Overlord (1975)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Second World War (1939-1945) has been the subject of many films that recount the beginning, the offensives, the European movements of resistance, their survival; stories of troops, battles and personalities; the prisons, intimate dramas the madness, the Jewish experience, the memories and the perceptions of the conflagration and the post-war years. England was one of the most devastated nations and the conflict generated a varied production, from the State financed propaganda to classics as "In Which We Serve" and "49th Parallel". But the farthest the products were from the real events, the more false they got, the more they have been loaded with special effects, without a real feeling of what happened between 1939 and 1945. "Overlord" (codename for the 1944 disembarkation of troops in Normandy) supplies that time distance from the real events with a brilliantly executed idea. The film depicts the training of a young British recruit who will die even before the landing starts: his premonition is exposed from the first minutes. We know that he is going to die in the end, so his preparation, reflections, relationship with other recruits, fleeting romance and movements with the troops, are loaded with melancholy and naivety, to which Brian Stirner's face immensely helps, as he portrays the central role Tom Beddows. Tom is not afraid at all. He is just there because he was recruited, he is going to fight because "he has to" or perhaps he senses that his destiny is in the hands of powerful men who stage wars when numbers do not add up. Therefore, the screenplay by Christopher Hudson and Stuart Cooper (also director, an American filmmaker) contrasts Tom's moments of apparent calm, with footage from the war itself. I confess that I have rarely seen documentary material from different sources so admirably edited into a drama as in "Overlord", and I think the key was the selection of images. Taken from the British Imperial War Museum and a film archive in Germany, the authentic footage of Second World War is impressive. Only once we see human remains, because they prioritized the images of aerial attacks, train and cities under fire, building in flames with firemen all around, advancing troops, cannons, machine guns, ambulances, ships that are sunk (in a moment, Adolf Hitler impassively contemplates the panorama, from a wide airplane window...), all aptly overdubbed. No contemporary visual effects can compare to these sounds and images shot at the time they were happening. And the most remarkable job done is the integration of these shots with the scenes of Tom's recruitment, sometimes calm, other hectic. It is the contrast and the context, what Tom is ultimately going to face. "Overlord" won the Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, but not even the UK recognized its value when it came to handing out its Bafta awards. Hollywood, for its part, had had too good a production in 1975 to award an Oscar to a British film. However, time is the best judge and in 2007 and 2014, digital editions were issued.

There were millions of unknown soldiers in WW2 … some heroic … some cowardly … and some downright stupid. Their stories are compelling … plucked from youth and loved ones … sent to faraway places … dealt an unremarkable death … insignificant in the maelstrom. This is the premise of Overlord. It is a good premise for a film, but that alone cannot save this film from the ash heap.Overlord has a huge problem … the simplicity of its plot. The film is about 83 minutes long … of which about half is stock war footage. Seriously, it seemed like they started with the stock and wrote a story around it … which led to a very simple plot. Character development is woefully missing in this film. Furthermore there are parts of the film that do nothing to drive the plot forward and leave you wondering what the heck is this about (note the scene with the French money … talk about a waste of 5 minutes).Overlord is a surreal, meandering, simplistic and often times pointless look at the preparation for the D Day invasion. It specifically focuses on one individual soldier's experience and his sense of futility and doom. It is maudlin … has very little historical context … and uses way too much stock. Finally, it suffers from a downright stupid ending.In honor of those who fought I begrudgingly give this film a 5 but it deserves a 3!

His name is Tom.. He could have been anyone. My father's story closely followed the general storyline of Tom, called up into the Army and who's first experience of conflict was the D-day landings on sword beach. While he told of his experiences. Much of the soldierly life was missing. This is where the film scores as it shows Tom's slow inexorable progress from civy street to training and preparation, mental as well as physical, for WAR, not in a wild action movie style but from the perspective of a quiet ordinary lad called up and sent to fight. Thankfully it does not ponder the rights and wrongs of war, after all, that was not a luxury a lad like Tom could afford. This is where the stock footage plays a major part in the movie as it presents a back drop to what Tom is being asked to face. Tom is a scared teenager who has a real sense that this day could very well be his last.

This review contains a potential spoiler.In honor of Ken Burns' The War I pulled out the recent DVD release of Stuart Cooper's Overlord to see things from the English perspective Overlord concerns a soldier named Tom from the point at which he leaves home to report for military service to the landing on D-Day. We follow as Tom trains, makes friends and generally waits for his part of the war to start. Shot in black and white to match a great deal of inserted footage from the time this is a soldier's life during wartime English style.Re-released in the US a year or so ago I remember the reviews being nearly perfect and I looked forward to getting the chance to see this "lost classic". Finally watching the film I'm left wondering what all the shouting has been about. Don't get me wrong, its a good film, its just the great one that some pundits, like Roger Ebert seemed to make it out to be.Essentially a film about waiting this film is merely a slice of life for the English soldier on the eve of the great invasion. We watch as Tom and his men are shunted around, we see their training, we see footage of the war from the air, and we watch as the men just wait around. There is more to it than that but for me its an 80 minute march to a foregone conclusion. It great to look at with some stunning sequences of old footage (flights over the countryside and air combat) that looked great on the 42 inch TV in the living room, but the film really didn't have much beyond that. Tom the central character and emotional center is too melancholy and morbid (he's certain he's going to die) that the film seems more incredibly sad if not incredibly distant. Why would any one want to be around him when he seems mostly to sulk and brood, even when he's falling in love with a girl he meets at a dance. The film looks stunning and on a technical level its a masterpiece of combining old with new footage.Clearly we are there, but with a central character such as the maudlin Tom Beddoe its not really a place we want to be no matter how good it looks.A disappointment (its good but not great) thats worth a look.