Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

GusF Set entirely in the Passchendaele trenches over the course of less than a day in October 1917, this is a brilliantly made scathing indictment of the British military establishment during the First World War. It has a first rate script by Evan Jones and it benefits from extremely strong direction by Joseph Losey, an American who was blacklisted in the 1950s and spent the rest of his career in the UK. The film was made on a comparatively low budget of £100,000 and shot in a mere 18 days but there is certainly no indication of that on screen. That is the difference between good direction and bad direction. It packs a great deal into its 86 minute running time.The film stars Tom Courtenay as a British Army private named Arthur James Hamp who is accused of desertion after he goes for a long walk during a break in the fighting at Passchendaele. Hamp was a volunteer who signed up in 1914, having been dared to do so by his wife and her mother. He is the last surviving original member of his platoon and, as such, has seen a great deal of death and carnage on the Western Front. It soon becomes clear that, contrary to the claims of the borderline negligent medical officer Captain O'Sullivan, he is suffering from severe shell shock. Courtenay gives a wonderful, understated performance as Hamp. For much of the film, he exhibits the characteristic thousand yard stare and often seems to be not entirely aware of his surroundings. This is well illustrated by the fact that he thought that he was walking home to London. He later mentions that he had to remind himself that they were talking about him and not someone else at his court martial. My great-grandfather was a medic on the Western Front for almost the entire war and saw many people with horrific injuries. He suffered from what would now be called Post-traumatic Stress Disorder for the rest of his life, which is unfortunately a very common story.Although Hamp's behaviour sets the events of the plot in motion, the film's protagonist is Captain Charles Hargreaves, the officer who is given the unenviable responsibility of defending him at his court martial. He played in another brilliant performance by a perfectly cast Dirk Bogarde. Hargreaves initially comes across as a stereotypical British officer of the era. When he first meets Hamp, he is impatient and unsympathetic towards him. This is partly because he does not believe that he is very intelligent and partly because he thinks that he should have done his duty. During the court martial, there is initially a sense that he is merely doing his duty in defending him but he becomes genuinely sympathetic towards him as the film progresses. He is extremely upset when he learns that Hamp is to be shot and becomes contemptuous of the military establishment. Hargreaves is really the closest thing that Hamp has to a friend at the end of his life.The rest of the film's entirely male cast is very strong, particularly Leo McKern as Captain O'Sullivan, Barry Foster as Hamp's sympathetic commanding officer Lt. Jack Webb, Peter Copley as the presiding colonel at the court martial, James Villiers as the prosecutor Captain Midgley, Barry Justice as the legal adviser Lt. Prescott and Jeremy Spenser as Private Sparrow. After the court martial, Midgley and Prescott are revealed to be personally sympathetic towards Hamp but they performed the duties with which they were entrusted to the best of their abilities. On the other hand, the colonel is far more antagonistic towards him and finds no reason to disagree with the decision to execute Hamp, which was made by his superiors in order not to reduce morale in the troops as a big push is due with several days.There is also a subplot concerning the daily life of soldiers when they were not fighting. In fact, there is no fighting in the film whatsoever but the sound of artillery in the background can be heard for much of the film. The film does not pull any punches in depicting the mud-soaked, rat-infested trenches and the soldiers' efforts to make their lives bearable by making jokes and playing games. At one point, they hold a mock trial for a rat, which nicely parallels Hamp's only slightly more credible court martial. Losey made an excellent decision when it came to the use of numerous photographs, provided of the Imperial War Museum, of actual trenches, including the corpses of soldiers and a dead horse. The most effective use of a photograph is when Hamp uses the phrase "king and country" and one flashes up of King George V and his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II together before the war.Overall, this is an excellent film which completely excoriates British military justice of the period. There's an old saying, "Military justice is to justice what military music is to be music," and we certainly get a good indication of that here.

Tom Dooley Tom Courtenay plays Private Hamp, he is the lone survivor of his battalion having volunteered in 1914 – some three years prior, the rest whittled away by the arbitrary wantonness of war. He has been accused of desertion and is facing a court martial. Under martial law he is allocated an officer to represent him – this falls to Captain Hargreaves (Dirk Bogarde). What follows is the trial set amidst the rain and mud just behind the allied front line.Courtenay plays the gullible soldier to a tee, he is basically an innocent lad who is probably suffering from PTSD or shell shock as it was sometimes referred to back then. Bogarde who was always exceptional plays the officer class perfectly with palpable changes in his attitude as the case unfolds. There is also a magnificently pompous portrayal of a disinterested Medical Officer from Leo McKern who steals the scene.This was made in 1964 and was done for a shoe string budget – that apparently it never made back and that was despite winning awards and being critically acclaimed. However, recent renewed interests might just get this hidden treasure of British cinema some of the wider recognition it so richly deserves – massively recommended

sijoe22 .....My cable company gave this three and one half (out of four) stars, and I don't know why.Sort of a poor man's Paths of Glory or Caine Mutiny with none, and I mean NONE of the charm or depth.Movie didn't change much, from the first few minutes to almost the end.Didn't learn a great deal about WWI, either.Yeah, yeah, we get it, soldier leaves post due to either shell shock or cowardice and is put on trial, facing a possible death sentence. Boy, how many movies have had THIS plot before? Yawn.I thought the only thing that could rescue this crappy film was a surprise or happy ending, but I got neither.

MARIO GAUCI Losey's sole war film is a fine effort but, along the years, it seems to have been overlooked in write-ups on the director's work; sharing its taut court-martial scenario with Stanley Kubrick's undeniably superior PATHS OF GLORY (1957), its gritty look at British Army life was also the subject of Sidney Lumet's more highly-rated THE HILL (1965; interestingly enough, both films were made by American directors!).That said, Losey's film boasts a top British cast (Dirk Bogarde, Tom Courtenay, Leo McKern, Barry Foster, James Villiers and Peter Copley) and the music is provided by harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler; also notable is Denys Coop's probing camera-work - though, for a dialogue-driven film, the muddled soundtrack proves a distinct liability! Still, its thought-provoking script deals with matters such as how one can properly discern between cowardice and shell-shock on the battlefield (the interrogation by Bogarde, as Courtenay's defence counsel, of pompous doctor McKern is perhaps the film's highlight), and also questions the reasoning behind the fact that, sometimes, a man must be sacrificed for the good of the battalion's morale.In the end, though, the film suffers from a rather slow pace - particularly when focusing on the mostly irrelevant camaraderie among Courtenay's fellow soldiers, which often resorts to gratuitous cruelty towards animals!