful 1. Brighton pier in good condition and bright (pun not totally intended) as a new pin 2. The final helicopter shot of the crosses.

[Arnie]

The mention of Charles Chilton brought to mind that the Stage production of 'Oh what a lovely war' was based on a BBC Radio programmw of the fifties, called

I think, 'Long Long Trail awinding'. Produced I think based upon the works of Eric Partridge and John Brophy. Their works was later Published as a book called 'Songs and Slang of the British Soldier 1914 - 1918' Published in 1930

Both Partridge and Brophy had both served in the Infantry during WW1. I think the Book was famed as the first to publish the song Old soldiers never die - they only fade away Later made famous in the Speach by General MacArthur.

In the book the authors relate that GHQ banned the soldier singing, the now well know songs because they ridiculed the Staff Officers and produced a defeatist attitude. needless to say they efforts as in most things failed!

Arnie

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Any ideas he had on war are likely to have been coloured by his own service in WW2

I would have thought serving in an RAF Film Unit in the UK and at the SAME TIME Persuing an Acting Career would make His Ideas rather Different to those of His Generation that Had Experienced actual Combat.

As someone in the south of England he was regularly exposed to bombing through the Blitz, Mini Blitz, V1 & V2 campaigns; that in my book counts as experiencing combat. I did not claim that his ideas bore relation to anyone else's. As he was in a job removed from combat missions, but on the recieving end of combat he might well have developed different views from others. He was unable to hit back on the one hand and saw the casualties inflicted on the other. Being in the RAF Film Unit he would have experienced messes with places missing, friends and relations killed and at home conversations with Jewish refugees. He was also on the receiving end and then involved in the creation of propaganda, also likely to have been a factor in colouring his views.

"1941 Richard Attenborough joins the Academy as a Leverhulme scholar.At the height of World War Two, the Academy’s theatre is demolished during an air-raid. Public performances shift to the City Literary Institute and students also tour shows to the troops." From the history of RADA.

http://www.rada.org/history.html

[IanA]

In the book the authors relate that GHQ banned the soldier singing, the now well know songs because they ridiculed the Staff Officers and produced a defeatist attitude. needless to say they efforts as in most things failed!

I have never heard this asserted before. It seems a ridiculous ban to try to impose and I would like to see some evidence. I have the Brophy and Partridge book and cannot see your reference.

[John(txic)]

I am sure that was not the intention

I'm afraid I think that was exactly the intention! It was produced by a radical, left-wing theatre group whose principal aim seemed to be the overthrow of the state in favour of a people's paradise (despite being a bunch of toffs who probably despised we proles.....)

Having said that - I love it! Some tear-jerking scenes, and those songs!

[George Armstrong Custer]

I'm afraid I think that was exactly the intention! It was produced by a radical, left-wing theatre group whose principal aim seemed to be the overthrow of the state in favour of a people's paradise (despite being a bunch of toffs who probably despised we proles.....)

There's a great deal of truth in what you say. In fact, an examination of those involved with the genesis of OWALW reveals a whole cabal of fellow-travelling left-wing iconoclasts, allied with a maverick Conservative politician who thought Britain should have allied itself with Hitler, and who between them contributed significantly to the Great War myths which have been perpetuated in popular culture ever since. Consider:

Littlewood was a radical Socialist who established the left-wing Theatre Workshop. She had her greatest success with this group in 1963 with the premier of her play 'Oh What A Lovely War.' OWALW was based upon Alan Clark's iconoclastically anti-Haig book 'The Donkey's' - which was first published in 1961, two years before Littlewood's play premiered (not a 'few months' as Arnie has suggested on this thread). As well as Clark's poorly researched and prejudicial tome, Littlewood based parts of OWALW on episodes from the Czech satirist and sometime anarchist Jarolslav Hasek's farcically comedic stories of 'The Good Soldier Svejk.'

But the network of links between OWALW and figures prominent in establishing 'The Donkeys' theory in the mind of the British public in the 1960's goes further. Alan Clark, whose book's portrayal of Haig and the British Great War generals OWALW was largely based upon, had been taught as an undergraduate at Oxford University by A. J. P. Taylor. Taylor was born of wealthy parents who held strongly left-wing views, which he inherited. So much so, that Taylor's mother was a member of the Soviet's 1919 International organisation, the Comintern, and one of his Uncles was a founding member of the British Communist Party. Taylor himself became a member of the Communist Party before switching to Labour. However he remained an admirer of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. His parents were both pacifists who vocally opposed World War I, so much so that during the Great War they sent their son to Quaker schools as a way of protesting against the war. In 1966, three years after the premier of Littlewood's play OWALW, and by then well established as an historian of the Marxist school, Taylor produced 'The First World War: An Illustrated History' which, amongst other things, mocked Haig's religious faith. Most tellingly, however, Taylor dedicated the book to Joan Littlewood, whose play of OWALW had premiered three years earlier. As it sold some 250,000 copies over the next quarter of a century, Taylor's history may be said to have gone some way towards giving academic credibility to Littlewood's take on the war.

By 1969, when Richard Attenborough directed the film version of Littlewood's OWALW play, many of the script additions made for the movie can be traced back to A.J.P. Taylor's best-selling 1966 history. The 1969 movie version of OWALW of course definitely played a major role in establishing a prevalent view of Haig and British Great War Generals as bungling, callous butchers amongst those members of the British public never likely to pick up a history book. For those who had read Clark and/or his mentor Taylor, of course, the film seemed to offer confirmation of a particular academic view of the war in the form of popular entertainment.

Three decades later, with Taylor dead, Littlewood and Clark were still at it. When permission was asked by a young theatre company to revive her original stage play of OWALW in 1998, the only caveat Littlewood imposed was that it wasn't staged at the National Theatre, that "elitist and middle class anathema". In the same year, Alan Clark joined forces with the Daily Express in support of that newspaper's shameful campaign to have Haig's statue removed from Whitehall. Around the same time, the writer A. N. Wilson upped the ante by calling for Haig's statue to be vandalised on the basis that Haig was 'arguably a mass murderer who should never have been honoured by a statue in the first place.' Clark himself, of course, gained notoriety for declaring that the British Empire ought to have allied itself with the Nazis in 1939. It probably shouldn't be surprising, then, to find Wilson on record as also stating that Israel no longer had a right to exist. So, it is from people with such charming viewpoints - from the Communist extremities of Littlewood and Taylor to the Naziesque utterances of Clark and Wilson - that the origins and subsequent influences of Oh What A Lovely War may be traced. OWALW itself, and the works upon which it was based are shot through with the political agendas and prejudices of those involved. The tragic irony is that it helped spawn and foster a view of the Great War which, through its dissemination in popular culture, became for many less enquiring minds the established one.

ciao,

GAC

[Arnie]

Custer

Clarks Donkeys was publioshed in late 1961 I think I'm right in saying it was not in the shops until April 1962. Littlewood started work on OWALW at the begining of 196 a few months after the publiation'

Pleae give me some examples where Clark was wrong you will probably be the only revistionist who can Please an old old soldier Thanks in anticipation

Arnie

PS: I see that the Donkeys is still in printand OWALW is still very popular coming out again in DVD are all these people who like it communists?

[PBI]

Whichever way you look at it Dickie Darling had a Very Safe Cushy War....

[redorchestra]

I saw this for the first time last night. I found it a bit disappointing really. I don't have a problem with suspending my disbelief so I wasn't expecting to be bothered by the historical inaccuracies, but considering that at the start the film claims to be based on fact some of the 'facts' were nothing short of lies. For instance, it isn't true that the Somme offensive resulted in no territorial gain. Of course, it's another argument entirely whether the gain was worth the loss in life, but that is besides the point. People will watch the film and take it that little 'fact' as entirely true. I understand that the film is trying to make a point, but I imagine the same points could be made about the Somme without needing to distort the facts.

Also the film seemed at points chronologically very disjointed. Just before the section about the Christmas truce they were already talking about tin helmets, and then after the Somme sequence it was stated that if x action was taken it would lead to stalemate and a line of trenches from the Channel to Switzerland! Surely by mid-1916 this scenario had existed for the best part of two years..

Some of the documentaries on the DVD also seemed to contain a few errors, or at least misinterpretations. Richard Attenborough says that the reason the Great War endures in modern memory is because it was the last 'personal' war. I think quite the opposite actually, that it was the first 'impersonal' war, as there are many accounts of soldiers going through the entire period of their service without seeing a live German or getting to fire at one! Also, isn't it true that the biggest cause of casualties in WW1 was artillery? Getting blown to pieces by some artillery emplacement miles away doesn't strike me as a very 'personal' way to fight a war!

It had its moments but generally I found it a bit of a letdown. Songs were good though!

[George Armstrong Custer]

Arnie, it's beyond doubt that Clark's 'The Donkeys' was one of the texts upon which Littlewood's Theatre Workshop based its storyline. Professor Brian Bond referred to the textual sources (and their limitations) of OWALW in his 1997 Annual Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives Lecture:

The historical limitations of the play are evident in its structure: Act 1 dramatises 'innocent' hope of victory and optimism; Act 2 stages three then recent popular historical texts; namely Barbara Tuchman's August 1914, Alan Clark's The Donkeys and Leon Wolff's In Flanders Fields. These books focus respectively upon the years 1914, 1915 and 1917. There is some effort in the play to cover events in 1916, but on 1918 it has almost nothing to say. Thus the awkward, embarrassing issue of eventual victory was avoided and the message came over loud and clear: 'the War as a whole was visited upon a compliant lower class by an upper class which claimed a superiority it could not justify'. This sort of clap- trap reminds one of Wully Robertson's derisive snort 'I've 'eard different!!', which is particularly relevant in this context since he had risen from private to field marshal. As the theatre and film critic, Derek Paget disarmingly admits, reliance on these sources and the emphasis on contemporary concerns made the play 'a poorish source for knowledge about the Great War, (but) such an excellent source of knowledge about the early 1960's.'

I ought, also, to have added to my earlier post mention of the influential role of Raymond Fletcher in creating OWALW as a piece of early 1960's anti-establishment and anti-war political polemic. Fletcher's input has been detailed in Prof. Alex Danchev's chapter Bunking and Debunking: The Controversies of the 1960's in Brian Bond's The First World War and British Military History (1991). Fletcher was credited as 'historical adviser' to Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop production of the play, but by his own admission his role had more in common with that of a political officer. Fletcher, later a Labour MP, was a journalist, a fan of Liddell Hart and a fierce opponent of Terraine and any author who 'white-washed' Haig and the generals. Fletcher revealingly described the three hour harangue he gave to Littlewood's Theatre Workshop group as 'one part me, one part Liddell Hart, the rest Lenin!'. He injected a powerful, two-pronged impetus to the play: as an entertaining vehicle in the class war it championed the working class or ordinary soldiers against the upper class officers who callously sacrificed them; and also served as a contemporary warning - drawn from the supposed miscalculation of 1914 - against the risks of nuclear war.

As you've no doubt gathered, my own view of the aims of OWALW firmly coincide with the scepticism over its motives expressed by academic commentators such as Bond and Danchev. I share the central contention of Brian Bond that 'much of what the public today believe to be the objective truth about the First World War really derives from the radical anti-war and anti-authority movement of the 1960's.' Entertaining though OWALW undoubtedly is - mainly due to the wonderful old songs it samples - it should be borne in mind that simple entertainment was not the only - nor even the primary - objective of its creators.

Finally, as for examples of what's wrong with Alan Clark's 'The Donkeys', this is not really the thread to take it apart in depth. However I suggest you key 'The Donkeys' into the forum search facility and you will find a host of threads containing posts from many members giving specific critiques of that book. Brian Bond dismisses it as follows:

The new spirit of iconoclasm and ridicule was encapsulated in the title and contents of Alan Clark's The Donkeys, 1961. Here was revived a potent myth of a generation of soldier lions sacrificed by incompetent officer donkeys who were too stupid to appreciate that the war could have been won more economically in the East. Haig, not yet Commander-in-Chief but already cast as Donkey-in-Chief, was excoriated as a 'combination of ambition, obstinacy and megalomania'. Academic reviewers were not impressed either by Mr Clark's scholarship or his judgement. Michael Howard found the book entertaining but worthless as history. It was a 'petulant caricature of a tragedy and, as a memorial to the dead of 1915, a 'pretty deplorable piece of work'. Nevertheless it sold well and remains popular, due perhaps in part to the celebrity of its author.

ciao,

GAC

[redorchestra]

It is true that 1918 is almost totally ignored. No mention at all of the 1918 German spring offensive, which has got to rank as one of the major events of the war! I guess as it doesn't fit in with the agenda of the movie it isn't worth mentioning.

[Dragon]

Midletonman, if you audition and get a part, I'm certain you'll have a wonderful experience. I write as someone who has been involved in a production. (I don't act but I can do most tech stuff.) Whatever people with detailed knowledge find to say about the accuracy or the agenda, it's a play which has a lasting impact on both the crew and the audience. Performed live, as opposed to on film, it's thought-provoking, memorable, affecting and moving.

Go for it and enjoy yourself.

We did it with real bayonets. I shudder to think what H&S would say about that now!

Gwyn

[stoj22]

Performed live, as opposed to on film, it's thought-provoking, memorable, affecting and moving.

Surely the film can be described in the same terms?

[Dragon]

Well, it probably can. But it's evident from some of the posts on this thread, some people suffer agonies at the historical inaccuracies, especially in the film, and in a live performance it's not possible to freeze-frame or re-run the scene to check that what so appalled you did in fact occur.

Secondly, and more importantly, the experience of theatre and film are different and not directly comparable. The original poster is proposing to audition for a part in a stage performance and I was merely offering him some encouragement from someone who's experienced that.

Gwyn

[Cliff. Hobson]

I first saw the film when it was going round the Cinema,s and looking at it from a critical/technical point of view thought it was well produced and directed its impact enhanced by the songs and music. Having said that its historical content even from my untutored eye at the time found it wanting.

My profound regret is that I took my Mother and Father to see it, my Father was in France with the Sherwood Foresters from June 1915 unti being disembodied Jauary 1919. He was at the attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt at Loos and various othe actions and at Goommecourt on the 1st July 1916. I could not help but cringe when the Haig Character in the film at the Battle of the Somme, uttered the words " Where are the Sherwood Foresters "

I did not ask him what he thought about the film and he did not venture an opinion, I think I felt a little bit guilty about it, having taken him.

[loganshort]

saw it in the cinema and was enthralled at the time. "They'll Never Believe Me" and the tenor singing the German song.. Sheer delight. The helicopter shot zooming out showing the thousands of white crosses as mentioned before is worth sitting through the whole film again. The battle of the Somme in the film gave a horrific message that was talked about and stayed in the minds of all my friends until I realised many years later that the somme was not simply the short, disasterous battle as inferred in the film. But it did what it set out to do. The message is love, not war! All we need is love! Oh What a Lovely Film..Ahh them were the days.

[midletonman2001]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my post - I certainly have much to think on. The film left me feeling rather uncomfortable with the portrayal of Haige but the main thing that I came away with was a feeling that it trivialized what everyone involved went through - since my maternal grandfather and two of my great grandfathers took part this point seems especially personal.

I have yet to read the script so I can't compare the two but I shall certainly be looking at it very carefully - I am certainly no expert on the subject but I shall be watching out for the errors or 'distortions' noted by Palls in their postings.

I have been asked to help with the images that are projected as well so I have suggested we might put some emphasis on Irish Regiments as it is to be staged in Cork.

Perhaps I have the opportunity to see that this production is a little more historically accurate? I can but try.

Again - my thanks to all.

[Rob Connolly]

Since OWALW is a musical, I automatically hate-and-despise-it (as the only ever decent musical is "Captain Invincible ") - anyway, you may find some useful material in Dan Todman's "The First World War: Myth And Memory", which goes into some detail about the play and the film and the difference between. I read the book a couple of months ago and it is an interesting perspective on the Great War and subsequent perceptions thereof.

[ShirlD]

Last night we saw a production at Subiaco Arts Centre, with a number of our ex-students. It was brilliant. The energy, satire and grim humour told a story, even if only a small part of the whole complex misery that was WW1. As I was giving them a hug and accepting a poppy, it was hard to congratulate them on their performance, while trying to explain what I felt having recently visited the places they were talking and singing about. Their interest and total involvement in the material they were dealing with was inspirational.

This way we don't forget, even if we don't agree

Cheers

Shirley

[andrew pugh]

Evening Middleton.

When I was at school back in the 1960s,I went to see the stage version,that was as good as the film.

Regards Andy

[Guest AWOL]

There is a quote in the afterword [Victor Spinetti] to the workshop notes in which Haig responds to the news of 13000 casualties at Passchendaele: "Mostly gamekeepers and servants". Is this comment atributable to Haig? I've tried googling but can't find anything.

There is also an appendix with an extensive bibliography and sources. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the play and film [and Haig] I don't think anyone can argue that it wasn't researched

Regards

Peter G

[squirrel]

Watched it again last week - immensely enjoyable but................

Well researched? Yes.

Quotes out of context? Yes.

Slanted presentation? Yes

Worth watching? Yes.