I'll Make A Man Of You From Oh! What A Lovely War

One of the most distasteful aspects of recruiting in the First World War portrayed so well in Oh! What A Lovely War by Maggie Smith. The lyrics to this song are available at ww1photos.com/...

[@stormydragon2668]

At 4:09 when he sees her up close, suddenly she not nearly as attractive as she was from far away. Beautifully subtle visual metaphor.

[@eagletanker]

The whole song and dialogue at the end is one big metaphor. Not really a hidden one, but a great one of the allure of the propaganda and promise that the war would be an adventure. A quick one at that.

[@iansmart8999]

not a lady either

[@MrDaiseymay]

Well theres plenty to choose from. SEX has always been an allure and Actresses, especially SHOW GIRLS in this era, were looked down on as Prostitutes. The wonderful close-up of Maggie Smith's 'well worn face' was an excellent but shocking intro to reallity ,for the young recruit. After taking the KIngs Shilling, the RSM quickly introduced them to their future.

[@Mrz-sb1hw]

Glad l wasn't there.

[@LarryWater]

She doesn’t look that different.

[@marktaha2701]

I suspect that taking advantage of Miss Smith's offer would leave one with something painful, embarrassing and not regarded as a war wound.

[@luked2767]

My great-grandfather doesn't need this he was 15 and volunteered, said he was 18 but said he would only join if they gave him a Lewis gun and he was a part of the machine gun boys. Lost his leg and most of his mates in the Somme from Herman artillery about a year later. Took a metric crap tonne of morphine and dextroamphetamine IM injections prescribed for the rest of his life, would drink brandy or rum, quite alot every night and he was outraged when chloral hydrate was no longer in use in the UK but he swapped to valium. As soon as he got home after he recoveredbhebgot a wooden leg and would ride his brough superior over the nation while being high and drunk, could still run and play football. Chain-smoked unfiltered cigarettes and died at nearly 100, mean bastard and he only seemed to like me, died when I was a young child with a needle in his arm. Not sure if it was morphine or diamorphine (heroin) as in the UK it's often given instead of morphine due to it having less side effects, I think Canada and Switzerland are the only other nations where it's used in hospitals and such. He got a taste for laudanum, morphine and amphetamine pills (purple hearts) during the war. Miracle he survived without anti-biotics. No way I would get mowed down my a hail of 8mm Mauser for a shilling and a kiss.

[@Alex462047]

Like lambs to the slaughter.

[@t.wilson9432]

This film was made the same year as the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for which Maggie Smith won the Oscar as best actress. 💖

[@nickoff-skiing5590]

We performed the play of this when I was 10 years old, I was that guy with the spotted bow tie. It still makes me cry when I think about the first world war. We watched the movie first to get an idea of what we were performing.

[@MrDaiseymay]

Ten years old ? THAT , I'd love to have seen

[@joondaniellee996]

ten year olds performing about a promise of sex if they enlist in the army? wow

[@johnwilletts3984]

Since retiring I’ve been volunteering with the York and Lancs Reg. museum. What I’ve learned has put a totally different angle on the motivations for joining up. The story of my Grandfather James Duke was typical. James was a territorial and so member of the 5th Battalion York and Lancs. In 1915 he and his Battalion were sent to France. There he was awarded the Military Medal and served through to demobilisation in 1919. He married his girlfriend and started a family. Then he rejoined his territorial battalion! I now know that he was not the only one, many others did the same. Seems hard to believe, given all that we are told about WW1. But many young men actually liked the army life

[@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin]

It's kind of the only life you can put up with, once you've been through that.

[@HO-bndk]

The film this song is taken from is a distortion. It doesn't reflect the reality of events or of how the men at the time of the war thought and felt (at all).

[@xr6lad]

@@HO-bndkno. They were gullible and mailable back then. Let’s face it the U.K. was hardly under threat of invasion. It was the upper class egos that had been bruised that drove a war.

[@renishaw6339]

This was the first scene they filmed when making Oh What A Lovely War. Love it!

[@douglasstocks9698]

The Leith Battalion of the Royal Scots. Whilst heading to Gallipoli were involved in the Gretna Green train disaster. At the roll call after the disaster only 58 and 7 officers presented. 215 were killed. The survivors were taken by train to Liverpool but on arrival were medically examined all failed except for one officer

[@james9311]

Quintinshill sidings, worked nightshift there on the railway, very eerie

[@douglasstocks9698]

@@james9311 can imagine

[@Igrozavisimy]

Maggie Smith long time before Harry Potter. :)

[@davidparris7167]

Harry Potter is but a foot note in her illustrious career.

[@quentinquogamoddy1999]

​@@davidparris7167Oh, how true. 👏 A round of applause for Maggie.

[@suzannesadiiqa]

Wonderful performance, perfect diction and a great film.

[@ladymcgonagall]

Dumbledore be like: MCGONAGALL WHAT THE HELL

[@raphuscucullatus7845]

I didn't know Minerva was a hall singer during the war.

[@Mwraf]

Students: *Visible Confusion*

[@kickboxingbanana5888]

The things you do to pay off you're student loans

[@marellamae6632]

Never realised this was Maggie smith

[@AndrewMottershead]

Played Douglas H in this at the green room theatre in Manchester back in '92... Happy days.

[@nigellee9824]

It's hard to recognise just how beautiful Maggie Smith was....

[@philippayne4951]

When I was young, I saw parts of this film, and thought what is this load of old rubbish. Being almost 70 now, I now know that this was a lot of the old 1st world war songs, which our solders used to sing. I have always loved the 1st world war songs, and is a great shame that their is no choir who sings them, like the old solders used too. When the Australian solders got some of these songs in the 1st war, they changed some of the words to suit their country, which was funny and great. Mademoiselle from armertige being one of them. A great film, only for the older people who understand the meaning of the film.

[@MrDaiseymay]

Well said, ALL the regiments put their own words to the songs of the day, most included four letter words too. Only one such word is heard in this great film. The scene on the Pier, when two drunks , ( old guy and Very Young one ) holding each other up as they danced and sang about ''living on the earnings of a high -born -Lady--------''I don't want Me Bollocks shot away''.

[@joshuaplotkin8826]

I saw this when I was a teenager. My father had always encouraged me to study history, particularly the world wars. So I understood it.

[@Ben_not_10]

Good gravy the Dowager Dutchess certainly changed

[@kllk12ful]

Countess not Duchess

[@SteveRose-iq1cs]

Maggie Smith was amazing in this great movie

[@edwardnigma2638]

The time of temptation will always lead towards the end

[@christophermacintyre5890]

Anyone got anything better to do than marching up and down the square?

[@YEPSEYMOUR]

Jane Seymour minute 2:39 :)

[@trumanway3763]

Man this is way better than a single officer visiting you’re high school and you got fill to out tons of paperwork and if you’re under 18 you gotta get your parents on board.

[@stevetaylor8698]

Yep, I don't think the recruiting sergeants were too worried about men having criminal records either.

[@LaDivinaLover]

Um no, these were ignorant lambs literally being led to the slaughter. Nothing about this was “way better”, in any aspect. Military service is serious at the best of times and war is not an adventure or matinee performance. If paperwork causes you unhappiness you best stay home. God knows how you’d react to a human being exploding mere feet away from you. You sound like an unprepared student who has no clue they’re about to sign away their life and freedom of decision making.

[@HueyPPLong]

@@LaDivinaLover Yeah but we need the naive ones to sign up. Most of the ones who are smart enough to know what’s it’s really about are usually smart enough to stay away. The ones who go will get it soon enough lol

[@MrDaiseymay]

@@stevetaylor8698 ---or anything else either

[@rstein926]

Even though a lot of men were eager to fight when Britain declared war on Germany in 1914 most of them were brainwashed into joining the army. Propaganda recruitment posters persuaded men to do the decent thing and fight. In those days the men who went to fight did not know what a war was really like. For example many thought it was going to be fun going out and fighting not realising how serious war was and what life was really going to be like. By 1915 most of the soldiers began to discover what they got themselves into.

[@jakehughes5933]

If you ever watch any WW1 infantry documentaries the soldiers in the trenches said they didnt regret

[@jakehughes5933]

@Dark Light Agreed Comrade, Glory to the dead heroes

[@matthewnaylor9735]

@@jakehughes5933 nothing glorious about war

[@jakehughes5933]

@@matthewnaylor9735 No, but they didn't regret it and what I meant Glory to the Dead is Eternal respect for their Sacrifice

[@iandenyer2372]

These days we call it "Radicalisation"....

[@emmanordstrom2406]

I didint know maggie could sing! giiirrrllll

[@quentinquogamoddy1999]

Now THAT would have made the Harry Potter series even more interesting!

[@andyscot4844]

i saw lots off programs about the horrendous first world war over the years for example how some men just drowned in their own sewage plus mud . whole villages for example up in scotland lost their entire male population and my own grandmothers relatives were all mainly spinster aunts no men to marry the whole generation back then off men to marry being wiped out . the first war wasn't glorious it was terrible tragic horrible and a total waste off life . the poppies originally were to remember the dead i cant remember them being used as propaganda unlike today . i am not sure the uk has learned its lesson and seems to be going back to the delusions off the past as with leaders like tony Blair .

[@Eisen_Jaeger]

and now all I can think of is Dame Maggie as Mother Superior in Sister Act

[@gwasgray9309]

Maggie sings the same way she talks.

[@trumanway3763]

Elegantly

[@simongee8928]

Check her mouth movements with the lyrics, she isn't singing - !

[@gwasgray9309]

@@simongee8928 It's probably dubbed over but I reckon that's still her voice.

[@LaDivinaLover]

This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Don’t get me wrong Maggie Smith is great as usual and the fault is not hers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything from her that was less that fantastic, but the fact that this happened. The downright revolting way the governments shamed and pressured naive men and boys into service. And these things still happen. Once they duped the young men with tales of a good time and of adventure they rewarded them with some of the most gruesome fights to the death in world history. It’s just, well, disgusting. The absolute definition of war-time propaganda. It’s obscene. That said this is the point made by the film so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@lovaszaron3138]

This is a distillation of World War 1 with the tunes of World War 1. The entire film is so. The men in 1914 had the idea that war is a glorious, amazing thing, where you man the machine gun and in three months, you squash the enemy. Turns out the other side thought the same. By 1915, people were done, but the facade existed. By 1916, pacifist revolts broke out and were squandered. By 1917, those whom lived the war were done. They seen all. By 1918, war was glorious in the posters and reels, but people seen the horror and it was a coating. Then some forgot the lesson in a year and in 1919, many demanded a new war - especially ones who never seen war. Sic transit gloria mundi.

[@BethDiane]

Don't forget that this was made in 1969, at the height of the anti-war fervor in the face of the Vietnam War. If you're horrified by this, that's precisely the point. The whole thing is deliberately sarcastic. Why else would they change the last line of "Over There" from "And we won't come home till it's over over there" to "And we won't come home, we'll be buried over there" when that song comes up in the movie?

[@quentinquogamoddy1999]

​@@lovaszaron3138Yup, and by 1917 when y'all were done, Woody Wilson got "the fever" of glory and got the USA into the war and my 27 year old grandpa signed up. Fortunately he came home at war's end. Otherwise I wouldn't be here.

[@HO-bndk]

This film is total garbage. Read the real history (qua read, Don't watch amateurish online videos).

[@MrNewtonian]

She was taken by a Tar. 9

[@jettgibbs338]

Maggie at her best

[@tarytarer8281]

Professor !!!

[@noyoutakethatback]

Maggie looks very attractive here

[@madjack7443]

4:05 its the same guy whose corporal in 'they were only playing leapfrog'

[@gregsalcedo4857]

If Professor Higgins was a woman Maggie Smith will surely get that role.

[@peterschorn1]

The faculty at Hogwarts noticed, but seldom discussed, certain _lacunae_ in Professor McGonagall's CV.

[@trumanway3763]

Sing that when you face battle at hog warts.

[@rolfagten857]

Good ww1 movie, simply told and entertaining.

[@stuartpeacock8257]

Poor buggers

[@rabele123]

Is that Downton Abbey behind her?

[@margin606]

+rabele123 At that point, Downton Abbey is in front of her.

[@karenpenrod1779]

Iam such a lucky girl Whose family showed her how to appreciate the true talents of British, Irish, Scottish writers artists, singers .... "We'll meet again"

[@thomaswilkinson3241]

Well, she didn't become a well known actress overnight.

[@cassylow9418]

Professor McGonagall's previous career that didn't quite work out.....:P

[@Loyalist231]

I'll do, I'll take kings pay. I volunteer for service in the kings army.

[@zefkosta]

I can't imagine this scene nowadays. Or can I?

[@adriennebyrne8237]

I can. They're doing it the V

[@kte1126]

Can anyone tell me who the man who Is pushing 40 is?

[@xxgalaxyleonxx4878]

Idk

[@kte1126]

@@xxgalaxyleonxx4878 well erm thanks?

[@xxgalaxyleonxx4878]

Your welcome

[@mrme247]

Kaiser William and Franz Josef disliked this video

[@user-vm6ru9kn8q]

Kaiser

[@mrme247]

@@user-vm6ru9kn8q can't believe I didn't notice that 🤦‍♂️

[@oshitwaddupitsatrashcan4811]

LETS GET DOWN TO BUSINESS-

[@kylefrei1713]

TO DEFEAT, THE HUN

[@jonathanpinckney9227]

Quite a voice she has.

[@class87srule]

Harry Potter was trivial compared with the rest of her career.

[@harrys4thnip549]

Anyone watching this cuz of quarantine school work lmao

[@pauldockree9915]

Dame Maggie!

[@Mwraf]

I beat the Hogwarts Students felt kinda cringed about this scene...

[@pauldockree9915]

David Lodge!

[@RomanesEuntDomus]

Frankly, the 14 people who downvoted this wouldn't know their arse from their elbow.

[@Adelei42069]

Huh, I see they changed the lyrics a bit from the Mulan version. /jk

[@user-bl1ig3or2g]

ダウントンアビーの大母様だ！

[@ryanb6047]

One of the great ironies of the modern nations in the West is they developed standing militaries so men for the most part don't have to worry about being drafted if they don't want to, but that also had the effect of completely empowering their own government against themselves. The consequences have been increasingly powerful centralized politicians that are becoming more and more autocratic because they have no worries of popular uprisings. Look at the US for example; the Capitol Building is supposed to be owned by the people and yet Washington politicians have built a wall around it and armed thousands of state troops to guard it. This was done because of a single protest where no weapons were used. People are locked up in solitary confinement for "trespassing." What does this tell the American public?

[@michellearmstrong7903]

This was a trump mob acting like fascists,they did not like the result of the election so they attacked the Capitol at the instigation of their further ,the German trump

[@kevinsteele8902]

Weapons were, in fact, used by the so called mob. A weapon doesn't have to necessarily be a gun but anything that projects violence. The "peaceful protest" pushed their way through a Capital building and attacked law enforcement officers using tire irons, fire extinguishers, anything they could grab their hands on. They also desecrated the building and caused thousands of dollars on damages - including smearing feces on the walls. Is that what peaceful protest is?

[@BillLaBrie]

US is a banana republic.

[@PickleIsMyDoggo]

3:45

[@laflamewannabe]

who came from school hw in quarantine

[@JPJ740]

brilliant thesbian, indeed ...

[@howardsix9708]

MY MATE LIKES WOMEN WITH HAIRY LEGS..............

[@adriennebyrne8237]

Propaganda just like go take the v today

[@PickleIsMyDoggo]

3:39