Answer: B. How I Won the War (1967)
Director:
Richard Lester
Writers:
Patrick Ryan (novel),
Charles Wood (screenplay)
Stars:
Michael Crawford,
John Lennon,
Roy Kinnear
How I Won the War is a 1967 British
black comedy film directed and produced by Richard Lester, based on a novel of the same name by Patrick Ryan. The film stars Michael Crawford as bungling
British Army Officer Lieutenant Earnest Goodbody, with John Lennon of
The Beatles (in his only non-musical role, as Musketeer Gripweed),
Jack MacGowran (Musketeer Juniper), Roy Kinnear (Musketeer Clapper) and
Lee Montague (Sergeant, although referred to by the equivalent, albeit fictional rank of "Corporal of Musket" Transom) as soldiers under his command.
The film uses an inconsistent variety of styles — vignette, straight-to-camera, and, extensively, parody of the
war film genre,
docu-drama, and popular war literature — to tell the story of 3rd Troop, the 4th Musketeers (a fictional regiment reminiscent of the
Royal Fusiliers and the
Household Cavalry) and their misadventures in the
Second World War. This is told in the comic/absurdist vein throughout, a central plot being the setting-up of an "Advanced Area
Cricket Pitch" behind enemy lines in
North Africa, but it is all broadly based on the
Western Desert Campaign in mid-late 1942 and the crossing of the last intact bridge on the
Rhine at
Remagen in early 1945. The film was not critically well received.
Plot
Lieutenant Goodbody is an inept, idealistic, naïve, and almost relentlessly
jingoistic wartime-commissioned (not regular) officer. One of the main
subversive themes in the film is the platoon's repeated attempts or temptations to kill or otherwise rid themselves of their complete liability of a commander. While Goodbody's ineptitude and attempts at derring-do lead to the gradual demise of the unit, he survives, together with the unit's persistent deserter and another of his charges who become confined to psychiatric care. Every time a character is killed, he is replaced by an actor in bright red, blue, or green-colored World War II uniform, whose face is also colored and obscured so that he appears to be a living toy soldier. This reinforces Goodbody's repeated comparisons of war to playing a game.
John Lennon
John Winston (later Ono) Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England, to
Julia Lennon (née Stanley) and
Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman. He was raised by his mother's older sister
Mimi Smith. In the mid-1950s, he formed his first band,
The Quarrymen (after Quarry Bank High School, which he attended) who, with the addition of
Paul McCartney and
George Harrison, later became The Beatles.
After some years of performing in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, "Beatlemania" erupted in England and Europe in 1963 after the release of their singles "Love Me Do" and "Please Please Me". That same year, John's first wife
Cynthia Lennon welcomed their only son
Julian Lennon, named after John's mother. The next year the Beatles flew to America to appear on
The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) (aka The Ed Sullivan Show), and Beatlemania spread worldwide.
Queen Elizabeth II granted all four Beatles M.B.E. medals in 1965, for import revenues from their record sales; John returned his four years later, as part of an antiwar statement. John and the Beatles continued to tour and perform live until 1966, when protests over his calling the Beatles phenomenon "more popular than Jesus" and the frustrations of touring made the band decide to quit the road. They devoted themselves to studio work, recording and releasing albums such as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Magical Mystery Tour" and the "White Album." Instead of appearing live, the band began making their own "pop clips" (an early term for music videos), which were featured on television programs of the time.
In the late 1960s John began performing and making albums with his second wife
Yoko Ono, as the Beatles began to break up. Their first two albums, "Two Virgins" and "Life With The Lions," were experimental and flops by Beatles standards, while their "Wedding Album" was almost a vanity work, but their live album "Live Peace In Toronto" became a Top Ten hit, at the end of the 1960s.
In the early 1970s John and Yoko continued to record together, making television appearances and performing at charity concerts. After the release of John's biggest hit, "Imagine", they moved to the US, where John was nearly deported because of his political views (a late '60s conviction for possession of hashish in the U.K. was the excuse given by the government), but after a four-year legal battle he won the right to stay. In the midst of this, John and Yoko separated for over a year; John lived in Los Angeles with personal assistant
May Pang, while Yoko dated guitarist
David Spinozza. When John made a guest appearance at
Elton John's Thanksgiving 1974 concert, Yoko was in the audience, and surprised John backstage. They reconciled in early 1975, and Yoko soon became pregnant. After the birth of their son
Sean Lennon, John settled into the roles of "househusband" and full-time daddy, while Yoko became his business manager; both appeared happy in their new life together.
After a five-year break from music and the public eye, they made a comeback with their album "Double Fantasy," but within weeks of their re-emergence, Lennon was murdered on the evening of December 8, 1980 by
Mark David Chapman, a one-time Beatles fan angry and jealous over John's ongoing career, who fatally shot Lennon four times in the back outside his apartment building, The Dakota, as Lennon was returning from a recording session. Within minutes after being shot, John Lennon was dead at age 40. His violent death was a sudden and tragic end to the life of a talented singer and musician who wanted to make a difference in the world.
IMDb Mini Biography By:
paulab
Richard Lester
Richard Lester was one of the most influential directors of the 1960s, and continued his career into the 1970s and early '80s. He is best remembered for the two films he helmed starring
The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night (1964) and
Help! (1965), the frenetic cutting style of which was seen by many as the predecessor of the music video a generation later.
Lester had made his name with the Oscar-nominated short subject
The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959) that he made with "The Goon Show" veterans
Peter Sellers and
Spike Milligan. He then directed Sellers in
The Mouse on the Moon (1963), which was produced by
Walter Shenson. The Goons were a favorite of The Beatles, and when Shenson got the rights to make a movie with The Beatles, Lester seemed to be the ideal director for the project.
That project, "A Hard Day's Night," was not only a huge box-office hit but a major critical success as well. "Village Voice" movie critic
Andrew Sarris, the American promoter of the "auteur theory" in America, described "A Hard Day's Night" as "the
Citizen Kane (1941) of juke box musicals." Lester had arrived, and his next film, the Swinging Sixties yarn
The Knack... and How to Get It (1965), won the Palme d'Or at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. He also directed the wildly satirical
How I Won the War (1967), which came a year after the huge success of
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), his adaptation of the smash Broadway play, which relied on the Keatonesque slapstick Lester had used so well in The Beatles films ("Forum" even featured Lester's hero
Buster Keaton in a small but highly amusing role).
Aside from "A Hard Day's Night," the success of which relies as much on The Beatles themselves as auteurs (Lester claims that the script by
Alun Owen was largely jettisoned during filming, and its scripted "quips" were replaced by the real things from The Beatles themselves), Lester's true '60s masterpiece is
Petulia (1968). A corrosive look at the American upper-middle-class and the fragmentation of American society, "Petulia" is one of the great, if unheralded, American films. Propelled by the luminous presence of
Julie Christie and the powerhouse performance of
George C. Scott, "Petulia" was a success at the box office, although some critics were upset over the blackness of the comedy. It was to prove to be his last great film, as he stumbled soon after it was released.
The Bed Sitting Room (1969), a
Samuel Beckett-influenced satire based on a play (and script) by Spike Milligan co-starring
Dudley Moore and
Peter Cooke -- from the smash revue "Beyond the Fringe" -- was a resounding flop at the box office and among critics, and Lester found himself unemployable.
However,
The Three Musketeers (1973), which he shot simultaneously with
The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) for producer
Ilya Salkind, resurrected his career. When the Salkinds (Ilya and his father
Alexander Salkind) were in the midst of filming
Superman (1978) simultaneously with its sequel, Lester was hired as a supervising producer, then took over the filming of the sequel,
Superman II (1980), when original director
Richard Donner was fired. The sequel was a financial and critical success (as much as comic book films were in the early 1980s), and he was hired to direct the far-less successful
Superman III (1983).
At the end of the 1980s, Lester returned to the storyline that had revitalized his career back in the early 1970s, filming a second sequel to "The Three Musketeers." However, after his close friend, actor
Roy Kinnear died during the shooting of
The Return of the Musketeers (1989), Lester seemed to lose heart with the movie-making business. He has not directed another film.
Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood
