How I Won the War

Lieutenant Ernest Goodbody, an officer despite his humble origins, is placed in command of the Third Troop of the fourth Musketeers. In Egypt, he is assigned an important mission: to penetrate three hundred miles behind enemy lines in the Western desert and set up an advance cricket pitch, intended to impress the VIP who will be driving through once the battle is over. Abandoned by his men, Goodbody wanders disconsolately across miles of sand. Then he finds the troop again. The troop move on towards their objective, shooting down an enemy plane that turns out to be British, rescuing their cricket pitch roller after it has been stolen by a company of football playing Italians, failing to blow up a vital German petrol dump; and in each of these escapades at least one of them dies. The pitch is finally completed, but the VIP is not impressed. Later in the war attempting a night attack on the Rhine, Goodbody is captured by 0dIebog, the Commandant of the last bridge intact over the Rhine. The two become friends, and when an Allied victory appears inevitable, 0dIebog, instead of blowing it up, sells the bridge to Goodbody before being brutally flattened by Allied tanks. After the war Goodbody holds a reunion for his men in his semidetached suburban house. But only the Melancholy Musketeer attends, possibly the sole survivor.

"Like Heller in Catch 22, Lester aims not simply to convince us of the horror of war but to force us into a kind of complicity in this horror. We laugh at the absurdity of Goodbody's excessive patriotics and when these incidents turn abruptly from farce to tragedy it is as though we, by laughing when we should have protested, must share in the moral responsibility for them. ... It is at its best when parodying other war films: the Lawrence of Arabia theme music provides an ironic counterpoint to Goodbody's desert wanderings, and his pathetic half-dozen men hobble on while a whistled version of Colonel Bogey swells the soundtrack. But for most of the film one feels Lester has bitten off more than he can chew." ("Monthly Film Bulletin", n. 406, November 1967, p. 169)

Director: Richard Lester.
Screenplay: Charles Wood, dal romanzo di Patrick Ryan.
Fotografia (Eastman Colour): David Watkin.
Editor: John Victor Smith.
Art director: Philip Harrison, John Stoll.
Costume designer: Dinah Greet.
Music: Ken Thorne.
Sound: Les Hammond.
Special effects: Eddie Fowlie.
Cast: Michael Crawford (Goodbody), John Lennon (Gripweed), Roy Kinnear (Clapper), Lee Montague (Transom), Jack MacGowran (Juniper), Michael Hordern (Grapple), Jack Hedley (il Moschettiere Malinconico), Karl Michael Vogler (OdIebog), Ronald Lacey (Spool), James Cossins (Drogue), Ewan Hooper (Dooley), Alexander Knox (il generale americano), Robert Hardy (il generale britannico), Sheila Hancock (l'amica di Mrs. Clapper), Charles Dyer (l'uomo con i pantaloni penzolanti), Bill Dysart (il paracadutista), Paul Daneman (il comandante), Peter Craven (l'ufficiale di stato maggiore), Jack May (Toby), Richard Pearson (il vecchio di Alamein), Pauline Taylor (la donna nel deserto), John Ronane (il marconista), Norman Chappell (il soldato di Alamein), Bryan Pringle (il giornalista), Fanny Carby (Mrs. Clapper).
Production company: Richard Lester, Denis O'Dell per la Petersham Films.