0:00:02 > 0:00:04MUSIC: "633 Squadron Theme"
0:00:21 > 0:00:22Hello. I'm Al Murray
0:00:22 > 0:00:25and over the next hour I'll be looking at a subject
0:00:25 > 0:00:29really, really close to my heart - the Great British War Movie.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31I grew up on war movies.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33As a kid, my Sunday afternoons and bank holidays were spent
0:00:33 > 0:00:36glued to the telly, wallowing in the inspiring heroism of
0:00:36 > 0:00:38The Dam Busters,
0:00:38 > 0:00:41the shoot-'em-up excitement of Where Eagles Dare,
0:00:41 > 0:00:44and the dazzling dogfights of the Battle Of Britain.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46Widescreen epics like A Bridge Too Far
0:00:46 > 0:00:50whetted my appetite for history far better than any school lesson could.
0:00:50 > 0:00:51The stars were my heroes,
0:00:51 > 0:00:55such as David Niven's dashing corporal in The Guns Of Navarone,
0:00:55 > 0:00:58Jack Hawkins' grizzled commander in The Cruel Sea or
0:00:58 > 0:01:01Alec Guinness's thoughtful colonel in The Bridge On The River Kwai.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04I didn't care about the dodgy special effects of Angels One Five
0:01:04 > 0:01:07or the dodgier accents of The Guns Of Navarone.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09GERMAN ACCENT: The commandant will telephone you shortly
0:01:09 > 0:01:11to congratulate you, Muesel.
0:01:11 > 0:01:13No, I was too busy absorbing the stuff upper lip
0:01:13 > 0:01:16and jolly camaraderie of films like the charming Reach For The Sky.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19I'm not ashamed to say that I absolutely love these films
0:01:19 > 0:01:21and they helped make me the person I am today.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24I'm going to take a look at some of my favourite British war movies
0:01:24 > 0:01:27and try and figure out what makes them so great.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30To help me with this crucial mission I'm joined by historian, Dan Snow,
0:01:30 > 0:01:31writer, Natalie Haynes
0:01:31 > 0:01:35and broadcaster and film expert, Matthew Sweet.
0:01:35 > 0:01:36So, welcome everybody.
0:01:36 > 0:01:41Now, Dan, as a historian, how do you approach a Second World War film?
0:01:41 > 0:01:43Well, with a huge amount of enjoyment, but I'm not expecting to
0:01:43 > 0:01:48learn a great deal about the events that they describe or portray. But I think they're wonderful.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51I get a lot of strife cos people say to me, "You're just some weirdo.
0:01:51 > 0:01:53"You find warfare fascinating and fun and think it's amusing."
0:01:53 > 0:01:55That's not true at all. The reason that war is
0:01:55 > 0:01:58so fascinating to audiences in the 1950s, or to many of us still today,
0:01:58 > 0:02:00- is because it's unbelievably extremist.- Yes.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04The most extreme thing that human beings do to each other. The reason that's fascinating...
0:02:04 > 0:02:07- We're trying to make sense of it. - ..we're trying to make sense of it.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10We're going, "So, hold on, ships sailed across the Atlantic and
0:02:10 > 0:02:14"then other boats, underwater ships, tried to sink them with torpedoes? Are you joking?"
0:02:14 > 0:02:17You know, so I think actually, rightly,
0:02:17 > 0:02:20the British public were, at the time, and still to a certain extent
0:02:20 > 0:02:24are totally obsessed by this remarkable event only 70 years ago.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28- And in the '50s, they were THE big movies, weren't they?- Yes absolutely, yes.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31I mean, it was a kind of guaranteed box office subject.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35There's always an attempt to sort of process what happened to us.
0:02:35 > 0:02:37But then they turn into entertainment quite quickly.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39Natalie, are you entertained by war films?
0:02:39 > 0:02:42- Yeah, I really am, but then you knew that already! - LAUGHTER
0:02:42 > 0:02:46That's why I asked you on the programme, you know, let's be honest here.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49Yes, no, I've never been so disgusted...and I think it's true,
0:02:49 > 0:02:51though, that we've always, I mean, from the very
0:02:51 > 0:02:54beginnings of people wanting to hear stories, we wanted to hear about
0:02:54 > 0:02:57what our fathers did in the war, what our parents did in the war.
0:02:57 > 0:02:59We're always investing identity in what
0:02:59 > 0:03:03we see as the kind of conflicts that existed to allow us to exist.
0:03:03 > 0:03:06I reckon the best place to start is probably with the British at their
0:03:06 > 0:03:07most ingenious, their most heroic,
0:03:07 > 0:03:09at their very best - The Dam Busters.
0:03:09 > 0:03:10MUSIC: "The Dam Busters Theme"
0:03:10 > 0:03:12We've always known, deep down,
0:03:12 > 0:03:14that we're cleverer than the Bosch,
0:03:14 > 0:03:16and the film that best shows how smart the British are is
0:03:16 > 0:03:20The Dam Busters, Michael Anderson's fantastic 1955 film
0:03:20 > 0:03:23about the invention of the bouncing bomb.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26It's arguably the best-loved British war movie of all time.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29It's the story of two men - Barnes Wallis, the maverick,
0:03:29 > 0:03:30boffinish inventor of the bomb,
0:03:30 > 0:03:34played by the brilliant Michael Redgrave who nails Wallis's
0:03:34 > 0:03:37dogged ingenuity in the first half of the film, and Wing Commander
0:03:37 > 0:03:41Guy Gibson, played by Richard Todd, who is British professionalism
0:03:41 > 0:03:44and patriotic duty personified, despite what he called his dog.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47But while we all remember the stirring music
0:03:47 > 0:03:50and thrilling bombing raid, it's much more sombre than you remember,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53leaving you in no doubt about the sacrifice involved,
0:03:53 > 0:03:55with an end scene that really leaves a lump in your throat.
0:03:55 > 0:03:5756 men.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00If I'd known it was going to be like this, I-I'd never have started it.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05You mustn't think that way. If all these fellas had known from the beginning
0:04:05 > 0:04:08they wouldn't be coming back, they'd have gone for it just the same.
0:04:08 > 0:04:13There isn't a single one of them would have dropped out. I knew them all, I know that's true.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15Look, you've had a worse night than any of us.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19Why don't you go and find the doctor and ask for one of his sleeping pills?
0:04:19 > 0:04:22Aren't you going to turn in, Gibby?
0:04:22 > 0:04:25No, I-I have to write some letters first.
0:04:25 > 0:04:27And the first half is basically a physics lesson.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31Why has a film so lacking in bombast endured so strongly?
0:04:33 > 0:04:35LAUGHTER AND CHEERING
0:04:38 > 0:04:41- That's probably the moment of highest emotion in that film... - LAUGHTER
0:04:41 > 0:04:44..when they realise that their bomb actually works.
0:04:44 > 0:04:451940s man-hug, it's sort of arms.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48Yeah, just arms. Yeah, belts are very distant.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50What is fascinating about that clip is you do see that the
0:04:50 > 0:04:53censor's pencil is on it and although they're trying to tell
0:04:53 > 0:04:57the true story, the upkeep mine, and in that clip it's the highball,
0:04:57 > 0:05:00which is its cousin, were still top secret.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03Yes, which is why there is this sense of an audience learning something,
0:05:03 > 0:05:05of going back to something that they may have
0:05:05 > 0:05:08read about, you know, in some kind of translated or censored form.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10The reason why there were
0:05:10 > 0:05:13so many films made in the '50s about the Second World War is, I think,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16on some very basic level, people were discovering what happened.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19There was a sort of newsy quality to them,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22these operations that were conducted, these, you know,
0:05:22 > 0:05:25these espionage stories that were beginning to emerge.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29Part of it is just an audience acquainting themselves
0:05:29 > 0:05:32with what the story was, matching it up with their own experiences.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35Well, The Dam Busters was cast with people who'd been servicemen
0:05:35 > 0:05:37so that they would behave like servicemen,
0:05:37 > 0:05:41and you do get this rather strange emotional detachment, and is
0:05:41 > 0:05:45that a British characteristic or is that a characteristic of the '50s?
0:05:45 > 0:05:47I don't know, but in a very odd way it speaks to me,
0:05:47 > 0:05:49I sort of aspire to be as emotionally...
0:05:49 > 0:05:53- As stiff and upper lippish as they are?- ..antiseptic as these people.
0:05:53 > 0:05:57It's a very interesting point that he makes of saying, "I think you've had the worst night of all of us."
0:05:57 > 0:06:00In a world of constant communication, we have to kind of take a step back ourselves
0:06:00 > 0:06:04and remember what it was like to just not know what had happened for hours on end,
0:06:04 > 0:06:08and I think it's such a beautiful scene, at least in part, because when
0:06:08 > 0:06:11he says, "You've had the worst night of all of us," he really means it.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14Yeah. Why do we think this film endures today? Cos it does, doesn't it?
0:06:14 > 0:06:18It's... Some of the black and white '50s war movies, and we're going to
0:06:18 > 0:06:21get into some of those later, I don't think stand up very well.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Why does this one still resonate with people, do we think?
0:06:24 > 0:06:27I think it might be because of the emotional honesty of that
0:06:27 > 0:06:32conclusion and the complexities that are allowed to flourish there
0:06:32 > 0:06:36at the end, that get denied in a lot of pictures of the same period.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39- There's an awful lot of subtlety in it.- Yeah.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43Yeah, and Barnes Wallis is filling in for the great British eccentric.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46He's a maverick genius - it's not the idea that he's some
0:06:46 > 0:06:50sort of square boffin, we like the flair of his character, don't we?
0:06:50 > 0:06:53- And we like technological-led solutions.- Yes.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57We don't like sending 500,000 19-year-olds into battle to
0:06:57 > 0:07:00suffer 20% casualties, we like the idea that you can win wars
0:07:00 > 0:07:03by just being clever and sort of keeping it gentlemanly and blowing
0:07:03 > 0:07:07up their industrial infrastructure but avoiding the children's homes.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10You know, I think that's still an attractive idea, you know, you can
0:07:10 > 0:07:13win wars by dropping cruise missiles through people's ventilation shafts.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15- Just on the bad guy. - Yeah, just on the bad guy.
0:07:15 > 0:07:19So, Gibson and Barnes Wallis, our idea of precision-bombing heroes,
0:07:19 > 0:07:23give it 13 years and things have changed a little. You end up with this.
0:07:23 > 0:07:25MUSIC: "Where Eagles Dare Theme"
0:07:25 > 0:07:28THE most ludicrous World War II film ever has got to be
0:07:28 > 0:07:30Where Eagles Dare.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Brian G Hutton's 1968 bruiser starring Richard Burton
0:07:34 > 0:07:37and Clint Eastwood as unlikely crack commandos who have to storm
0:07:37 > 0:07:40a Nazi castle to rescue an American general.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43Along the way there is the classic cable-car fight,
0:07:43 > 0:07:46seamless use of green screen that puts our stars
0:07:46 > 0:07:49right at the heart of the action, textbook heel-clicking,
0:07:49 > 0:07:54saluting Nazis, stunt doubles who look nothing like the two leads,
0:07:54 > 0:07:59cars that randomly blow up when pushed down a hill. A worse-for-wear
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Richard Burton desperately hoping that Danny Boy will pick up soon...
0:08:02 > 0:08:03Broadsword calling Danny Boy.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07..and Clint Eastwood taking on the entire German army with
0:08:07 > 0:08:08a couple of machine guns.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11Why didn't they just lob a grenade at him?
0:08:11 > 0:08:14And this gun would, basically, tear down the wall he's hiding behind.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17This is an ultra-violent shoot 'em up -
0:08:17 > 0:08:20our boys rubbing the Germans' noses in the fact that we won,
0:08:20 > 0:08:24and making the victory look bigger and sexier than ever.
0:08:24 > 0:08:2713 years on from The Dam Busters, how have we drifted
0:08:27 > 0:08:28so far from the facts?
0:08:28 > 0:08:31And does it matter when we're having this much fun?
0:08:32 > 0:08:35Ha! That's a completely different kind of heroism to Gibson
0:08:35 > 0:08:38and Wallis, isn't it? I mean, that's extraordinary.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41If he came out with a gun between his teeth, we wouldn't think anything of it.
0:08:41 > 0:08:43- You wouldn't be a bit surprised. - You wouldn't bat an eyelid.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46- Now, Natalie, I know you love this movie.- I do love it.- Why?
0:08:46 > 0:08:50But partly... Well, partly because you can't really go that far wrong
0:08:50 > 0:08:53if you say, "Hey, man-with-no-name, could you pop that poncho
0:08:53 > 0:08:56"over there and put a uniform on, and go and get some Nazis for us?
0:08:56 > 0:08:57"That'd be perfect."
0:08:57 > 0:09:00And then, also, there is the mystical power that is Richard Burton.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02I know, you're right, of course, he does
0:09:02 > 0:09:05look like at 43 he's had a tough paper round.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08He's still extraordinary, he's still madly compelling.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11So, yes, it's a sort of a romp, I guess,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13is probably the fairest description for it?
0:09:13 > 0:09:16- It's a dream, isn't it? It's like a dream of the war.- Yeah, maybe it is.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19It has elements from the war but somehow they're
0:09:19 > 0:09:22coalescing in ways that they never could have done anywhere real.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25So it's almost as if we've used up all of the real secret operations
0:09:25 > 0:09:27that we know about that documents have been
0:09:27 > 0:09:32declassified from - let's create one from our own fantasies, our own
0:09:32 > 0:09:36imaginations that pushes all of those buttons but is like something
0:09:36 > 0:09:40that you... It's almost something that you inhabit, isn't it? It's like a world that you go into,
0:09:40 > 0:09:42like a computer game or something like that.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44Well that's very like a shoot 'em up, that scene,
0:09:44 > 0:09:49- with Clint... he dispatches 85 people, probably, in this film... - In about 15 seconds.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51..it's hard to count cos you never quite know
0:09:51 > 0:09:53- how many people are in a lorry.- Not a drinking game you want to play.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57- It's not a drinking game, no.- No. - But why... How has this mutation occurred?
0:09:57 > 0:10:00How have we... How have the British, who, you know,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03we saw not even two decades earlier the stiff upper lip on display,
0:10:03 > 0:10:06there's ingenuity, there's some subtlety, I mean, none of those were...
0:10:06 > 0:10:09- No, we don't need those any more. - ..none of those words apply.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11A lot of people have forgotten what war's about,
0:10:11 > 0:10:14and war's, you know... war's quite industrial, it's quite
0:10:14 > 0:10:17processed and it's quite boring for 99% of the time for most people.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19My grandad just went back and forward across the Atlantic,
0:10:19 > 0:10:22living in...with that low-level terror the whole time,
0:10:22 > 0:10:25but not seeing a huge amount of kind of shoot-'em-up action.
0:10:25 > 0:10:27In the '50s, it was about small cogs, big machines,
0:10:27 > 0:10:29everyone doing their duty.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32These films later on are about heroes, individuals that can win
0:10:32 > 0:10:35it in a day, make a difference on their own, bullets bounce off them.
0:10:35 > 0:10:37Well, cos the tag line... the movie poster is,
0:10:37 > 0:10:41"Major Smith and Lieutenant Schaffer and a beautiful blonde called Mary,
0:10:41 > 0:10:43"decide to win World War II in a weekend," or something.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46- Yeah.- That's it. That's the pitch. You can see the pitch meeting.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48But the joy is that nobody saw that and then said,
0:10:48 > 0:10:50"Give me another ten words, I need to know more."
0:10:50 > 0:10:53They went, "Oh, brilliant, yes, that's exactly right."
0:10:53 > 0:10:55Where Eagles Dare is a blockbuster, isn't it?
0:10:55 > 0:10:58It's an action movie set during the Second World War,
0:10:58 > 0:11:01and I think this blockbusterisation of the Second World War began
0:11:01 > 0:11:02seven years earlier with this film.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04MUSIC: "The Guns Of Navarone Theme"
0:11:04 > 0:11:06If you want a big deluxe, World War II blockbuster
0:11:06 > 0:11:09then you can't beat The Guns Of Navarone.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12J Lee Thompson's 1961 epic men-on-a-mission movie.
0:11:12 > 0:11:17Its got an all-star cast, including a gruff, rugged Gregory Peck and
0:11:17 > 0:11:20a suave and charming David Niven, as part of a team sent to invade a Nazi
0:11:20 > 0:11:25fortress on the island of Navarone, to destroy the aforementioned guns.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30It's a heavyweight, stately film that balances super-serious themes
0:11:30 > 0:11:32with an escapist adventure movie,
0:11:32 > 0:11:34that lets Peck demonstrate his mastery of accents.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36HE SPEAKS GREEK
0:11:36 > 0:11:38A homoerotic subtext between David Niven
0:11:38 > 0:11:41and Anthony Quayle as they tenderly smoke a cigarette,
0:11:41 > 0:11:46stock characters so thin I call them Stabby and Shooty, and Nazis
0:11:46 > 0:11:50so dumb they have to use every tool in the box to open their own fortress.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53But amongst the Hollywood heroism, the carnage
0:11:53 > 0:11:56and the massive guns, the film also tries to deal with
0:11:56 > 0:11:59some big moral issues, certainly heavier than Where Eagles Dare,
0:11:59 > 0:12:02as seen in this argument between Niven and Peck.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05Previous films were all about getting the history right.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07Is this the point where Hollywood starts to bleed in?
0:12:07 > 0:12:09Someone's got to take the responsibility
0:12:09 > 0:12:12if the job's going to get done! Do you think that's easy?!
0:12:12 > 0:12:13I don't know!
0:12:14 > 0:12:17I'm beginning to wonder who really is responsible
0:12:17 > 0:12:18when it comes to the dirty work.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Who really is guilty? The man who gives the order or the one who has to do it
0:12:22 > 0:12:24with his own hands?
0:12:24 > 0:12:26- Which is a good philosophical question.- Heavy.
0:12:26 > 0:12:30It is a good philosophical question, and he's perfectly cast to ask it.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33Well, he's perfectly cast. What's so striking, how old they are!
0:12:33 > 0:12:37There's two sort of geriatric blokes on a special forces' mission
0:12:37 > 0:12:40when actually, all their real-life peers, if they had them,
0:12:40 > 0:12:44- or real-life equivalents would've been sort of 21 or, you know, that. - As you all know,
0:12:44 > 0:12:47real-life special forces' people all look like Steven Seagal. That is the rules.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50- LAUGHTER - It's true in Under Siege, it's true in the world.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53It's interesting how that feels, in a way, like an extension
0:12:53 > 0:12:56- of the conversation at the end of The Dam Busters, doesn't it?- Yes.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59This is where they might have got to after their third or
0:12:59 > 0:13:00fourth pint, isn't it?
0:13:00 > 0:13:04When the gloves were off and they're really starting to say what they feel.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07But it's a weird moment in the film this because the action stops
0:13:07 > 0:13:10and it turns into this moral chamber drama.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13Yes, I mean, I remember as a little boy watching that thinking,
0:13:13 > 0:13:17- "Oh, this is a bit boring," you know, because that... - "Where are the guns?"
0:13:17 > 0:13:18Well, cos The Guns of Navarone
0:13:18 > 0:13:20operates on a Boy's Own adventure level that,
0:13:20 > 0:13:22you know, it's behind enemy lines,
0:13:22 > 0:13:26it's... They're being searched for...and all that proper exciting
0:13:26 > 0:13:28Boy's Own stuff but
0:13:28 > 0:13:31you can see that they're trying to inject this element.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35I mean, it feels a little parasitic and the body of the film
0:13:35 > 0:13:37sort of rejects it, like a transplanted organ or something.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40Of course, heroes are crucial to a Second World War film but,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43you need villains as well and when it comes to the Second World War
0:13:43 > 0:13:45and you need a villain, who you going to call?
0:13:45 > 0:13:49The Nazis. And here's a few of my screen favourites.
0:13:49 > 0:13:52Villains don't get much more villainous than the Nazis,
0:13:52 > 0:13:54and they come in all shapes and sizes.
0:13:54 > 0:13:59The most evil-looking Nazi has to be Derren Nesbitt in Where Eagles Dare.
0:13:59 > 0:14:02He looks like his whole body has been dipped in peroxide to
0:14:02 > 0:14:04look properly alien.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06The scariest Nazi has to be this slap-happy guy
0:14:06 > 0:14:10from The Guns Of Navarone, who's so villainous that he's practically
0:14:10 > 0:14:13Voldemort judging by the way these doors magic-shut behind him.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16He also speaks perfect var-film German,
0:14:16 > 0:14:19which was great fun to imitate in the playground.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21I shall personally rearrange this officer's splints.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24Something lost on Michael Caine, who plays Colonel Steiner
0:14:24 > 0:14:27in The Eagle Has Landed, with a Cockney accent.
0:14:27 > 0:14:29He reminds me of something that I occasionally pick up
0:14:29 > 0:14:31on my shoe in the gutter!
0:14:31 > 0:14:34His voice coach is just off camera tearing his hair out.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36But my favourite Nazi has to be
0:14:36 > 0:14:40this worryingly-alluring Gestapo interrogator from 633 Squadron...
0:14:40 > 0:14:42Take off his clothes.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52..seen here bearing down on the guy from West Side Story
0:14:52 > 0:14:55and interfering with his nether regions.
0:14:55 > 0:14:56Well, Lieutenant?
0:14:56 > 0:14:59Of course, none of these films go into the genuinely grim stuff
0:14:59 > 0:15:02the Nazis did. They're pantomime baddies.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05But why did they so often turn out a little bit sexy?
0:15:07 > 0:15:09- Well, crikey! - Crikey is the very word!
0:15:09 > 0:15:10LAUGHTER
0:15:10 > 0:15:13- It's sort of like an adult version of 'Allo 'Allo!- Yeah.- Yes.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17- Yes, she certainly is a sort of dominatrix figure, isn't she? - Hmm.- Cruel.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19And filmed from very low down, so we get to see...
0:15:19 > 0:15:22- It's a very unflattering angle. - ..all of the bottom of her face.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24Yeah, everyone wants to be shot up the nostrils.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27But it's his angle, isn't it? It's what it's like when she's bearing down on you,
0:15:27 > 0:15:31is, I think, the idea... It's really very odd, that film.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34I think it's something that... I think it's something that probably
0:15:34 > 0:15:36sold a lot of tickets.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39It's certainly something you get the strong sense that with
0:15:39 > 0:15:44all of the representations of Nazis, that when those sadistic figures
0:15:44 > 0:15:47are brought in, if they're not comic, then they're something else.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49They're meant to be alluring.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52And that something is not entirely unpleasant for the audience,
0:15:52 > 0:15:56- or for some of the audience. - But I think the Germans shouldn't feel too bad about this because
0:15:56 > 0:16:00actually, that's what baddies do look like throughout history. It just happens that the kind of genre we're
0:16:00 > 0:16:03talking about it's Germans who are the baddies. But if you look at Hollywood,
0:16:03 > 0:16:05that's what British baddies look like -
0:16:05 > 0:16:07they're all a bit sexually perverted,
0:16:07 > 0:16:09very straight-backed, clipped, nasty people.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11You think of Braveheart or The Patriot,
0:16:11 > 0:16:14and I think it's not a function of what we think about the Germans,
0:16:14 > 0:16:17and I think it's just what you do with cinematic baddies.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20It's about who's lucky enough to be making the film.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23I think, though, there is something historically-specific about this.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27I think there's a sort of circuit of sadomasochism buzzing away
0:16:27 > 0:16:29in a lot of these war films,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32and in films made during the war as well, and just after.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35Like the Gainsborough melodramas made just after the war were
0:16:35 > 0:16:37full of people being slapped.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40You went to see James Mason slapping Phyllis Calvert,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43slapping Patricia Roc. People responded to that.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46Read the fan magazines, a lot of people rather liked
0:16:46 > 0:16:49the idea of being slapped by James Mason. And I think somehow...
0:16:49 > 0:16:52- No-one knows what you mean(!) - LAUGHTER
0:16:52 > 0:16:55But it also suggests something about unresolved trauma
0:16:55 > 0:16:57in the audience, doesn't it?
0:16:57 > 0:16:59- And the question of...- Definitely.
0:16:59 > 0:17:03..you know, and that people have committed violent acts aren't talking about them,
0:17:03 > 0:17:06don't know what to make of them even all these years afterwards.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10And are repressing them and this is also the period of "no sex, please, we're British" isn't it?
0:17:10 > 0:17:12That idea, and that we're clean-living people
0:17:12 > 0:17:14and the Nazis are so evil
0:17:14 > 0:17:17they're getting off on a sort of fetishised violence.
0:17:17 > 0:17:19There's something peculiar, isn't there,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22the Nazis who are, you know, synonymous with evil being
0:17:22 > 0:17:26reduced to this sort of... They're ciphers, they're stooges.
0:17:26 > 0:17:27Yeah, and background players.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30Well, cos Nazis turn up in Indiana Jones' movies as a
0:17:30 > 0:17:34personification of evil and they're the bad guys in The Sound Of Music.
0:17:34 > 0:17:36- Yes, they are.- They fill in... if you need a bad guy...
0:17:36 > 0:17:39- If you need a baddie. - ..you don't need to explain... all someone has to do is
0:17:39 > 0:17:42come on in a black uniform and you're allowed to shoot him.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46The actor doesn't need to sit the director down and say, "What's my motivation?"
0:17:46 > 0:17:49Of course, what all these films have in common is ideas of what it
0:17:49 > 0:17:52means to be British - stiff upper lip, cups of tea,
0:17:52 > 0:17:54all that sort of British stuff. Let's have a look now.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59And what could be more British than a stiff upper lip?
0:17:59 > 0:18:02In many war films, the line between being a bit reserved
0:18:02 > 0:18:05and being completely barmy is paper thin.
0:18:05 > 0:18:08Guy Hamilton's 1969 epic, The Battle Of Britain,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12is a beautiful recreation of real events in retina-scorching Technicolor,
0:18:12 > 0:18:14but it's also full of characters like this fellow
0:18:14 > 0:18:17who seems remarkably non-traumatised by his crash landing.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21- Thanks awfully, old chap. - Fags for the win.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25Or how about the bonkers briefing scene from The Man Who Never Was?
0:18:25 > 0:18:26Again, based on real events
0:18:26 > 0:18:29but delivered by actors who could barely keep a straight face.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32It's the most outrageous, disgusting,
0:18:32 > 0:18:34preposterous, not to say, barbaric idea.
0:18:34 > 0:18:39But work out full details and be on hand at the War Cabinet offices at 4.30 tomorrow afternoon.
0:18:39 > 0:18:40Thank you, sir.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43But my favourite, by a mile, is Angels One Five,
0:18:43 > 0:18:47George More O'Ferrall's 1952 take on the Battle of Britain, which is
0:18:47 > 0:18:50filled with the loopiest bunch of toffs ever assembled on screen.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53Take this scene where they wisecrack their way around the fact that
0:18:53 > 0:18:56he's just smashed what's basically a £10 million aircraft into a house.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58Hello, old man. Dropped in for tea?
0:18:58 > 0:19:01Thought there'd be more room at the end of the runway.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04Well, our guests do usually park their aircraft up there,
0:19:04 > 0:19:06I'll admit. Hurt your neck?
0:19:06 > 0:19:08Who lives on the end of a runway anyway?
0:19:08 > 0:19:11But the British have a secret weapon, a drink that can
0:19:11 > 0:19:14help us overcome anything, even your base being bombed.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17Tea, sir? It's a bit gritty, I'm afraid, sir.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19Unlike this film.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22Is this really how the British behave?
0:19:23 > 0:19:27Foster, that's an inspiration. Remind me to have you promoted.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31And that's why we won the war - tea, cups of tea!
0:19:31 > 0:19:33It is definitely part of our national character cos I,
0:19:33 > 0:19:35as I think you know, don't drink tea.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39- Yes.- And I feel constantly obliged to apologise for it.- You're a fifth columnist of some kind.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42I know, isn't it, though? You kind of think, "I'm terribly sorry, everyone."
0:19:42 > 0:19:45I sort of feel like my passport is dependent on drinking tea
0:19:45 > 0:19:48and because I don't, I do vaguely worry I'll be asked to give
0:19:48 > 0:19:50it back, I'm not going to lie to you.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53But it's inextricably linked with the stiff upper lip, isn't it?
0:19:53 > 0:19:55The cup of tea, the robustly-jaunty optimism.
0:19:55 > 0:19:59They even drink their tea with a stiff upper lip in Angels One Five, don't they?
0:19:59 > 0:20:01It feels useful, somehow, doesn't it?
0:20:01 > 0:20:03This is one of those films
0:20:03 > 0:20:06that feels faintly therapeutic for the audience.
0:20:06 > 0:20:11We get to see people not responding by screaming and crying
0:20:11 > 0:20:14and acting terrified, we get to see the opposite of that.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17What's interesting about all of these British war films,
0:20:17 > 0:20:19nearly all the ones we've seen so far,
0:20:19 > 0:20:22is that they're very effective at pedalling a straightforward message.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25It's a message about stiff upper lip, how we won the war,
0:20:25 > 0:20:27boffins, all this kind of stuff we're talking about,
0:20:27 > 0:20:29in the same way that Hollywood's very, very good today
0:20:29 > 0:20:33at pedalling a certain type of the American dream, it's multi-ethnic,
0:20:33 > 0:20:34it's aspirational and...
0:20:34 > 0:20:36- Individualistic and stuff. - ..individualistic.
0:20:36 > 0:20:38And what's fascinating is, as you say,
0:20:38 > 0:20:41at the time the idea that everyone was walking around in the 1950s
0:20:41 > 0:20:43acting like this in day-to-day life is just complete nonsense.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46And if you look at it, books have been written about how during
0:20:46 > 0:20:49the Blitz, all the East Enders and everyone else was busy running
0:20:49 > 0:20:52around nicking everything from all the houses, why wouldn't you? And that sexual mores
0:20:52 > 0:20:56loosened up fantastically during the war, fantastically in both senses.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58So, in a way, what we're sort of getting towards here is
0:20:58 > 0:21:02that in the British war film, Where Eagles Dare is as realistic
0:21:02 > 0:21:06as Angels One Five, which is... they're both pedalling a fantasy.
0:21:06 > 0:21:07Yes.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10And they're pedalling a fantasy of a national identity, as it were,
0:21:10 > 0:21:11an idea of Britishness.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15And yet, it's one that resonates with us and because they've been
0:21:15 > 0:21:18on TV so much, it's one we've sort of...we've sort of
0:21:18 > 0:21:22imbibed of and maybe some of us have actually swallowed it, so to speak.
0:21:22 > 0:21:23If we're talking Britishness,
0:21:23 > 0:21:26then the ultimate British stiff-upper-lip film,
0:21:26 > 0:21:27the stiffest upper lip of all,
0:21:27 > 0:21:30where the idea is tested to destruction is this movie.
0:21:30 > 0:21:32MUSIC: "The Bridge On The River Kwai Theme"
0:21:32 > 0:21:35The ultimate stiff-upper-lip film has to be The Bridge On The River Kwai,
0:21:35 > 0:21:38David Lean's classic 1957 film about loyalty
0:21:38 > 0:21:42and codes of conduct all played out in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
0:21:42 > 0:21:43WHISTLING
0:21:43 > 0:21:45With its chirpy whistling and sense of decency,
0:21:45 > 0:21:49we start off in familiar territory but then things get messy
0:21:49 > 0:21:52as Lean takes British reserve to another planet.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55Alec Guinness's Colonel Nicholson is heroic, dutiful to his men
0:21:55 > 0:21:58and dogged in his adherence to the Geneva Convention,
0:21:58 > 0:22:00as seen in this tense moment.
0:22:00 > 0:22:02The code specifically states that the...
0:22:04 > 0:22:05Stand fast in the ranks!
0:22:05 > 0:22:09But his values ultimately lead him to collaborate with the Japanese
0:22:09 > 0:22:12and build the eponymous bridge, and an Allied mission to destroy it
0:22:12 > 0:22:14sets the film on an unstoppable course
0:22:14 > 0:22:18towards this morally-ambiguous but devastating ending
0:22:18 > 0:22:19in which no-one wins.
0:22:19 > 0:22:21What have I done?
0:22:21 > 0:22:25Is this film anti-British? Or is it anti-war?
0:22:33 > 0:22:36Now, I think it'd be fair to say this is a terrifically confusing
0:22:36 > 0:22:38and ambivalent film, isn't it?
0:22:38 > 0:22:39Very. Very much so.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42Alec Guinness was worried that it was an anti-British film.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44I mean, it...it is, isn't it?
0:22:44 > 0:22:49Well, it's a film that suggests that war is something that has to,
0:22:49 > 0:22:53and must, produce insanity, produce derangement.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55These people are following the rules,
0:22:55 > 0:22:59they're doing what they're supposed to be doing according to the rules
0:22:59 > 0:23:04of their different cultures and it literally produces insanity,
0:23:04 > 0:23:07the desire to kill oneself, or to sacrifice oneself.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11The sanity of everybody involved evaporates as the picture goes on.
0:23:11 > 0:23:12Yeah.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16Everyone has a code and every character is fed into war
0:23:16 > 0:23:18and is broken by it.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21There's the young commando who can't kill a man, he can't do it,
0:23:21 > 0:23:25he can't bring himself to do it because he knows it's wrong,
0:23:25 > 0:23:28and Jack Hawkins who's...even his character
0:23:28 > 0:23:31who's the most sort of balanced warrior in it, perhaps,
0:23:31 > 0:23:35emerges damaged at the end for having killed people,
0:23:35 > 0:23:39and it's an incredibly bleak film and contemporary.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43I mean, I suppose this is what happens when you get an art director to make a war film.
0:23:43 > 0:23:44And it's a very controversial film.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48I mean, all... Lots of films we're talking about are pretty a-historical
0:23:48 > 0:23:49but this one, particularly,
0:23:49 > 0:23:53and the veterans' associations, the POW Association were absolutely
0:23:53 > 0:23:56appalled that this British officer could be portrayed like this when
0:23:56 > 0:23:59the character, that's very loosely based on what...you know, didn't
0:23:59 > 0:24:01collaborate in that respect either,
0:24:01 > 0:24:04and it's thought to, in fact - I'm showing my nationalism here -
0:24:04 > 0:24:06but it's thought to be based loosely
0:24:06 > 0:24:08on some collaborating Vichy French officers
0:24:08 > 0:24:09in South East Asia at the time.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12But coming at the same time as some of the other films, it would
0:24:12 > 0:24:15have been hugely challenging, I imagine, for the British audience to watch this stuff.
0:24:15 > 0:24:17Now this is one of the great movies, isn't it?
0:24:17 > 0:24:20I mean, it may be because Lean makes what looks like a British war movie
0:24:20 > 0:24:23and makes it with his sensibilities as an art film director,
0:24:23 > 0:24:25it's...we've popped out of genre, hasn't it?
0:24:25 > 0:24:29And regularly comes up on the best-films-ever lists.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33I mean, we're almost dealing with something that is beyond our pay grade here.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36Well, it is a strange and disturbing film, I think, because it...
0:24:36 > 0:24:39all the phenomena in it that we're invited to observe
0:24:39 > 0:24:42are something to do with illusions or madness,
0:24:42 > 0:24:45so it's as if they're all in a world of delusion.
0:24:45 > 0:24:47Oh, wait, although not enough not to get him
0:24:47 > 0:24:50out of a box where he's been being cooked to death essentially
0:24:50 > 0:24:53and go, "Would you like some corned beef?" The world's saltiest food.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56And/or some Scotch, the world's most dehydrating drink.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59No, he'd like a glass of water and some lettuce, don't be ridiculous!
0:24:59 > 0:25:00LAUGHTER
0:25:00 > 0:25:02It's a particularly bizarre scene.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05A big feature of war movies, of course, is rousing speeches
0:25:05 > 0:25:06to inspire the troops.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09But there's one film in particular where, basically,
0:25:09 > 0:25:12the speechifying takes over the whole movie.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15And the award for most speeches in a motion picture goes to Noel Coward
0:25:15 > 0:25:19for his 1942 film In Which We Serve - a pure
0:25:19 > 0:25:23piece of patriotic propaganda, co-directed with David Lean.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26I've come to say goodbye to the few of you who are left.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30We've had so many talks and this is our last.
0:25:30 > 0:25:32Taking his cue from Churchill's tried
0:25:32 > 0:25:35and trusted motivational techniques, Coward plays the paternalistic
0:25:35 > 0:25:39Captain Kinross of the HMS Torrin, a generous and wise commander with
0:25:39 > 0:25:43a rousing address for every occasion and a nice line in understatement.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45Well done.
0:25:45 > 0:25:47We got him but I'm afraid he's got us too.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50He's also unbelievably fair to those who let him down,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53including the stoker who abandons his post,
0:25:53 > 0:25:55played by an incredibly young Richard Attenborough.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58You'll be surprised, therefore, to learn that I have let him off
0:25:58 > 0:26:00with a caution...
0:26:00 > 0:26:02or perhaps I should say with two cautions -
0:26:02 > 0:26:03one to him
0:26:03 > 0:26:05and one to me,
0:26:05 > 0:26:08for in a way I feel that what happened was my fault.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11He may as well be walking on water at this point.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13Coward might be an odd choice to play a military leader,
0:26:13 > 0:26:16with his cap at a permanently jaunty angle and his crew of
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Jean Paul Gaultier models, but it's hard not to get swept up
0:26:19 > 0:26:20by the patriotic enthusiasm
0:26:20 > 0:26:23with which he plays his part in the war effort.
0:26:23 > 0:26:25Then we'll send Hitler a telegram saying,
0:26:25 > 0:26:27"The Torrin's ready, you can start your war."
0:26:27 > 0:26:31It's kind of Henry V meets Binky Beaumont's opening-night speech,
0:26:31 > 0:26:33isn't it, from some West End show?
0:26:33 > 0:26:36But that point you were making about the ages of the participants,
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Dan, but there's a lot of very young actors in this scene,
0:26:39 > 0:26:42I mean, not the least of which, is little Dickie Attenborough!
0:26:42 > 0:26:47- Teeny-tiny Attenborough(!) - Brilliant performance of this terrified young boy who
0:26:47 > 0:26:50doesn't really, you know, come up to the mark when it comes to it.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54Obviously, this programme isn't from a '70s polytechnic
0:26:54 > 0:26:57so we've skirted around class but now's the time to talk about this.
0:26:57 > 0:26:58The British obsession with class -
0:26:58 > 0:27:01its portrayal in these films - these films...
0:27:01 > 0:27:04we could've just done this about class in British war movies.
0:27:04 > 0:27:10We've seen a lot of posh officers and a lot of working class people
0:27:10 > 0:27:12who maybe don't even get to say anything.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16In Which We Serve - the class system works, that seems to be
0:27:16 > 0:27:18part of the message of that film, is it's working for us.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21Well, Montgomery gave speeches about this exact thing.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24He said, "The whole...the reason this war's gone so well is
0:27:24 > 0:27:27"because the people that are designed to lead have led
0:27:27 > 0:27:29"and the people designed to follow have followed.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32"And that's why it's all gone jolly well and we need to keep that
0:27:32 > 0:27:35"spirit going into rebuilding Britain following the war."
0:27:35 > 0:27:39- Of course, the British electorate had different ideas. Who... - But this is from 1942, isn't it?
0:27:39 > 0:27:43So, you're right in the thick of the war and,
0:27:43 > 0:27:45I mean, Noel Coward of all people...
0:27:45 > 0:27:47- He is a posh man.- Yes. He could be...
0:27:47 > 0:27:49- IMITATES NOEL COWARD:- "I mean it's quite remarkable, isn't it?"
0:27:49 > 0:27:53I mean, I don't know if I'd follow him anywhere if he...you know,
0:27:53 > 0:27:57"By the way, old boy, if you'd just go over there and attack those Germans, it'd be most delightful."
0:27:57 > 0:28:00- I mean, I wouldn't do it, would you? - He does seem a bit daft now, doesn't he?
0:28:00 > 0:28:03But In Which We Serve is a kind of step forward.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05There are films made before this
0:28:05 > 0:28:07that try to depict this relationship,
0:28:07 > 0:28:09this ship-board relationship
0:28:09 > 0:28:11particularly between officers and men...
0:28:11 > 0:28:12Upstairs, downstairs.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15..in the Navy and there's a film called Convoy, where Clive Brook
0:28:15 > 0:28:19plays a character who's very like this Noel Coward one, and really all
0:28:19 > 0:28:22that the working class characters ever do is bring him his cocoa.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26Here, this is like a slice taken out of the ant hill, isn't it?
0:28:26 > 0:28:30And we see this working, a happy ship, an efficient ship, he keeps telling us.
0:28:30 > 0:28:34But he's portrayed as paternalistic, merciful and wise, isn't he? Yeah.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37Yeah, but he's also going through the same thing. He's not asking them to do anything
0:28:37 > 0:28:41he's not prepared to do. He says, "We won't..." you know, stop. "We won't do anything..."
0:28:41 > 0:28:44He's not asking them to do it for him, he's part of it too.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47So although he's in a leadership role, it is
0:28:47 > 0:28:51a very patrician kind of attitude but still, he's mucking in.
0:28:51 > 0:28:53Yeah. Yeah, the year before the Beverage Report
0:28:53 > 0:28:56and we have a patrician officer. It's very interesting.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59Well, just think, there was the unsaid thing,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02I mean, lots of the elite were sending their kids off to
0:29:02 > 0:29:05North America to avoid the war, to avoid the violence.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08There was, again little not often talked about, the Blitz but
0:29:08 > 0:29:11East London had huge amount of bombs falling, of course, during 1940.
0:29:11 > 0:29:13West London, largely, not as many.
0:29:13 > 0:29:15And there were actually riots, you know, there was
0:29:15 > 0:29:18a mob turned up at the Savoy one night saying, "We know you've
0:29:18 > 0:29:20"got bomb shelters down there," so there was huge tension going...
0:29:20 > 0:29:23They weren't a mob, they were an orderly...an orderly protest(!)
0:29:23 > 0:29:26OK, an orderly protest but... And what's interesting about these films,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29maybe they are trying to say, maybe you're right, it's
0:29:29 > 0:29:32a message not just to working men and women saying, "Do what you're
0:29:32 > 0:29:35"told by your betters," but actually also saying, "You guys need to be
0:29:35 > 0:29:38"patriarchal, you need to benevolent, you need to play your part as well."
0:29:38 > 0:29:40Well, In Which We Serve is a slice of history.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43It was made during the war, it's about the war but other later
0:29:43 > 0:29:46films have tried to offer up slices of history themselves,
0:29:46 > 0:29:50and this is my favourite war film of all and it does exactly that.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54For pure, unbridled history porn, nothing beats A Bridge Too Far,
0:29:54 > 0:29:57Richard Attenborough's epic, star-studded re-enactment
0:29:57 > 0:30:01of Operation Market Garden, and probably my favourite war movie.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04It's painstaking in its historic detail, although this means
0:30:04 > 0:30:07the moments where they get it wrong annoy me hugely.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10Look, I'm sorry, but that's clearly a tank made in the 1960s,
0:30:10 > 0:30:12what were they thinking?
0:30:12 > 0:30:15These things might not bother you but as a history hound,
0:30:15 > 0:30:18it's infuriating, especially in a film that tries so hard,
0:30:18 > 0:30:20too hard, perhaps, to get it right.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24It's also got a distracting number of top names in the cast,
0:30:24 > 0:30:27such as Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery,
0:30:27 > 0:30:29Michael Caine and Dirk Bogarde.
0:30:29 > 0:30:32Well, as you know, I've always thought that we tried to go a bridge too far.
0:30:32 > 0:30:35Take Connery gunning a Nazi down at the window, for example.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39This actually happened but you're sort of expecting a cheeky one-liner
0:30:39 > 0:30:41and the James Bond music to ring out.
0:30:41 > 0:30:45How realistic can a film with this many celebs be?
0:30:45 > 0:30:47But for all its flaws, it's a magnificent effort
0:30:47 > 0:30:50chock-full of moments that are genuinely stirring,
0:30:50 > 0:30:52such as this scene where Edward Fox is briefing his men.
0:30:52 > 0:30:57I like to think of this as one of those American Western films.
0:30:57 > 0:31:01The paratroops, lacking substantial equipment,
0:31:01 > 0:31:05always short of food, these are the besieged homesteaders.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09The Germans, well, naturally, they're the bad guys.
0:31:09 > 0:31:13And 30 Corps, we, my friends, are the cavalry
0:31:13 > 0:31:16on the way to the rescue!
0:31:17 > 0:31:20CHEERING
0:31:20 > 0:31:23I can't help feel that this speech isn't some
0:31:23 > 0:31:25version of something that Dickie Attenborough must have
0:31:25 > 0:31:29said at a meeting with the American backers, trying to explain
0:31:29 > 0:31:33what this picture was about and why they should invest in it.
0:31:33 > 0:31:37Cos I think also this film is about where the British film industry
0:31:37 > 0:31:41is at this point, kind of backed-up against a wall
0:31:41 > 0:31:44and creating this giant all-star vehicle to try and save itself.
0:31:44 > 0:31:49You know what? If we're being clever, we could say it's like Operation Market Garden itself.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51Britain is playing the junior partner,
0:31:51 > 0:31:53desperate for one last big hoorah on the continent,
0:31:53 > 0:31:56showing the Americans, showing the Russians, that we've still got
0:31:56 > 0:32:00- superpower status and it all goes a bit disastrously wrong. - And it's a turkey.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03Yeah, although I love this film... I love this film and what I love
0:32:03 > 0:32:06about this film is that on set, you know, people like Frost, you know,
0:32:06 > 0:32:08the guys featured in the film, they're on set advising the actors.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11I mean that's the only... Frost was there saying to
0:32:11 > 0:32:14Anthony Hopkins, "I never ran when I was on this bridge," you know.
0:32:14 > 0:32:17I mean, that's extraordinary that level of detailed historical advice.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22I was talking to Richard Todd, who was part of Operation Market Garden,
0:32:22 > 0:32:25who took a very dim view of Dirk Bogarde's casting in this film.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29- Oh, really?- Not military material, as far as he was concerned. - AL CHUCKLES
0:32:29 > 0:32:34Well, speaking of military material, it's sufficiently far away from the war that you've got a generation
0:32:34 > 0:32:37of actors coming through who actually had never been anywhere near
0:32:37 > 0:32:41- the armed forces and didn't they go to boot camp for this is what... - This was the first movie..
0:32:41 > 0:32:43It's now de rigueur, isn't it, that, you know, be it we send all
0:32:43 > 0:32:46the young Hollywood starlets and young fellas off to boot camp?
0:32:46 > 0:32:49It's interesting, actually, that A Bridge Too Far's desires to
0:32:49 > 0:32:52be a film of record are unbalanced by the fact that it's
0:32:52 > 0:32:58as packed with stars as Airport 75, for much the same reasons, I think.
0:32:58 > 0:33:02It's, you know, it's a rather lovable film, though, isn't it?
0:33:02 > 0:33:05Gene Hackman's first line is, "I am a Pole." And...
0:33:05 > 0:33:08Because, otherwise, to be fair, you would not have known.
0:33:08 > 0:33:11Sean Connery's first line has the word "reconnaissance" in it.
0:33:11 > 0:33:14Any film that makes Sean Connery say "reconnaissance" can't be all bad.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18- Or Gene Hackman repeatedly saying "Ghermans". I mean, that's... - "What about the Ghermans?"
0:33:18 > 0:33:20"What about the Ghermans?" But I really like this film
0:33:20 > 0:33:23and I'm fascinated by its attempt to be historically accurate.
0:33:23 > 0:33:24Yes, but in A Bridge Too Far,
0:33:24 > 0:33:26there's a couple of proper calumnies...
0:33:26 > 0:33:30the things that really didn't happen that are represented in a film
0:33:30 > 0:33:33that says, "This is history," and that, for my money,
0:33:33 > 0:33:36don't tell a deeper truth about anything but to get it wrong...
0:33:36 > 0:33:40- Are you talking about Nijmegen Bridge, by any chance? - I'm talking about Nijmegen Bridge.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43The moment where Cook's men... where Robert Redford's men finally
0:33:43 > 0:33:47made their river crossing and they hook up with the British
0:33:47 > 0:33:49who've taken their tanks over the bridge.
0:33:49 > 0:33:52They stop... The British stop for tea, "Oh, no, old boy, we can't go."
0:33:52 > 0:33:56And that is just...it's so not what happened, and so painting
0:33:56 > 0:33:58the British as sort of slow and incompetent
0:33:58 > 0:34:02and without any of the elan and the vigour that the Americans had,
0:34:02 > 0:34:04and it's a horrible...er, libel.
0:34:04 > 0:34:09- It's all right, Al, it's all right. It's a film, buddy, don't worry. Come on.- No! No! Absolutely not!
0:34:09 > 0:34:13- Drink some water, give him some water.- It's a film masquerading as a piece of history
0:34:13 > 0:34:16and that's the real problem with that film, for me.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19But if we're going to talk about realism in war movies, there's
0:34:19 > 0:34:23one film we simply can't ignore, we wouldn't get away with it.
0:34:23 > 0:34:25It's the brain-splattered, gory elephant in the room,
0:34:25 > 0:34:27which is, of course, this.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31OK, so we're deviating a bit by talking about a Hollywood film,
0:34:31 > 0:34:33like Saving Private Ryan,
0:34:33 > 0:34:37but Steven Spielberg's 1998 epic is an absolute game changer -
0:34:37 > 0:34:41the film that makes all previous war movies look old-fashioned.
0:34:41 > 0:34:43It's a film of two halves. The second bit
0:34:43 > 0:34:46feels very much at home with all the other movies we've looked at,
0:34:46 > 0:34:50men on a mission, Nazis, dutiful heroism, that sort of thing,
0:34:50 > 0:34:53but it's really all about the first 20 minutes, a harrowing
0:34:53 > 0:34:55recreation of the D-Day landings
0:34:55 > 0:34:58that forensically lays bare the brutality, the senselessness
0:34:58 > 0:35:00and the unpredictable carnage of a battle
0:35:00 > 0:35:04where strength of character is no match for the speed of the bullets.
0:35:04 > 0:35:06After a film this immersive,
0:35:06 > 0:35:09could we ever go back to the jolly high jinks of Angels One Five?
0:35:10 > 0:35:14I mean, this couldn't be further removed from the British war movies genre,
0:35:14 > 0:35:15even at its most ludicrous
0:35:15 > 0:35:18and fantastical in the form of Where Eagles Dare.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21No matter how many... how stiff your upper lip is,
0:35:21 > 0:35:26it's not designed to cope with this supposed realistic depiction of war.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28It's hyper-realistic, isn't it?
0:35:28 > 0:35:32And I think it says something about how memories
0:35:32 > 0:35:34of that moment are slipping away.
0:35:34 > 0:35:38It's an attempt to kind of fix and capture something, and I think
0:35:38 > 0:35:41it's something that Steven Spielberg has kind of got form on.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44I think there are quite a lot of people who see the Holocaust
0:35:44 > 0:35:48through the lens of Schindler's List, and I wonder whether,
0:35:48 > 0:35:51you know, future generations when they want to try and conjure what
0:35:51 > 0:35:56- the D-Day landings were like, aren't going to go to Saving Private Ryan. - They certainly will.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59In a way, it sort of stands for the real event.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02Well, it does but it... not entirely by accident
0:36:02 > 0:36:05because I've met loads of D-Day veterans and quite a few of them,
0:36:05 > 0:36:07if you say, "What was it like?" they'll say, "Have you ever seen
0:36:07 > 0:36:10"the first 20 minutes of a film called Saving Private Ryan?"
0:36:10 > 0:36:14That's a pretty staggering cinematic achievement that Spielberg's made
0:36:14 > 0:36:15and the producer of that film made.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18And for me, I'm just perhaps showing my sort of bias here
0:36:18 > 0:36:21but I think it's...that is a watershed moment and I think
0:36:21 > 0:36:24war films, it's pre and post first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27- Yes, there's no way back from it. - There's no way back from that.
0:36:27 > 0:36:31And I...some people look very fondly back at the kind of really clunky, you know,
0:36:31 > 0:36:34special effects of Bridge Over The River Kwai or The Dam Busters.
0:36:34 > 0:36:39For me, I think the modern cinema, the technology available to modern cinema
0:36:39 > 0:36:43has made it hyper-realistic and more engaging, I'm afraid.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46But it's also meant that the moral conundrum of war is much
0:36:46 > 0:36:50more to the fore because you can't kind of fudge it by going,
0:36:50 > 0:36:53"Oh, well, it's all happening a really long way away, brackets,
0:36:53 > 0:36:56"because we can't afford the special effects, and therefore
0:36:56 > 0:36:59"everybody who is not one of our heroes is other, and miles away."
0:36:59 > 0:37:02It means that war films that have happened subsequently,
0:37:02 > 0:37:04the films that have been made about Iraq and Afghanistan,
0:37:04 > 0:37:08have been, morally, very much muddier, we've been very much more uncertain
0:37:08 > 0:37:12who the heroes and who the villains are, and that's still happening now.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15Though in Saving Private Ryan, the German characters conform to
0:37:15 > 0:37:17a lot of the things we've talked about.
0:37:17 > 0:37:20Cos they're either in silhouette like they are in that scene,
0:37:20 > 0:37:25so they're, basically, machine-gun operators, or there's the character
0:37:25 > 0:37:29who appears to be a good German and turns out to be a proper Nazi,
0:37:29 > 0:37:32who's a pivotal character in the last act of the movie.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35And the British are marginalised very much in it as well, aren't they?
0:37:35 > 0:37:38Well, they're disparaged. There's a line about Monty...
0:37:38 > 0:37:42That's the only time the British are mentioned, "Monty's late." That's all they say...
0:37:42 > 0:37:45Which is just... Again my history hackles rise, Dan, and I...
0:37:45 > 0:37:47Do you want to write in, Al? "Dear, Steven Spielberg..."
0:37:47 > 0:37:52- We really ought to write in. - More British troops, more British ships fought at D-Day than Americans
0:37:52 > 0:37:55but, by the same token, you pay the bills, you get to write the story.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58I mean, you look back at the British films, as a Canadian,
0:37:58 > 0:38:01where are the Canadians in the great British films of the '50s?
0:38:01 > 0:38:03Let alone, where are the Polish code breakers
0:38:03 > 0:38:05in the films? But that's the reality. We used to be...
0:38:05 > 0:38:08- Gene Hackman could play them. He's trained for this.- But we...
0:38:08 > 0:38:10the Brits used to be top dogs, we used to make the movies,
0:38:10 > 0:38:12we got to make...be the heroes, now we're not any more.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15And one day, it'll be Chinese heroes up on the big screen.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17Well, isn't that the story of all of these films?
0:38:17 > 0:38:21Isn't that what their... what their greatest use is, maybe to future historians?
0:38:21 > 0:38:24They do track something about our self-image,
0:38:24 > 0:38:28about our self-pity and our self-confidence.
0:38:28 > 0:38:29Yeah. Well, we've been talking about
0:38:29 > 0:38:31Second World War movies, obviously, but there's
0:38:31 > 0:38:33a bank-holiday-Sunday-afternoon classic
0:38:33 > 0:38:36we simply wouldn't be able to avoid talking about, and it's this.
0:38:36 > 0:38:38MUSIC: "Zulu Theme"
0:38:38 > 0:38:41War films are generally about holding it all together
0:38:41 > 0:38:44and keeping a stuff upper lip, but the one film your dad was
0:38:44 > 0:38:46allowed to cry at was always Zulu.
0:38:46 > 0:38:48Cy Endfield's classic 1964 take on
0:38:48 > 0:38:52the battle at Rorke's Drift and the film that made Michael Caine a star.
0:38:52 > 0:38:54Fire!
0:38:54 > 0:38:57It's got all the war movie staples we've seen so far -
0:38:57 > 0:39:00a bit of class tension, manly camaraderie...
0:39:00 > 0:39:03SINGING
0:39:03 > 0:39:07..and British courage and determination beating the odds.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11But unlike many World War II films, Zulu wears its heart on its sleeve.
0:39:11 > 0:39:14This is a war film where once the fighting's done, the tough guys open their hearts,
0:39:14 > 0:39:17tear up and say what they really feel about the horror of it all.
0:39:17 > 0:39:20Is this the most emotionally frank war movie ever made?
0:39:20 > 0:39:22How do you feel?
0:39:23 > 0:39:24Sick.
0:39:27 > 0:39:29Well, you have to be alive to feel sick.
0:39:30 > 0:39:32You asked me, I told you.
0:39:35 > 0:39:37There's something else.
0:39:39 > 0:39:40I feel ashamed.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47Was that how it was for you, the first time?
0:39:49 > 0:39:50The first time...?
0:39:52 > 0:39:55Think I could stand this butcher's yard more than once?
0:39:58 > 0:39:59I didn't know.
0:40:02 > 0:40:03I told you.
0:40:05 > 0:40:07I came up here to build a bridge.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13It's an incredibly powerful moment.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16See, I've only ever watched Zulu as a kid every weekend
0:40:16 > 0:40:20and then I watched it again about a few months ago, and all of the bits
0:40:20 > 0:40:24that I'd forgotten came rushing... I mean, those bits are extraordinary.
0:40:24 > 0:40:26I remember it simply as a kind of... quite a jingoistic film
0:40:26 > 0:40:29but it's not at all. It's a very, very interesting film
0:40:29 > 0:40:33and their relationship's fascinating at the end, and actually they both
0:40:33 > 0:40:35die broken men quite young in real life,
0:40:35 > 0:40:36and I think they portray that.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39Neither of them feel particularly heroic after it
0:40:39 > 0:40:41and that's very, very powerful.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44And, I think, has the luxury of distance from its events
0:40:44 > 0:40:47that you can express these things aloud.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51It's like a Shakespeare Roman play, he can...you can try those ideas out
0:40:51 > 0:40:55because it's not actually the event we're really talking about.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58Absolutely, and, of course, the most obvious 20th-century example
0:40:58 > 0:41:01is MASH, which is ostensibly set in the Korean War, but is
0:41:01 > 0:41:05all about the Vietnam War with which it's very much more contemporary.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09It's interesting how in the '60s the First World War is
0:41:09 > 0:41:11returned to as a subject.
0:41:11 > 0:41:15You know, maybe as a way of dealing with Korea, you know,
0:41:15 > 0:41:17these things are all mushed up together.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20To talk about one war you're talking about another one as well.
0:41:20 > 0:41:25What's so brilliant about this is it raises that idea of shame,
0:41:25 > 0:41:29and also the idea that these experiences are in some way
0:41:29 > 0:41:34fundamentally incomprehensible, and this is maybe why the stories
0:41:34 > 0:41:37keep getting made over and over again, and why the actual
0:41:37 > 0:41:41wars themselves keep happening, because it seems utterly mysterious.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44So, Zulu is really emotionally frank but,
0:41:44 > 0:41:46let's have a look at a film now that I know Matthew loves,
0:41:46 > 0:41:50and hold your horses, but is, for my money, genuinely disturbing.
0:41:50 > 0:41:54The creepiest war film ever made has to be Went The Day Well?
0:41:54 > 0:41:58Made in 1942, it's about a stealthy German invasion of a sleepy
0:41:58 > 0:42:01English village, populated by cheeky schoolboys...
0:42:01 > 0:42:03HE WHISTLES Posh pyjamas!
0:42:03 > 0:42:07..matronly post mistresses and a gun-toting Thora Hird.
0:42:07 > 0:42:08Half a minute now, I'll have a go.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11The drip-drip realisation that the British soldiers
0:42:11 > 0:42:14billeted in the village are actually an invading German force
0:42:14 > 0:42:16in disguise plays out like a horror movie
0:42:16 > 0:42:19with a rising sense of creepy paranoia as the penny slowly drops.
0:42:19 > 0:42:21And what does "wien" mean?
0:42:21 > 0:42:24Schokolade is the German for chocolate.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27And the villagers realise they have to fight back.
0:42:27 > 0:42:29CLAMOUR
0:42:29 > 0:42:31The subsequent retaliation
0:42:31 > 0:42:34and sacrifice involved are harrowing and in the case of this scene where
0:42:34 > 0:42:38Muriel George takes matters into her own hands, extremely violent.
0:42:38 > 0:42:41Is there a World War II film more shocking than this?
0:42:41 > 0:42:44I'll do it. I never had any children meself.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46Mr Collins blamed me for it and I blamed him,
0:42:46 > 0:42:50and then he was taken, so we never found out.
0:42:50 > 0:42:52HE SCREAMS
0:42:54 > 0:42:55HE GROANS
0:43:02 > 0:43:05SHE WHIMPERS
0:43:10 > 0:43:13I think that's one of the most powerful scenes in all cinema.
0:43:13 > 0:43:18I can't watch that without it doing something very strange to me.
0:43:18 > 0:43:20The way that Muriel George plays that scene,
0:43:20 > 0:43:27where we hear in a moment an entire lifetime of...of disappointment...
0:43:28 > 0:43:31..and she reconciles herself to that life
0:43:31 > 0:43:36and makes that decision to murder that man in an instant,
0:43:36 > 0:43:39and what's so powerful about it, I think, is because it reflects
0:43:39 > 0:43:45something that would have happened if this country had been invaded.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49We might have been saved by a resistance made up of
0:43:49 > 0:43:52post mistresses and vicars' daughters.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54These would have been the partisans, you know,
0:43:54 > 0:43:59up in the hills around Bramley End, and when you watch that
0:43:59 > 0:44:03and feel all the things that it stirs in you, then something
0:44:03 > 0:44:07of that is an incredible relief that we just have to watch films about
0:44:07 > 0:44:11it without it stirring any memories of anything that actually happened.
0:44:11 > 0:44:13And this is from the war, right? This is 1942?
0:44:13 > 0:44:16It's after the invasion scare, so there aren't too many people
0:44:16 > 0:44:20who really think that Britain is about to be invaded en-masse but...
0:44:20 > 0:44:22But it's something we're obsessed with, right?
0:44:22 > 0:44:26I think, because we haven't been invaded since 1066, we're obsessed...
0:44:26 > 0:44:27- Ish.- Ish.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30..with the idea of being invaded, right? I mean, we really are.
0:44:30 > 0:44:33If you look at films right up to, I think, 2011,
0:44:33 > 0:44:37maybe, Resistance which is the Welsh war movie, the extremely rare
0:44:37 > 0:44:41sub-group of the British war movie, which is counter-factual history.
0:44:41 > 0:44:44What if the Nazis had invaded and they were in Britain
0:44:44 > 0:44:46and they come to a Welsh village?
0:44:46 > 0:44:50And we're constantly fretting about the idea of it, that's why all those
0:44:50 > 0:44:54John le Carre novels, and indeed adaptations, are so compelling to us because,
0:44:54 > 0:44:59they're amongst us, they might look like us, they're exactly like us. What if they were here?
0:44:59 > 0:45:01And what's interesting about that film is,
0:45:01 > 0:45:05I mean, Churchill used to say quite often, when he was advised,
0:45:05 > 0:45:08in the event of an invasion, would you go to Bermuda or Canada?
0:45:08 > 0:45:10And he said, "Well, no, the royal family should
0:45:10 > 0:45:13"and some people should, but I'm going to stay here,"
0:45:13 > 0:45:15and he said, "Because you can always take one with you."
0:45:15 > 0:45:19- So, even an old granny can take one down with them. - If the old granny has got an axe.
0:45:19 > 0:45:21And having talked about class so much,
0:45:21 > 0:45:24- the squire is the arch traitor in this film.- Yep.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27He's the protagonist who's allowed the Nazis in, so it's...
0:45:27 > 0:45:30And again, the women are heroes, which doesn't happen too often
0:45:30 > 0:45:32but every now and then you get that film where the women properly
0:45:32 > 0:45:34step up and get to do the heroic thing.
0:45:34 > 0:45:38You're right, Natalie, I think women do get short-changed in war movies.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41I think it's fair to say it's a man's world. Let's have a look.
0:45:41 > 0:45:43As an eight-year-old, my favourite thing about war films
0:45:43 > 0:45:46was that they didn't have any silly girls in them.
0:45:46 > 0:45:48They'd creep in occasionally,
0:45:48 > 0:45:51like Cliff Robertson's love interest in 633 Squadron,
0:45:51 > 0:45:55an anachronistically-'60s blonde bombshell, or this undercover
0:45:55 > 0:45:59operative being ogled by a half-cut Richard Burton in Where Eagles Dare.
0:45:59 > 0:46:01She's been one of our top agents in Bavaria
0:46:01 > 0:46:03since 1941 and, er...
0:46:04 > 0:46:06..what a disguise.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09But, mostly, this is men's stories about men for men.
0:46:09 > 0:46:11A few home-front movies made during the war,
0:46:11 > 0:46:15such as 1943's The Gentle Sex, did try to redress the balance
0:46:15 > 0:46:18and at least show that the push to get women into work during the war
0:46:18 > 0:46:22was liberating and even fun, however clumsily it comes across now.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25I know there's a war on, you don't have to tell me there's a war on.
0:46:25 > 0:46:28And it'll take more than a war to stop me combing my hair.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31- I'm sure of that. - But the biggest exception to the rule is 1958's brilliant
0:46:31 > 0:46:34Carve Her Name With Pride, which stars Virginia McKenna
0:46:34 > 0:46:37as an SOE operative whose bravery is self-evident.
0:46:41 > 0:46:45But being a woman in a war movie is usually a pretty thankless task.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48Take Celia Johnson in In Which We Serve, with nothing much to do
0:46:48 > 0:46:51but neck cocktails and clean up after Noel Coward.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53Who'd be a girl in this world?
0:46:53 > 0:46:55However busy you are, and however quickly you've got
0:46:55 > 0:46:58to get your commissioning done, I should like to come on board
0:46:58 > 0:47:00just once before you go to sea, just to give the ship my love.
0:47:00 > 0:47:04You'll have to, whether you like it or not. My cabin's got to be made presentable.
0:47:04 > 0:47:06- Does the chintz look all right? - Absolutely first class.- Good.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09We'd better drink these up quickly and go up to the children.
0:47:09 > 0:47:11Dinner will be ready in a minute.
0:47:12 > 0:47:14Ah, were there ever any people like that?
0:47:14 > 0:47:16I do hope so.
0:47:16 > 0:47:20Yeah, you've got...it makes that whole wine o'clock thing look a bit lightweight now.
0:47:20 > 0:47:22LAUGHTER "Go up to the children."
0:47:22 > 0:47:26"Let's neck the gin before we can go up to the children and then have dinner."
0:47:26 > 0:47:29- "Yes, of course." - Well, we did actually see a film with ass-kicking female lead there,
0:47:29 > 0:47:32Carve Her Name With Pride, really unusual.
0:47:32 > 0:47:35But also somebody who looks like killing someone is painful to her...
0:47:35 > 0:47:37- Yeah.- ..not because she's girlie but because it's nauseating.
0:47:37 > 0:47:42That she's...we can see she's brave. Even when she gets hit she doesn't stop, she stops for, you know,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45long enough to go "Ow!" and then, you know, she's right back there.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47But the actual act of killing somebody as they're running
0:47:47 > 0:47:50towards her, so she can see the consequences of her actions
0:47:50 > 0:47:53right in front of her, it's a really powerful moment.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56But there aren't that many films that put you in the position of
0:47:56 > 0:48:00the combatant quite so powerfully, I think, as Carve Her Name With Pride,
0:48:00 > 0:48:02especially when it's a film with - how shall I put it? -
0:48:02 > 0:48:04a very unhappy ending.
0:48:04 > 0:48:06- Yeah.- And you don't often see blood.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09Normally when somebody gets shot in films of that era, you see...
0:48:09 > 0:48:10there's perhaps a small mark
0:48:10 > 0:48:14- and then they sort of politely collapse almost off screen. - The thing is, though,
0:48:14 > 0:48:16it's not just women that get left out of these war movies.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20There's other stuff - romance, sex, all sorts of other things are taboo.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23In a way, one of the attractions of the genre
0:48:23 > 0:48:25is that it's a kind of sex-free zone.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29In many ways, these are films about relationships between men,
0:48:29 > 0:48:31uncomplicated by women.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35The women are extracted from these stories in order to allow
0:48:35 > 0:48:37other things to happen.
0:48:37 > 0:48:42We don't often sense that there's any kind of, anything
0:48:42 > 0:48:46homoerotic in the air apart from when Angus Lennie is around.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49Angus Lennie who's in 633 Squadron and The Great Escape...
0:48:49 > 0:48:52- Of course.- ..and who later ran the kitchens at Crossroads. Whenever he's there,
0:48:52 > 0:48:55he's always looking adoringly at his commanding officer.
0:48:55 > 0:48:57LAUGHTER
0:48:57 > 0:49:00Is this, though, because war films wouldn't be able to bear
0:49:00 > 0:49:02the weight of this as well,
0:49:02 > 0:49:06that there's one too many things to sort of stuff in one too many
0:49:06 > 0:49:08ingredients, do we think?
0:49:08 > 0:49:11I think perhaps the romance means...element means that we'd
0:49:11 > 0:49:13always end up hedging towards melodrama,
0:49:13 > 0:49:17just that extra notch would probably take it a step slightly further.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20I mean, the truth of the matter is that when it's just women
0:49:20 > 0:49:25being focused on, there's no sex either, that similarly is completely
0:49:25 > 0:49:28airbrushed out of history, and in something like In Which We Serve,
0:49:28 > 0:49:31where there are men and women at the same time, or in Went The Day Well
0:49:31 > 0:49:34when there are men and women at the same time, there's no possibility.
0:49:34 > 0:49:39They even consider when they're billeting, the soldiers who at the time they believe to be
0:49:39 > 0:49:42British in Went The Day Well, and they say, "Oh, no, he can't stay with
0:49:42 > 0:49:45"her cos, you know, that wouldn't be proper," and it's pretty much
0:49:45 > 0:49:49- ruled out as a mission statement at the beginning of the film. - Taboo busting's all very well,
0:49:49 > 0:49:52there are things the British are far more comfortable with -
0:49:52 > 0:49:56football and celebrities, which, unfortunately, leads us here.
0:49:56 > 0:50:00And you get both by the bucket-load in the worst war movie ever,
0:50:00 > 0:50:04John Huston's baffling Escape To Victory from 1981, which tells the
0:50:04 > 0:50:09story of a football game between the Nazis and a bunch of Allied POWs.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14It has the strangest ensemble cast ever assembled -
0:50:14 > 0:50:16Michael Caine, again and at 48,
0:50:16 > 0:50:19playing a man whose West Ham career was supposedly interrupted
0:50:19 > 0:50:25by the war. Sylvester Stallone, Max von Sydow, Bobby Moore and Pele!
0:50:25 > 0:50:29Nothing about this terrible film makes any sort of sense,
0:50:29 > 0:50:31least of all the ridiculously gruesome way
0:50:31 > 0:50:33they rule out the goalie so Stallone can play!
0:50:33 > 0:50:34MAN CRIES OUT
0:50:34 > 0:50:38Why do they have to break his arm? Can't they say he's got a tummy bug?
0:50:38 > 0:50:41Or how about this maddening scene in the tunnel at half-time when they're
0:50:41 > 0:50:45four-one down yet insist on turning back to play the second half!
0:50:45 > 0:50:48Michael Caine appears to be cueing his co-stars by pointing at them.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51- Colby!- If you don't... If you don't come back, we can't go!
0:50:51 > 0:50:54This is the war movie at its lowest ebb.
0:50:54 > 0:50:56How did this ever get off the drawing board?
0:50:56 > 0:50:59We can win! Come on.
0:50:59 > 0:51:03Hatch, if you run now, we lose more than a game.
0:51:03 > 0:51:05Please, Hatch.
0:51:05 > 0:51:06Really? I mean...
0:51:06 > 0:51:09It turns out that if you add football to war you also get
0:51:09 > 0:51:11melodrama, who knew?
0:51:11 > 0:51:13Yeah, and the new Shoot The Rehearsal.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15I mean, it's the most extraordinary film this.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18Oh, you say that, I'm not sure they could do that any better.
0:51:18 > 0:51:20I thinks that's as good as they ever were!
0:51:20 > 0:51:23- LAUGHTER - I don't think they had a second take in them.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27What concept of honour says, "Actually, well, we're four-one down, we're in the escape tunnel,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30"it's more important to go win a football match?"
0:51:30 > 0:51:33- What on earth is... What... I mean, it's nuts! - It is mystifying, isn't it?
0:51:33 > 0:51:37There is a sort of desperation about it, isn't there?
0:51:37 > 0:51:39The cinema is not very healthy
0:51:39 > 0:51:42while this...at the moment that this film is being made.
0:51:42 > 0:51:44Putting a load of football players into it is like, you know,
0:51:44 > 0:51:47it's like Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man
0:51:47 > 0:51:49or Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52It's incongruous things packaged together in order to appeal
0:51:52 > 0:51:55to an audience who might not find themselves in a cinema ordinarily.
0:51:55 > 0:51:59I mean, it's two world wars and one World Cup is also resonating in this film, unfortunately.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01I mean...
0:52:01 > 0:52:03- Yeah, that's the whole pitch, wasn't it?- Yeah.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06The whole pitch was, "Do you know what we could do?
0:52:06 > 0:52:09"Ta-da!" And also...and they went, "Ah! Yeah, no."
0:52:09 > 0:52:11But it's very peculiar as well because,
0:52:11 > 0:52:13it has a good German in it, Max von Sydow as a good German
0:52:13 > 0:52:16who at the end sort of is sympathetic to the...
0:52:16 > 0:52:19- IMITATES VON SYDOW:- "Oh, the crowd are revolting,
0:52:19 > 0:52:20"this isn't so bad", which, in fact,
0:52:20 > 0:52:24probably the Wehrmacht would have machine-gunned the cheering crowd
0:52:24 > 0:52:27back into their seats at least. I mean, it's...it's... Oh!
0:52:27 > 0:52:31We're not really allowed to find out what happened at the end...
0:52:31 > 0:52:33- No.- ..are we? It just sort of ends with a...
0:52:33 > 0:52:35with a... with commotion in the stadium.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38It's the most extraordinary load of rubbish.
0:52:38 > 0:52:41What a shame there was no record, though.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44- If only they'd recorded a song together, like the...- Yeah, yeah.
0:52:44 > 0:52:49- ..like they do for World Cups and things? We could be all listening to that now, couldn't we?- God help us.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52- We could. Let's not, though... - Well, actually, funnily enough,
0:52:52 > 0:52:55speaking of records, erm, I've brought this in.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00Now, I don't know if any of you owned this - I had a copy of this
0:53:00 > 0:53:01when I was a lad.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04Geoff Love And His Orchestra play Big War Movie Themes.
0:53:04 > 0:53:05Geoff Love.
0:53:05 > 0:53:08Geoff Love - Colonel Bogey, Lawrence Of Arabia, Guns of Navarone.
0:53:08 > 0:53:12In fact, I had heard many of these theme tunes long before I ever
0:53:12 > 0:53:15saw the films and I... Many a happy afternoon playing with
0:53:15 > 0:53:19an Action Man with this record on, when I was a little boy, but
0:53:19 > 0:53:23the music is an incredibly important part of how we remember these films.
0:53:23 > 0:53:25MUSIC: "The Dam Busters Theme"
0:53:25 > 0:53:27I think every war film needs a catchy theme tune.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30How else was I going to re-enact them at home or in the playground?
0:53:34 > 0:53:36Go to any football match
0:53:36 > 0:53:39and you'll hear someone singing The Dam Busters theme,
0:53:39 > 0:53:42although it, actually, only turns up three times in the film.
0:53:42 > 0:53:45Much of the action plays out over engine noise.
0:53:45 > 0:53:49633 Squadron, on the other hand, has a brilliant theme tune and knows it.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51The film itself is like the straight-to-video
0:53:51 > 0:53:53version of The Dam Busters -
0:53:53 > 0:53:55the same plot and none of the subtlety.
0:53:55 > 0:54:00Appropriately, you hear this tune 17 times, that's once every six minutes,
0:54:00 > 0:54:03like in this bombastic raid scene that's a million miles
0:54:03 > 0:54:06away from the restraint of The Dam Busters.
0:54:06 > 0:54:08Come on, you're way behind. Come on.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10MUSIC: "633 Squadron Theme"
0:54:14 > 0:54:17But perhaps the most famous war theme of all is The Great Escape,
0:54:17 > 0:54:19another US film
0:54:19 > 0:54:21but co-opted as an honorary British classic through
0:54:21 > 0:54:23endless repeats on the telly.
0:54:23 > 0:54:25MUSIC: "The Great Escape Theme"
0:54:26 > 0:54:29The theme tune's another favourite on the football terraces,
0:54:29 > 0:54:31which always confuses me.
0:54:31 > 0:54:34This film is so much bleaker than the cheerful music implies.
0:54:34 > 0:54:36Even Steve McQueen, the coolest man in Hollywood,
0:54:36 > 0:54:40couldn't escape, as seen in this famous scene.
0:54:40 > 0:54:43Is our memory of these films skewed by the jaunty theme tunes?
0:54:51 > 0:54:53MACHINE-GUN FIRE
0:54:59 > 0:55:01Imagine if The Sound Of Music had ended like that.
0:55:01 > 0:55:03LAUGHTER
0:55:03 > 0:55:04It is great, though, isn't it?
0:55:04 > 0:55:07That he's escaping from... Everybody we've seen in every war film
0:55:07 > 0:55:10has basically been either wearing a uniform or a really
0:55:10 > 0:55:14bedraggled uniform because they're in a POW camp, and he is escaping
0:55:14 > 0:55:18from a POW camp looking a bit like he might be advertising jeans,
0:55:18 > 0:55:21or, you know, any other high brand, he looks unbelievably cool.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26Yeah, he wears, essentially, a sort of GAP chino outfit for the whole movie and rocks it.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30- Yeah, while riding a motorbike. - That's a bleaker story than most people remember it.
0:55:30 > 0:55:32I think people remember the music and forget
0:55:32 > 0:55:34that it's sort of all fun and games right up to the point
0:55:34 > 0:55:36- where it becomes a story about murder...- Yes.
0:55:36 > 0:55:38..where the 50 are recaptured and murdered,
0:55:38 > 0:55:41and you wonder about the people who play this tune at the football,
0:55:41 > 0:55:44whether they really thought, "No-one escapes!"
0:55:44 > 0:55:45Well, four... three or four people do.
0:55:45 > 0:55:47- It's a disaster. - No, it's a total disaster.
0:55:47 > 0:55:51- And there's something extraordinary...- Maybe they do know then, at the football.
0:55:51 > 0:55:55- LAUGHTER - There's something very melancholy about the way that he gets
0:55:55 > 0:55:57- caught up in that barbed wire at the end.- Yes.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59It always makes me think of Peter Rabbit
0:55:59 > 0:56:02caught in the blackcurrant... the blackberry nets in
0:56:02 > 0:56:03Mr McGregor's garden, you know.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06- "The sparrows implored him to exert himself." - It's very un-heroic, isn't it?
0:56:06 > 0:56:09It's very un-heroic to be caught up in barbed wire
0:56:09 > 0:56:11and struggle to escape and not be able to, I agree.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15I have to say, it was a real treat to see these films on a big screen.
0:56:15 > 0:56:18I think I'm like most people and I saw them first on the telly,
0:56:18 > 0:56:21and they were on all the time, weren't they, Matthew?
0:56:21 > 0:56:22They were a huge attraction, weren't they?
0:56:22 > 0:56:25They were very bankable in ratings' terms.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28So, they would always turn up at Boxing Day and Christmas
0:56:28 > 0:56:29and bank holidays.
0:56:29 > 0:56:30Mm. But they're not shown any more.
0:56:30 > 0:56:35- Films aren't shown on television any more, really, are they?- But I worry for the...- Yeah, I do too.
0:56:35 > 0:56:37I worry for the current generation who aren't growing up on,
0:56:37 > 0:56:40you know, whether it's the stiff-upper-lip films
0:56:40 > 0:56:42or Where Eagles Dare, I mean I'm worried...I'm worried about...
0:56:42 > 0:56:44Do you think they won't know how to behave when...?
0:56:44 > 0:56:46- Well, don't YOU worry? - Well, no, I guess not.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50I mean, we've talked about how we think the kind of stiff-upper-lip
0:56:50 > 0:56:53thing is, at least in part, a construct, so when I hear people saying,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56"Oh, well, all the young people auditioning for The X Factor just
0:56:56 > 0:56:59"cry at everything, they've got no idea of a stiff upper lip," I think,
0:56:59 > 0:57:03"Well, maybe we never had as much of a stiff upper lip as we think."
0:57:03 > 0:57:05I think they all need to be made to watch Reach For The Sky.
0:57:05 > 0:57:07- Do you?- I think it's good for...
0:57:07 > 0:57:10Then maybe that could be part of the audition process for future series!
0:57:10 > 0:57:12Well, Douglas Bader's sob story beats anything any X Factor
0:57:12 > 0:57:14- contestant would ever have. - There it is.
0:57:14 > 0:57:18It is a shame that, perhaps, the young are no longer acquainted
0:57:18 > 0:57:20with our history of repression and neurosis
0:57:20 > 0:57:22that made us the people we are.
0:57:22 > 0:57:23Exactly.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26Unfortunately, we're almost out of time and I know we could all
0:57:26 > 0:57:29talk about this for ever but what is your favourite war film?
0:57:29 > 0:57:33- Time to decide.- Has it got to be British? Has it got to be sort of one of these?
0:57:33 > 0:57:35- We're talking British war films here, Dan.- OK!
0:57:35 > 0:57:39- Did you not get the e-mail? - Well, no, we've looked at things like Saving Private Ryan.
0:57:39 > 0:57:41I think I'm probably going to go with...
0:57:41 > 0:57:44probably going to go with A Bridge Too Far, actually. I...
0:57:44 > 0:57:46An excellent choice. Natalie?
0:57:46 > 0:57:49- I call Where Eagles Dare. You can't, you can't buy Richard Burton.- What?!
0:57:49 > 0:57:53- What do you want from me? What do you want from me?- Matthew?
0:57:53 > 0:57:56- Went The Day Well? It's agonising. - It is good, though.
0:57:56 > 0:57:58And it's got Thora Hird shooting people.
0:57:58 > 0:57:59Well, that's a pretty good call.
0:57:59 > 0:58:02I'm going to, I'm afraid, agree with Dan.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05For all its faults, A Bridge Too Far for me
0:58:05 > 0:58:07is the...is the greatest war movie of all time.
0:58:07 > 0:58:10Well, all that remains is for me to say thank you to my guests,
0:58:10 > 0:58:13Dan Snow, Natalie Haynes and Matthew Sweet,
0:58:13 > 0:58:16and for all of you watching at home - tally-ho!
0:58:16 > 0:58:18MUSIC: "633 Squadron Theme"