Plot Summary for
How I Won the War (1967) More at IMDbPro »

This film features former Beatle John Lennon and Roy Kinnear as ill-fated enlisted men in under the inept command of Lieutenant Earnest Goodbody. The story unwinds mostly in flashbacks of Lieutenant Goodbody who has lower-class beginnings and education which make him a poor officer who commands one of the worst units of the army. Written by Jenny Evans <J.Evans@uts.edu.au>

It's the end of WWII. British Lt. Ernest Goodbody is relating the story of how he won the war to a German officer. His "victory" is despite the unfeeling power mongering of one of his superiors, Col. Grapple. As he tells the story of the primary mission he led of his Musketeers, the mission to construct a cricket field behind enemy lines in North Africa, his troop members - some no longer in the living - tell both of their own preoccupations with other things in life preventing them from being the best of soldiers, and of Goodbody's ineptitude. Some lament the fact that they didn't kill Goodbody when they had the chance. The actual telling of the story is due to Goodbody's troop being caught in a precarious situation in the Rhine Valley, from which Goodbody commandeers his way out of successfully. Are Goodbody's actions actually successful? Written by Huggo

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