Here ya go
.
Overview
The film stars
Michael Crawford as bungling
British Army Officer
Lieutenant Earnest Goodbody, with
John Lennon (Musketeer Gripweed),
Jack MacGowran (Musketeer Juniper)
Roy Kinnear (Musketeer Clapper) and
Lee Montague (Sergeant 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 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
Tunisia, but it is all broadly based on the landings in
North Africa in
1942 to the advance on the
Rhine following
Arnhem.
[edit] Principal Character and Plot
The main character, 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 must be the platoon’s repeated attempts or temptations to kill or otherwise rid themselves of their complete liability of a commander. In fact, with dead-weight heavy ironics, while Lieutenant Goodbody’s ineptitude and attempts at derring-do lead to the gradual demise of his entire unit, Goodbody survives, together with one of his charges who finishes the film confined to psychiatric care and the unit’s persistent deserter. In a heavy macabre device, each deceased soldier is replaced by a silent, ghostly figure in complete period uniform whose face is obscured by netting, and whose uniform from head to toe is brightly coloured red / green / orange etc.
[edit] Narrative and Themes
Goodbody narrates the film retrospectively, more or less, while in conversation with his German officer captor, 'Odlebog', at the
Rhine bridgehead in
1945. From their duologue emerges another key source of subversion — the two officers are in fact united in their class attitudes and officer-status contempt for (and ignorance of) their men. While they admit that the question of the massacre of Jews might divide them, they equally admit that it is not of prime concern to either of them. Goodbody’s jingoistic patriotism finally relents when he accepts his German counterpart’s accusation of being, in principle, a
Fascist. They then resolve to settle their disagreements on a commercial basis (Odlebog proposes
selling Goodbody the last intact bridge over the
Rhine), (in the novel this is identified as
Remegen) which could be construed as a satire on unethical business practices and
Capitalism. This sequence also appears in the novel.
Fascism amongst the British is previously mentioned when Gripweed (Lennon's character) is revealed to be a former follower of
Oswald Mosley and the
British Union of Fascists, though
Colonel Grapple (played by
Michael Hordern) sees nothing for Gripweed to be embarrassed about, stressing that "Fascism is something you grow out of".
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