Sword of Honour

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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.)

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Another disappointment
Another disappointment, as was “A Handful of Dust” starring Kristin Scott Thomas. Have to agree with David Null, barely recognized the film. The books were great. Was somewhat shocked that Guy was never once referred to as “uncle” by the much younger temporary officers. I am convinced that if Waugh’s books are to be converted to film then it will have to be on the scale of Brideshead Revisited (starring Jeremy Irons). Otherwise, why bother.

3 Stars War story
Sometimes boring and too long, it is an interesting testimony to history of people winning wars for their feudals of England.

5 Stars An Intimate Epic
A wonderful ensemble cast shines in this film headed by Daniel Craig. Wow! Is there nothing this actor can not do? Consistently brilliant in every thing he does on screen I am convinced now that he is by far the best actor of his generation. A great story wonderfully filmed. A must see for all ages. The ending is so moving and powerful it will stay with you for days.

Some fans of the film may have bones to pick with this production but for those like me who have not read it the film plays beautifuly.

The locations are stunning and the film has immense sweep and drama. Comedy also plays a major role in this film so in the end it is bitter sweet and oh so satisfying. Epic in scope and yet intimate and touching a wonderful film that kept me glued to the tube.

4 Stars Immensely enjoyable adaptation… Highly abridged but true in spirit… Fine DVD
This is immensely enjoyable. It is a brilliant 3-hour adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s “Sword of Honour” trilogy. Given the time constraint, much material has been excised. Most of the religious content has been stripped out. The various supporting characters and events have been drastically reduced or eliminated entirely. But the essence of Waugh’s work is here, his wickedly cruel humour, his biting satire, his bitterness and his elegizing of the loss of all that he considered good in British society. For me Sword of Honour is the work that best pairs the dark satirical humour of his earlier novels with the elegiac, spiritual quality of his later phase, so beautifully exemplified in “Brideshead Revisited”. I wish this could have been as meticulously and faithfully mounted as the incomparable Brideshead but if you bear in mind that Brideshead ran for close to 11 hours, a similar enterprise on the same scale here, would stretch anywhere from 25 to 30 hours in length.

To its credit, despite the massive slashing, it does still remain true to the spirit of the book. The ending is changed but I’m not sure what a previous reviewer meant when he said that it was a “happy” ending. In the book, the story ends with Guy marrying Lady Plessington’s daughter, Domenica, the good Catholic girl who cared for his dead wife’s son in his absence. In the film, the Plessingtons are entirely eliminated. The film ends with the brief scene of Guy alone with his sister back in their ancestral estate. He tells her of how his Italian villa has been taken over by the murderous Ludovic and how he has come back to Broome to shepherd what is left of the once great Crouchback lands. From the book we know that most of it is actually gone. There is nothing particularly “happy” about this. In fact if you were to pause and reflect, you would realise that it was an intensely sad ending - not only has Guy lost most of his physical possessions, he has also seen the moral values he grew with cynically trampled underfoot; and in accepting Virginia’s child as his own, he has given away all that remains of the Crouchback legacy to the son of a commoner and a bounder. For me that final shot where he embraces his dead wife’s love-child as his own, shows more than anything, the immense goodness in his soul; that far from being diminished by all the liars, cheats, and traitors he has encountered and all the unfairness that life has thrown at him, he has kept intact his honour and the essential goodness which defines him as a man.

The story takes in all the places where Waugh himself saw action. So the film sweeps us along from England to Scotland, from Senegal to Egypt, from Crete to Croatia (Yugoslavia), and finally from Italy, back home to England. Some commentators have rightfully called it an anti-epic because despite the many hairy situations and exotic locations in which he finds himself, Guy never actually gets to fight in a major battle. The battles we see on screen, as in the book, are almost all farcical and point to the utter stupidity and futility of war. Guy finally realises the truth of this in his conversation with the Jewish woman Mme Kanyi who consoles him with the line, “Even good men thought that by going to war, they could win a kind of honour,” to which he acknowledges tearfully, “God forgive me. I was one of them.”

In this adaptation, the Sword of Honour is purely a metaphor. The actual physical Sword of Honour is never mentioned in the film. In the book, there is a physical Sword of Honour, embodied in the Sword of Stalingrad given by King George VI to Stalin in 1943 to seal the newly forged Anglo-Russian alliance. Crouchback like Waugh was aghast at this alliance with the Godless Communists and the apparent betrayal of all that he thought he had been fighting for - the defense of Christian civilisation. To him, the British alliance with Communist Russia and the betrayal of Catholic Poland and Croatia to Communism was simply trading one evil for another and this was the bitter irony that the physical Sword of Honour represented.

Daniel Craig (the latest James Bond), makes a fine Guy Crouchback. It’s to his credit as an actor that he looks not the least bit like the suave secret agent he would later become. Here he is a naive, idealistic, earnest, slightly befuddled English gentleman; just a simple good man trying to do the right thing. Megan Dodds (Love in a Cold Climate) is absolutely gorgeous as Guy’s fickle and materialistic wife Virginia. Richard Coyle (the clownish Jeff in Coupling) is engagingly funny as Trimmer/McTavish, the ex-hairdresser who becomes the unlikeliest hero and one of the many conquests of the faithless Virginia.

It’s not perfect by any means. It will certainly infuriate many Waugh fans. But this highly abridged adaptation is very well done and a pleasure to watch. It doesn’t deserve anything less than a 4-star rating. The DVD is in the original 1.78:1 AR (enhanced for widescreen TV). Picture quality is excellent. Audio is in the original 2.0 Dolby Surround but is rather boomy, with the dialogue less than crystal clear. Unfortunately, Acorn, as always, does not provide any subtitles. There are no extras whatsoever.

3 Stars Not bad but not Waugh
Inevitability a novel, especially one that is reflective, suffers when made into a film. Even a film as long as this one. This adaptation captures almost nothing of Waugh’s emphasis on Crouchbacks’s Catholicism and most of the Waugh’s vividly written characters are hardly recognizable, if present at all.

Waugh would be infuriated at the “happy” ending.

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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

From Miramax Films, the studio that brought you the Academy Award winning Life is Beautiful (Best Foreign Language Film, 1998) comes The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Based on the best selling novel by John Boyne, it’s an unforgettable motion picture experience powerful and moving beyond words (Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com). Bored and restless in his new home, Bruno, an innocent and naive eight year old, ignores his mother and sets off on an adventure in the woods. Soon he meets a young boy, and a surprising friendship develops. Set during World War II, this remarkable and inspiring story about the power of the human spirit will capture your heart and engage your mind.
Bonus Features include Deleted Scenes With Optional Commentary by Writer, Director Mark Herman and Author John Boyne, Friendship Beyond the Fence Featurette, Feature Commentary by Writer, Director Mark Herman and Author John Boyne

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars A great tale of a forbidden friendship
A German boy becomes friends with a Jewish boy in a labor camp during the holocaust. The German boy grows very curious as to what is going on at the camp. They both are very unaware of the plans that await the held labor camp workers.

The cinematography portrays this part of the holocaust in a clear portrait, straight forward and beautifully filmed, unlike other holocaust films this one has no unnecessary grim black and white here, so it helps you see things clearer as they were through their tale. After all, even under harsh circumstances life is in color!

This is one of those movies that will surely entertain you and at the end make you want to cry, it as a great movie with spectacular acting and an unforgettable story.

5 Stars Awesome Movie and Book!!!
This is an excellent movie. My class read the book and then watched the movie. It is almost exactly like the book!

5 Stars Poetic Justice
This film truly defines the term “poetic justice.” It is the most eloquent of the holocaust films by what it does NOT show, what it does NOT attempt to preach. It is the most touching of all, and proves that children are truly innocent and that people could get get along the world over if not for the garbage adults pour into their heads. We need more beauty, less garbage. A truly wonderful film.

1 Star Sophie’s List is Beautiful or Curiousity Killed Little Adolf
Aweful film. Either of my suggested titles would have been more appropriate.

Sophie’s List is Beautiful: Overall the movie is sentinmental contrivance that looked like it was put together by amateurs doing their best to combine Sophie’s Choice and Life is Beautiful with a little bit of Schindler’s List thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately for them, the end product is an utter failure. It’s difficult to watch without laughing.

Curiousity Killed Little Adolf: The most/only intriguing thing in this waste of celluloid is the boy in the lead. He looks amazingly like a juvenile Hitler. So when he gets what gets in the end, it is somewhat uplifting.

The Holocaust was an outrage, the ugliest example of what man in his broken state is capable of. If you needed this silly movie to understand that, then that is really too sad.

5 Stars excellent movie
This is an excellent thought provoking film. A film I am glad that I own.

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Until you get this part of your life and your head where it needs to be, you will NEVER be successful. It is impossible. You MUST get this right. There is no website, marketing system, lead source, or product or religious organization that will save you. If you don’t get your head where it needs to be, everything else is just a waste of time, money, energy and efforts. Success in anything in life, (including network marketing), is 90% mental, and 10% mechanical (executing the business). Re

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