"La grande guerra" is an Italian movie from 1959, so this one had its 60th anniversary last year as I am writing this review now in 2020. Of course, it is a black-and-white film just like pretty much every film from Italy during that era. The title means "The Great War" and this is also the international title for this film, which should not really surprise anybody. This specific description is frequently used for World War I, but here in Germany, it is not extremely common to be called like that, which is why they went for a slightly different German title by using the German equivalent to "They called it the Great War" and even if this is also a good tile for a somewhat epic war movie, there is also a bit of a playfulness (let's call it that) included here that fits in nicely with the movie's less serious parts. They are definitely there and I think this film is also considered to belong to the Italian Comedy, Comedia Italiana or whatever it is called in Italian. There are many films and many of those include Sordi in the cast. I will get to that later. First it needs to be said that this is a really long film at easily over two hours. Also it can be added that it was not too common to make films about World War I. Even then, World War II was already the more frequent subject, which is a bit surprising because WWII ended less than 15 years earlier, so there was a lot still to be found out from the historic perspective. Kinda telling that the most known WWII films are from the 1990s, so 50 years later. So even if I myself also have bigger interest in WWII, I like that they went for WWI here. It is also good for those who fought in WWI that now they have a movie about one of the most defining (even if in a negative sense) days of their lives and maybe that is why many of them appreciated this film. The director here is Mario Monicell, one who is probably not remembered too much anymore today, especially if we are talking about non-Italian people who are not exactly film buffs. However, he managed two Oscar nominations approximately five years after this movie and his work here also got in at the Oscars in the foreign language category of course. In any case, Monicelli was a highly prolific and successful filmmaker whose career lasted for 75 years apparently. Pretty unreal number, but he was active until his death a decade ago. And the one thing he did even more often than directing movies was writing them, so nobody shall be surprised that he is one of several writers credited for this film as well. Now, enough about him and let's take a look at the cast here. I mentioned Sordi already and of course he is considered as one of the most influential Italian actors of all time. He also received awards recognition for his portrayal here and this surprises me a bit because Gassmann was more at the center of the movie than Sordi, but I guess they simply liked Sordi getting in come slightly comedic moments. So I mentioned Gassmann and he is the key lead as he for example also gets the only romance story, but still Sordi is co-lead of course. Yeah well, I kinda like Gassmann and his physical acting style. He is always a bit of a handsome hunk in his movies (with a big butt) and he sure is here in this story about a most unusual friendship between two extremely different characters.
Sadly, there are also some flaws here. i would agree with people who say that the running time hurts the film. It is just too much. it could have been cut down to 110 minutes, probably even 100, without doing too much damage because there is some filler material in here as it felt to me. As many other times with Sordi's films, this is not really about much of a story or plot progressing. It is more about individual scenes depicting certain scenarios and giving us more information about the characters. But real development is nothing you will find here. The background is from beginning to end really war. People fight each other, people get killed. This is where the film could have made a bit of an emotional impact too, but came short because those who died were mostly characters we knew almost nothing about like the one we see being shot from very close by an execution squad relatively early on or also the young fella who we see having his eyes closed. Still these moments exactly lead us towards the ending, they prepare us for it basically and there we see the two main characters being killed by the enemy too and it was pretty telling. They did not tell anybody where the bridge was gonna be and this was the first time they were heroes as the surprise attack from the Italians was successful as a consequece and all the time before that almost they were cowards. well, that is a bit of a mean way to put it. Let's just call them pacifists, even if that on the other hand is too positive again. But yeah, their fear and even incompetence maybe resulted in a great deal of the comedy this film had to offer. Just take the scene when their superior takes out this grenade and they are gone within seconds really. There are more examples of that like when we see a superior (not sure it was the same, i think not) ask a group of soliders who would be ready to join a dangerous mission. Everybody acts as if he hadn't heard what he said. Kinda hilarious. There was one scene, however, that was really pretty symbolic for this movie. It was right after this young guy died and we see characters mourn, but we also see Sordi's character enter the room with some alcohol to celebrate or something at the very worst moment. That was typical for this film because it was a mix of comedy and drama and also typical for Sordi because he brought in the lightness, even if it was not fitting in this very scene, but otherwise it was. A great deal of the comedy is about chickens. Pay attention there not only to the name of a commander, but also to the scene that involves an actual chicken (and also how they combined it with said commander). They were hungry and wanted to eat the chicken, but most of all they did not want the Austrians to have it and when they realized they are not getting it and shot it as a consequence it landed over there with the Austrians. But also play attention to how the Austrians jump high up from joy and the Italians do not fire at them in this situation although they easily could have and probably would not have missed. So it was a bit of a really brief moment of peace we have here that otherwise could have become really bloody. So you see that there are certainly scenes in this movie that I liked and enjoyed, but it is just not enough quantity-wise for a movie of this running time. So the Oscar nomination and also the high rating here on imdb are definitely a bit on the exaggerated site. Or clearly on the exaggerated site even. I have a feeling that many may have forgotten about all the mediocre scenes in-between because of the pretty strong final sequence and twist honestly. Of course, the protagonists getting killed there reminded me of a similar ending of another pretty famous Italian movie. I will avoid spoilers, but perhaps you know whcih one I mean from the 1990s when the death of one main character saves the lives of at least one other.
Alright, now back to this film here: What else can I say? Oh yes, the music I liked as well. i do not necessarily mean the soundtrack with that, but rather these musical narration parts that were actually sung by real soldiers I believe. At least, that is what I was being told and it makes sense. It's no professional singers, but maybe that is why it felt so classy because they could associate with this film in such a strong manner. Also I heard that several of the actors here were indeed soldiers, however age-wise obviously soldiers from WWII. Still a nice tribute and why not handled it this way when they do not have to talk and are just there. I got to watch this film today on the occasion of a film series tribute to Alberto Sordi's 100th birthday that was just three months ago, which means the Golden-Globe winning actor was just in his late 30s when this movie got made. By the way, a bit surprising that the film got selected to represent Italy at the Oscars because it was not the biggest success in Italy itself when it comes to national film awards, but still. Finally, a few more words on the end again: I liked it a lot that they took the tragic route here for both characters because honestly this was the only one that would have felt realistic, no matter if they had given the secret to the enemy or not. Fleeing there would have been a totally unauthentic course of events. There just would have been no way out for them. So had they managed to get away, then it should have happened before they got caught, but also would have beenn a weird way to end it somehow, although maybe a more comedic showing us they are like rabbit who always manage to get away. But I still think they picked the right choice in the end. Annd even with their certainly existing flaws, you started to like these two by then and see them more through their likable character traits, so it was shocking eventually to see them go. They were no killers, no soldiers. The best example of them being likable is actually when they want this enemy soldier to finish his coffe or so before killing him, but other Italian soldiers show up and immediately shoot him. Thoese were the ones made for the job. Overall, I have to give this film a thumbs-down. In its better moments, it deserved the thumbs-up, but as I said earlier, these quality moments were not often enough. Or only often enough for a film that is at least half an hour shorter. Gotta give a thumbs-down here, although I guess if you consider seeing this one, you have seen other Italian "comedy" movies from this era and you can make up your mind yourself. Negatively recommended. I must say sometimes it felt like an old military version of Police Academy with how incompetent the two were depicted.
