Attenborough, Feig, Peyton, Tourneur, Werker

Oh! What a Lovely War (Richard Attenborough, 1969). The feature directorial debut of Richard Attenborough adapts a hit British musical that used era-appropriate songs to slyly satirize the pretty geopolitical messiness that fed into and then prolonged World War I. Though initially intriguing in its brash theatricality, the film’s conceits quickly prove to be stiff and overly distancing. It begins to come across as a revue with only the thinnest of through lines, especially as it stretches to a overlong running time pushing two and a half hours. There are scattered pleasures, led by Maggie Smith as a bawdy music hall … Continue reading Attenborough, Feig, Peyton, Tourneur, Werker