How I Won the War
This film contains the memoirs of one Lt. Earnest Goodbody (Michael Crawford) of 3rd troop, 4th Musketeers--albeit presented to us via 2 perspectives.Early on in the film, the lieutenant is captured while attempting to cross the Rhine river and secure the last intact bridge for the Allies (having boarded an inflated raft by himself and been abandoned by his men). He intermittently recounts his story to a German officer (Karl Michael Vogler) while we, the viewing audience, are also treated to what really happened (seeing as he sugar-coats his version of the story).His earliest recollections are of his officer training under Lt. Colonel Grapple (Michael Hordern), who is shown to be as oblivious to the suffering of his charges as Goodbody proves to be. During the introduction of the story (and shortly thereafter), we meet the men under Goodbody's command:Transom--the unit's suffering second-in-command, who proves to be the only true, hard-working soldier in the group. He is reluctant to take charge of the situations they find themselves in but often does. He encourages the others to kill the Lieutenant and resists the temptation several times. Portrayed by Lee Montague.Dooley--the unit's third-in-command. While he and Transom start at the same rank in the beginning (Corporal), he seems more than willing to place most of the rank-induced responsibilities in the other man's hands. In fact, he acts more like a lackey to Transom than an equal. Portrayed by Ewan Hooper.Gripweed--the Lieutenant's batman (appointed personal assistant, as was common at the time in the British Army). He is a compulsive thief and admits to having been a former member of the British Fascist Party. He seems to show some naivete regarding the true nature of war and the incapabilities of his unit and often is found both chiding and being sycophantic towards Goodbody. Portrayed by then-Beatle John Lennon.Juniper--serves as both the unit's crusty old veteran and the would-be comic relief man. He appears more than willing to spur the rest of the group on to do things but is unwilling to do any real fighting. Throughout the film we see him appear in various comedic guises (such as a ventriloquist with a dummy and a clown). He is perceived by the others to be going insane and as the film progresses; he 'promotes' himself both in rank and as a master strategist (using medals taken from dead soldiers). Portrayed by Jack MacGowran.Clapper--the realist of the group. He is constantly harboring the belief that his wife is cheating on him back home (we find out, mere moments before his death, that she was merely making up stories based on the affairs a neighbor of theirs was having). While, like the rest of the unit, he has little respect for Goodbody, he goes to him for advice numerous times. He also endures the most criticism from Transom regarding his general appearance as a soldier (being told he's improperly dressed for merely having his shirt not buttoned right--although Juniper, standing next to him in the particular shot, is dressed as a clown). Portrayed by Roy Kinnear.Drogue--resigned to dying in North Africa (as he points out repeatedly), he is constantly willing off his possessions to other members of the unit. While he's one of the few to show some level of bravery in the film, he is also shown not to be too careful. Portrayed by James Cossins.Spool--the wireless radio operator for the unit (who never gets to do so). The only major fault that can be attributed to him is that he's probably the clumsiest member of the group (he immediately gets a splinter while holding a fake rifle during training and later sets Goodbody up for landing headfirst in a sand pit merely by knocking into him with a ladder). Portrayed by Ronald Lacey.The Melancholy Musketeer (real name not known, even to himself)--the resident coward of the group, who seems to be completely unaware of what he's fighting for, and why he signed up in the first place. He flees for cover in the middle of battle and at one point even abandons the group (only to be picked up later in the film having hidden in a German truck and claiming to have been captured). Portrayed by Jack Hedley.The unit's first assignment is to land behind enemy lines and set up an advance cricket pitch at an oasis. The purpose of the mission: to give Allied soldiers something to look forward to when they take that particular region. Any other unit would have felt disgraced to accept such a mission but Lt. Goodbody takes it with pride (fearing his men will die of boredom otherwise).The mission immediately is bungled when Goodbody accidentally orders signal rockets fired (giving away their position to a nearby German defense post). In the hustle to avoid being cratered, the unit loses half of their vehicles and Dooley is killed.In a twist of surrealism, each soldier that dies under the Lieutenant's command returns immediately after, replaced by a soldier painted to resemble a plastic army man. From Goodbody's perspective, that man is still alive. Footage shown during the death scenes of these characters is tinted a certain color for each incident (green, then pink, then red, then blue), and the dead soldier 'returns' in that color.With half of their vehicles gone and little fuel remaining, Goodbody decides to raid a German fuel dump on their way to the oasis. In spite of mounting excitement from some of the men (Transom and Goodbody, specifically, with Juniper doing a brief standup routine--during which the two others debate whether or not the man has lost his mind), the raid on the fuel dump ends predictably in failure, seeing as only 3 of the men are willing to advance on the outpost once it's realized that the Germans have heavy machine guns. Drogue is killed (foolishly walking out into the line of fire), and Goodbody is nearly killed in a one-on-one fight with an enemy soldier who is promptly killed by Transom with a bayonet. After the retreat, a light plane spots them and attacks. Goodbody ignores the hail of bullets flying around him to point out how to signal an oncoming plane (having mistaken the attacker for an Allied plane) and goes into a minor tantrum upon discovery that their roller full of water is missing. He spots a group of off-duty Italian soldiers playing soccer nearby (who, it should be pointed out, were on the Allies' side by this point) and immediately spouts racial slurs against them and accuses them of stealing their roller. While this is going on, Transom grabs a submachine gun and shoots down the plane--marking their 'first real victory' (as Goodbody puts it).In the ensuing explosion of the plane's wreckage, the Melancholy Musketeer panics and attempts to flee in one of their trucks. Juniper destroys it, leaving the Musketeer to flee with his pants on fire. The rest of the group carries on towards the oasis (eventually having to go on foot, with the dead versions of Drogue and Dooley carrying the water roller). The men stop near the edge of a cliff, only to find themselves in the middle of a minefield. Spool, going mad with dehydration and heat stress, runs to the roller for a drink and begins to throw a fit after the discovery that Gripweed had let the water out to make the roller easy to move. Goodbody ends up being the last one to find out about the mines (having started doing exercises near the edge of the cliff and discovered that the oasis is nearby). In the ensuing chaos, the film breaks the fourth wall and two ladies (played by the actresses who waved to the Beatles early in the film 'Help!') discuss a similar fit suffered by a son of one of the ladies ("He's not dead, they didn't get him. Missing. Turn up he will, missing he is...").Colonel Grapple arrives moments later (using a jeep he had 'appropriated' from the unit earlier in the film) and gives them some water, and spurs them to carry on and take the oasis. In a lengthy 'death scene' (in which a man in plain clothes delivers a long-winded recount of a joke he gave to his men during the war), the men take the oasis seemingly without a real fight and while rounding up prisoners (the men whistling the theme to "Bridge on the River Kwai" all the while), a rifle lands butt-first on the ground, firing off a live round that strikes Spool in the head.While the men are setting up the cricket pitch (the ground is awfully uneven, forcing some of the men to use dynamite to blast open areas), the Melancholy Musketeer turns up having been hiding in an enemy truck at the oasis. Juniper berates him for cowardice, and in his 'rage,' he strikes the Musketeer, as well as Goodbody and Colonel Grapple. He is put on an immediate court martial (with the Musketeer as his appointed attorney) while the other men in the unit attempt to play cricket with the German captives looking on. Eventually, the General who gave them the assignment arrives with another high-ranking officer, who merely points out that the men are 'rotten bowlers.' Juniper hitches a ride with the officers as they leave (we last see him near the end of the film in a straightjacket with his stolen medals pinned on).During the intermissions of these scenes and the ones to come, Goodbody and Odlebog, the German officer, discuss their views on how the war should be fought and Odlebog is appalled to discover that Goodbody is a fascist at heart. The two men seem to have plenty in common (Odlebog seems to be somewhat negligent of his men, as well) in spite of their current circumstances.The flashbacks then take us to the Allied advance towards the Rhine river. Goodbody's men are among those tasked with making a foothold along the river. Goodbody accidentally shoots the Melancholy Musketeer in the foot, cutting his unit short by yet another man. While passing through a village, Gripweed steals a milk bottle while laughing hysterically, accidentally giving their position away to the nearby German forces. The remaining troops hole up in and around a German farmhouse but are forced to retreat as a tank approaches with infantry as support. Clapper is cornered by two enemy soldiers and stabbed with a bayonet (a bit of irony seeing as how Clapper had not taken a demonstration of bayonet use seriously earlier in the film). Gripweed discovers another British soldier holed up in a shelled out barn, looting a corpse. Gripweed derides the man and dismisses him as an amateur thief, but unfortunately is forced to run when German mortars start raining on the barn. As he crosses an open field, a mortar lands right in front of him, perforating him with shrapnel. He solemnly looks at the camera and says "I knew this would happen. You knew it would happen, didn't you?"As Goodbody and Transom retreat, a German flamethrower operator nearly corners them. They kill the man and Transom flees as the enemy tank approaches. Goodbody yells for him to come back to their cover, and Transom is mowed down by a tank-mounted machine gun in the confusion (spouting regrets of not having killed the Lieutenant earlier in his last breaths).As we return to the present, Odlebog realizes that in spite of his orders to destroy the bridge, he feels it would be much better if he let Goodbody 'have' it as it would end the war and bring his retirement sooner. In what appears to be a slant against capitalism, the two negotiate a price and Goodbody writes him a check for it. Meanwhile, Grapple leads the push to the bridge in a tank and is the first to cross. He runs over Odlebog in the process, leaving Goodbody with a small piece of the cold, hard reality of war that he had missed all those times before (he then shows relief at not having to deal with a bad check as though he hadn't just lost a friend). He then addresses his 'men' (who are now merely just the replacmenets of the dead soldiers from before) with optimism over the inevitable end of World War II.The film ends with a post-war 'reunion' orchestrated by Goodbody, with the Melancholy Musketeer obviously being the only one who shows up. The Musketeer says there was a good reason for fighting, but Goodbody points out that HE had won the war.
anti war, satire, flashback