How I Won the War
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| How I Won the War | |
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 DVD Cover for How I Won the War |
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| Directed by | Richard Lester |
| Produced by | Richard Lester |
| Written by | Patrick Ryan (novel) Charles Wood |
| Starring | Michael Crawford John Lennon Roy Kinnear Jack MacGowran Michael Hordern Lee Montague |
| Music by | Ken Thorne |
| Cinematography | David Watkin |
| Editing by | John Victor-Smith |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | October 18, 1967 (U.K.) October 23, 1967 (U.S.) |
| Running time | 109 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
How I Won the War is a black comedy film directed by Richard Lester, released in 1967 (see 1967 in film).
[edit] Overview
The film features Michael Crawford as the inept World War II commander Earnest Goodbody, with John Lennon and Roy Kinnear as soldiers under his orders. The film is a satire of war; in it, the inept Lieutenant Goodbody's soldiers are ordered to construct a Cricket field behind enemy lines. At one point in the film, the British soldiers overcome a group of German soldiers by whistling the "Colonel Bogey March". Many of the characters in the film are, themselves, satirical in nature; for example Cpl. Gripweed (Lennon), is a fascist, yet the army has no qualms in using him in a war which was intended to fight the spread of fascism. The film is also an attack on the brutality of war; throughout the film, Goodbody's soldiers die one by one (only to be replaced by ghostly, World War I-era soldiers), and by the film's end only one of his men is still alive, the one who refused to fight.
Continuing on the absurdist tone established in Help!, and considering this film an artistic success, United Artists gave Lester free rein to create his next film, the nuclear war satire The Bed-Sitting Room. The three constitute a trilogy that has developed a cult audience since their initial releases between 1965-70.
[edit] References in Beatles music
The film is obliquely mentioned in "A Day in the Life" – the closing track on the Beatles' seminal album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The verse "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," was written and sung by John Lennon, possibly referencing his role in the film.[citation needed]
