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different order. ... Apart from the central weakness, the film has a convincing period shabbiness and sleaziness which are endearing when they're not overstated. ... The blowing up of Gunner Bliss – dubbed "Heavenly" with ironic foresight – is milked for throwaway horror and pathos. ...Tin-hatted silhouettes of anxious men, Jennings-like, contemplate a livid sky. As the bombs fall on London, one gunner remarks, 'I feel so bloody helpless'; to which comes the bitter retort, "Don't worry, mate, those civilians'll fight your war for you": no prizes for guessing that one of them loses his entire family in the bombing that night. There is also a kind of disused quarry which keeps cropping up on manoeuvres and cross-country runs, and which is heavily underlined as a symbolic prefiguring of the battlefield. Apart from these lapses of tone,
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wrote: "It was a grave error to cast Spike
Milligan as his own father in a screen version of his autobiographical novel of wartime experiences. His two brief appearances throw the rest of the film out of balance like an anarchist's bomb ... Jim Dale makes a brave stab, but his funniness is of a
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Although it broadly follows
Milligan's book, some scenes were created specifically for the film and all of the character names (apart from the Milligan family) are fictional.
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is a decent, anti-war, pro-life film, enriched by the comic gifts of Bill
Maynard and Windsor Davies, though with Arthur Lowe's role as a professional
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469:"Film | Most Promising Newcomer To Leading Film Roles in 1974"
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BAFTA Award for Most
Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles
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of
Milligan's autobiography. Dale was nominated for the 1974
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This article related to a
British film of the 1970s is a
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Gregory
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265:. It was adapted by Milligan, Cohen and
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536:then-and-now location photographs at
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726:1970s British film stubs
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696:Works by Spike Milligan
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409:sadly underwritten."
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403:Adolf Hitler . . .
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251:Norman Cohen
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190:Release date
91:Bill Maynard
72:Norman Cohen
63:Norman Cohen
59:Johnny Byrne
45:Norman Cohen
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538:ReelStreets
315:Arthur Lowe
259:Arthur Lowe
247:comedy film
218:102 minutes
132:Terry Maher
87:Arthur Lowe
69:Produced by
41:Directed by
666:1973 films
660:Categories
413:References
363:Pat Coombs
339:Jim Norton
327:Tony Selby
164:Production
140:Tony Lenny
123:Jim Norton
111:Pat Coombs
95:Tony Selby
74:Greg Smith
51:Written by
478:20 August
436:20 August
391:Reception
269:from the
137:Edited by
457:AllMovie
369:Bob Todd
347:as Wally
341:as Pongo
335:as Larry
306:Jim Dale
255:Jim Dale
231:Language
153:Ed Welch
145:Music by
119:Bob Todd
83:Jim Dale
79:Starring
329:as Bill
281:Outline
234:English
223:Country
201:1973-01
199: (
166:company
615:is a
473:BAFTA
617:stub
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527:IMDb
480:2024
438:2024
300:Cast
261:and
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