Best Brit WWI Film?

[billy bentley]

Penfold, If you know of any New York based silent events I'd love to know. The Somme silent sounds very impressive, sadly I had family who fought and died there.

[Rob Compton]

Originally Posted by penfold I think the IWM is preparing The Battle of The Somme for release....it has very recently been restored. I am surprised that Journey's End isn't out on DVD....I'm sure someone here will have it from a TV showing...the other two are very rare....and relatively obscure. Suspense I saw when a new print was being checked when I happened to be in the BFI researching; A Couple of Down and Outs at a silent film festival; I'm not even sure the BFI have a copy, I'm fairly sure the copy was found in Holland by the Nederland Filmmuseum. Anyway, in the case of silent films, they have to be seen live for the full effect; watching at home isn't the same thing at all. Would you like a list of festivals??

That would be very interesting, if/when you have the time - or is there a web link that would pull them together?

Thank you very much
Rob

[homeguard]

Originally Posted by penfold [b] A Couple of Down and Outs (Walter Summers again, 1923)a silent, set in the immediate Post-War period, 1919/20; an unemployed ex-serviceman, fresh from the first Cenotaph Remembrance ceremony, trawls around the London docks looking for work. The service medal ribbons on his cardigan are no currency. Rejected again, he sees a consignment of horses awaiting shipment to Belgium...we're intended to see that this will be a one-way journey....to the kitchens of Europe. The horses bear the War Department brand; a docker (via intertitile) comments that the human veterans aren't being cared for properly, did he imagine the equine veterans would be better treated ? As he sees the line of animals boarding, he recognises a scarred flank...his mount from the Horse Artillery Troop.... and the veterans go on the run..... Cheaply made, and occasionally showing it, it's incredibly moving.....and more than a bit political.

Wouldn't this be a phenominally successful movie if re-made by a British crew?
Regards,
HG

[penfold]

Originally Posted by Steve Crook I presume you all know that the classic "documentary" scene of the troops "going over the top" where one of them is shot immediately and slips back down into the trench and another is a bit slow stepping over the barbed wire and seems to be left behind after his comrades have disappeared into the smoke - that was all filmed some time after any real battle. Steve

Of course.....but there's very little re-enactment; amid a terrific amount of actuality. It really doesn't spoil the film as a document.

[penfold]

[quote=homeguard;151746]

Originally Posted by penfold [b]A Couple of Down and Outs (Walter Summers again, 1923)a silent, set in the immediate Post-War period, 1919/20; an unemployed ex-serviceman, fresh from the first Cenotaph Remembrance ceremony, trawls around the London docks looking for work. The service medal ribbons on his cardigan are no currency. Rejected again, he sees a consignment of horses awaiting shipment to Belgium...we're intended to see that this will be a one-way journey....to the kitchens of Europe. The horses bear the War Department brand; a docker (via intertitile) comments that the human veterans aren't being cared for properly, did he imagine the equine veterans would be better treated ? As he sees the line of animals boarding, he recognises a scarred flank...his mount from the Horse Artillery Troop.... and the veterans go on the run..... Cheaply made, and occasionally showing it, it's incredibly moving.....and more than a bit political. QUOTE] Wouldn't this be a phenominally successful movie if re-made by a British crew? Regards, HG

It is a British film, but AFAIK only survives as a Dutch export print preserved in the Dutch film archive....a remake?? Hmmm...much of its power comes from it's age...that the cast is of the generation that fought, perhaps veterans themselves. The film of the Cenotaph parades are genuine; and they are fused into the film in a particularly skilful manner....and the plot would seem a bit hokey if made now. Having said that, it might work as a Sunday teatime serial....

[penfold]

Originally Posted by billy bentley Penfold, If you know of any New York based silent events I'd love to know. The Somme silent sounds very impressive, sadly I had family who fought and died there.

I believe there is an archive film festival held at Syracuse (Not the International Film Festival) but I can't find any reference to it....in NY proper I would have thought MoMA was your best bet; elsewhere in the States there is the Slapsticon comedy festival in Arlington, VA, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and Cinecon in LA.

[penfold]

Originally Posted by Rob Compton That would be very interesting, if/when you have the time - or is there a web link that would pull them together? Thank you very much Rob

The very wonderful Bioscope website....scroll down the page, in the right-hand side, there are lists of Festivals (and museums, archives, etc.) all with links to the individual websites. Festivals « The Bioscope

[Keechelus]

Attenborough's music-hall adaptation was disliked in 1968 and has been forgotten since.

Oh! What a shame. Seen today, its late-60's conventions are as quaint as the WW 1 period it parodied -- and the heartfelt tragedy of the Great War is more clearly seen.

Some of OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR's set pieces are gripping. The Irish Fusiliers in no-man's-land: the NCO hands a red poppy to the next man to venture out of their shell crater ... soon, all have poppies and we realize they mean death.

The Welsh tenor singing on Church Parade - a hymn that morphs into an anti-war soldiers' song, and leads us to the mass grave digging detail.

A wonderful movie, waiting to be discovered by new eyes.

[Keechelus]

JOYEUX NOEL (Christian Carion 2003) is not purely Brit.

It's a Germany/France/UK production, but for once, the shared national credits really reflect the trans-national flavour of the story.

It is centred on true accounts of the unofficial Christmas Truce of 1914. It is perfect in almost every scene.

A favourite of mine: a Scottish priest ventures into shell-blasted territory on Christmas Eve, lit by the moon. A battered French roadside cross leans over the frozen shell craters, where a few French, German and Scottish soldiers have cautiously crept to retrieve their dead comrades.

The Scot begins the Christmas Mass in Latin. Slowly, all join in. Their voices grow until the united chorus is full-throated and confident. Prussians, Bavarians, Scots and French as one congregation. *sniffle* One of cinema's best moments.

[Harleybloke]

Not a Brit Movie but 'Galillopli'. An early outing for Mel Gibson. The final scenes as they prepare to go 'over the top' are heart wrenching.

[scholes]

Lawrence of Arabia

[dogstar]

I've mentioned this before in a different thread but for me the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth ( TV not a movie I know ) is still just about the most moving and poignant depiction of the British experience of WW1 I have ever seen. The final moment where most of the cast go 'over the top' illustrates perfectly the horror and futility of the whole thing as well as neatly illustrating the way men of all classes were sacrificed with equal wanton disregard.

Although its unlikely to make anybody's best list of anything Deathwath is an interesting WW! themed movie and one of the only WW1 horror films I know of ( unless you take the view that the subject matter was such that any film on the subject would qualify! ). Its small budget is very evident but it has a great cast including Andy Serkis, Jamie Bell and Hugo Spears and is an ejoyably creepy experience.

Although its a French film A Very Long Engagement with Audrey Tatou, is well worth a look for anyone with an interest in the period and subject matter. It was at the time the most expensive French film ever made and it shows.

[Keechelus]

Wow.

You hit the mark. A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT may be the best WW1 memoir I have ever seen.

Yes, it's French. Of all the WW1 combatants, Czarist Russia suffered most, but France was a very close second, and one we know better.

Brits have the opportunity to visit France often. We workin' class Canadians are privileged to visit just a couple of times in our lives. Our last time, 16 years ago, we rambled for a while, then settled for a week in a tiny village near Cahors in the ancient and stony province of Quercy.

Our adopted town was Varaire. There are just a dozen family names in the district. We arrived in our Amsterdam-rented Opel, and asked at the village café for Madame Courpet.

"Oui, je suis moi-meme Mme Courpet! Ou ma cousine, ou ma bonne-seour, ou ma tante ..." Yike. We did find our hostess fairly quickly, and the cottage we'd arranged to rent, but the names haunted us more as we explored the village.

The standard "Mort Pour La France" memorial in the square had three large panels 1914-1918. Courpet, Courpet, Courpet .. and some other family names, but mostly Courpet. Jeez.

You have to see a French village memorial to appreciate how entire families were bled nearly to extinction in WW1. Fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands ... sent to the mud of Flanders 500 miles away and killed.

Little Varaire had about 200 people in 1992, a thriving farm town, but not the 1,000 or so they'd had before 1914. The oversized church and unused market square told of the old days.

The small village cemetery told another story. WW2 was quite different; Varaire was in Vichy France, and 1940's deaths were often old folks. But some chilling reminders were there: Fusillée par les Gestapo; Mort pour La France aux Résistance; Inconnu, un gen de La Patrie, and so on.

Very enlightening for we Canadian tourists, especially our 11-yr old daughter.

Pardon the long essay. A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT prompted this, because it is such a well-told story.

[Harleybloke]

Isn't 'A very long Engagement' the film where the poor girl goes to the

[dogstar]

Originally Posted by Harleybloke Isn't 'A very long Engagement' the film where the poor girl goes to the

Indeed it is though 'poor girl' might be stretching things a little ( I may be mixing my execution metaphors here! ) as she was a multiple murderess The scene where she gets the chop was apparently a recreation of actual execution footage of the lady the character in the film was based on.