How I Won The War (1967)

[poliphilo]

The problem is they're trying to build a two hour film on the back of an idea that would have carried a five minute sketch or - allowing for musical interludes and off-piste zaniness- a half-hour Goon Show. It's all a bit hit and miss. Among the misses is Jack MacGowran in a clownish role that might not have been quite so thankless if it had been given to Spike Milligan. Among the hits is the chilling conceit of the brightly coloured toy soldiers who replace the featured actors as they're killed off one by one. The cast is a mixed blessing. Michael Crawford gives us Frank Spencer goes to war- persistently pathetic, but sometimes in one sense and sometimes in another, Lee Montague plays it as straight as circumstances allow, Michael Hordern is barking, Roy Kinnear is the sad little man- trying to deflect a German bayonet with wheedling, chucklesome humour, but not succeeding- and John Lennon- in his one role as something other than a Beatle- is all boyish energy and Scouse one-liners, with a death scene ("I knew this'd happen")  which would be moving even if we didn't know what was actually going to happen thirteen years down the line.