You won't be disappointed!

Sorry, this movie sucks

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The (few) negative reviewers here seem to have suffered from something of a 'But what's it for?' syndrome. It's understandable - the concept of this film is deeply odd.But for those who get over trying to puzzle out the rationale and concentrate on the result, it's a very enjoyable one. What this film IS, is what counts: WW2 newsreel footage is interesting to watch. So are clips from war movies. Good covers of Beatles songs by competent artists are interesting to listen to. But none of these, by itself, would be likely to sustain a viewer's attention for 88 minutes. So they stuck 'em all together, edited it to add a little continuity and connection between timeline, subject matter and lyrics, and made this film.For the majority, it seems to work strangely well. If any element flags, the others carry you along, and the gestalt somehow manages to be didactic, amusing and entertaining by turns.I first saw this in Cinerama back in the '70s, in a state of non-ordinary reality. It blew me away. I ran around for a few days assembling a group of like-minded friends, and we all got lightly toasted and went to see it the next week. Some clot in the projection booth screwed up most of the sound system, leaving what appeared to be an effects channel, a rear speaker producing newsreel mono, and only leakage music. The result was terrible. My chums were looking at me quizzically and equating my taste in entertainment with a haemorrhoid.Happily, the projection-room clot woke up sometime around the Battle of Midway and Elton's 'Lucy in the Sky', and the rest of the film played with all six channels as intended. My reputation was saved, but I still wanted to see the whole thing again, properly. Alas, the film was off by the next week. I'd love to see it again.But the experience has made me nervous about buying this film from specialist DVD sellers, in case the sound has been mixed or cut down. This film is an AUDIO-visual experience, and without the multi-channel sound it's a lesser thing. I know. I was that haemorrhoid.CD

It's a fantastic film. I had the chance of listening to the music, first and the I went o see the movie and both experiences were great, something that I'd really like to repeat sometime again. I strongly recommend it. The atmosphere created by the director and the songs are really well matched with the II World War scenario. May be I got stuck on the music, because the performers are really great, just to name a few: Rod Stewart, Leo Sayer, Jeff Lynne, Elton John, Ambrosia, The Bee Gees, Keith Moon, Richard Cocciante, and the London Symphony Orchestra, it's really great! Maybe now the film is available on DVD, is it? And I'd be very pleased if you could tell me: Where can I get the soundtrack on CD? Sincerely, Álvaro

I first saw this film on British TV (shown in the middle of the night during a TV based 24 hour fund raising event). Worried I might fall asleep before the film, I recorded it.It remains one of my prized possessions.The film's message (and final song) is 'Give peace a chance'. It is a remarkable collage of film clips (from movies and documentaries and actual war footage) and music. The film is an entertaining presentation of history, showing many aspects of the second world war.Particularly interesting for historians of WWII and/or Beatles music.Over the Christmas 1992/93 I saw a similar film on Dutch TV using classical music and footage of the Balkan conflict (the Serbia vs Croatia one, for those who have lost count), showing the carnage of the war. Since then we've had Bosnia. Now it's Kosovo.Perhaps it is time to re-release this film for a new generation.Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

This is an excellent movie of its type. Extremely under-rated and panned by all the critics when released in 1976. I would love to see this movie given a general release on Video Tape and Videodisc.