Sword of Honour
by Bill Anderson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Christopher Benjamin, Jane Bertish, Nick Bartlett, Peter Blythe, Will AdamsdaleDirector: Bill Anderson
Brand: Acorn
Cinematographer: Daf Hobson
Producer: Gillian McNeill
Producer: John Chapman
Producer: Peter Fincham
Producer: Ronaldo Vasconcellos
Writer: Evelyn Waugh
Writer: William Boyd
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 193 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-10-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Acorn Media
Movie Reviews of Sword of Honour
Movie Review: And Yet It Moves
Summary: 4 Stars
"Sword of Honour,"is a British television serial, a World War II costume historical drama that was a 2001 TalkBack production for Britain's adventurous BBC Channel 4. The DVD box set runs approximately 193 minutes, and includes an Evelyn Waugh biography. Also unadvertised subtitles; bless you, Acorn Media, as the series is a potpourri of the flavorful accents of its time and places. You just have to ask your TV set for subtitles, and they will pop up magically.
The series stars Daniel Craig, before he became the sixth actor to portray that dashing undercover agent, Bond, James Bond. It's based on the wartime trilogy of novels that goes by the same name, (which consists of Men at Arms (1952);Officers and Gentlemen (1955); and Unconditional Surrender: The Conclusion of Men at Arms and Officers and Gentlemen (1961)); by the noted British satirical/comic author Evelyn Waugh. A cursory reading of any biographical material on the well-known, best-selling Waugh (Brideshead Revisited), serves to illustrate that it closely follows the author's own World War II experiences.
Craig (Quantum of Solace,Defiance), plays 35-year old, wealthy Englishman Guy Crouchback, who comes back from Italy to England at the beginning of the war, determined to get in on it, though he is too old for most wartime purposes. As a good Catholic, one among the heavily-populated gallery of such that Waugh created, Crouchback seeks moral redemption in a "good war" after a nasty divorce that echoes Waugh's own first. But Crouchback won't find his good war: from first to last, his war is populated by alcoholics, cheats, cowards and crazy men, again, apparently, closely mirroring Waugh's actual wartime experience. Megan Dodds (Love in a Cold Climate) plays Crouchback's tempting ex-wife Virginia, who comes back into his life, first taunting him for his religious rigidity, then relying upon it. A highly distinguished cast of supporting actors is headed by Richard Coyle (Coupling - The Complete Seasons 1-4); and Leslie Phillips (Love on a Branch Line.) The acting is uniformly excellent, and Craig is outstanding. The story moves reasonably fast, and is full of incidents, and interesting characters.
The producers have certainly filmed Waugh's downbeat story with an open hand. In addition to its notable cast, there's lots of location shooting, in the various uncomfortable places that war can take you. Lots of what certainly appear to me to be accurate for the period vehicles, clothes, interiors, and war toys, big and small. There are shocking juxtapositions: Waugh was noted for that. A trussed-up wounded general, being fork lifted aboard ship, tells Crouchback that his wounded, hospitalized friend Apthorpe has killed himself by sucking down, overnight, the bottle of whisky Crouchback had brought him with the best of intentions. The war is not a good war for many of the people it touches, including, later, some of the displaced Jewish refugees adrift in Communist Croatia. (This particular incident not only echoes the timetable of Waugh's War; it forms the basis of one of his best short stories, "Compassion," in his The Complete Short Stories . We've got to assume there's lived experience behind it.)
Seems many reviewers are not happy with the unhappy tenor of the story, but that's Waugh's outlook. He once said, "Fortune is the least capricious of deities, and arranges things on the just and rigid system that no one shall be very happy for very long." Nevertheless, as that famous Italian scientist Galileo once said, "eppur si muove." And yet it moves. "Sword" moves in two senses: the story does offer lots of action and incident; and either Waugh or the scriptwriters have managed to come up with a reasonably hopeful ending to it. Despite the cruelty of war to Crouchback, his friends, lovers and acquaintances, there still is a future.
Summary of Sword of Honour
Thirty-five-year-old Englishman Guy Crouchback returns home from Italy at the start of the war determined to fight the good fight. Horrified by Nazi barbarism and emotionally shattered by a painful divorce, Crouchback eagerly accepts a post with the elite Royal Corps of Halberdiers. But nothing has prepared him for the absurd reality of life in the British army or the return of his alluring ex-wife.Based on Evelyn Waugh's semi-autobiographical World War II epic, Sword of Honour stars Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Munich), Megan Dodds (Love in a Cold Climate), Richard Coyle (Coupling), and Leslie Phillips (Love on a Branch Line). "More powerful and moving by the minute" -The Times (U.K.)
War is hell, but it can bring out the best in the unlikeliest of men. Sword of Honour, a splendid British miniseries, is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Evelyn Waugh. Waugh's alter ego in the film, Guy Crouchback, played with gravitas, fortitude, and a wee bit of vulnerability by a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig, joins the World War II effort as an older soldier because he feels a pure calling to fight evil. And fight he does, though the realities of war and army life are ultimately revealed to him in all their venality and haphazardness. The film sweeps across Europe, from pre-war England--where life for the upper crust is all crisp linen, martinis, and a fierce denial of the notion that the British Empire is, in fact, doomed--to Capt. Crouchback's missions in Vichy France, an utterly destroyed Crete, Egypt, and more. All the while, Crouchback fights his own demons along with the Nazis; his alluring ex-wife, Virginia (played with sultry sensuality by the American actress Megan Dodds, so memorable in the British series MI-5), to whom Crouchback is undeniably still drawn. The action and production values are topnotch, as is the ensemble cast. But the key is Craig, whose world-weary demeanor only barely masks the needs of a soldier--and a man--who is all too human. His performance is soul-stirring, and even those who think they aren't war-film fans will be captivated by the layered storytelling here. Extras include cast filmographies and a biography of Waugh. --A.T. Hurley
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