 |
|||
 |
Empty
|
 |
 |
 |
|||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
The Monocled Mutineer
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Our DVD Price: £14.99 RRP: 
Availability This product should be despatched within 4 days. This product will be dispatched from Guernsey. Delivery times
Earn 70 Bonus Points when you buy this product. More info |
Film Description
This story of high romance, hilarious impudence and savage retribution tells the story of a World War I mutiny which took place at the harsh British training camp Etaples, France in 1917 on the eve of the Passchendaele battle.
Set in the trenches, it follows the life of the leader of the main British mutiny, Percy Toplis: a rake, rogue and master of disguise who became the most wanted man in Britain.
Written by Alan Bleasdale, The Monocled Mutineer stars Paul McGann, Cheri Lunghi and Penelope Wilton. The series was never repeated due to a government ban on the BBC from screening it again due to the sensitivity of the subject matter.
Film Information
| Director | Jim O Brien | ||||
| Starring | Paul McGann, Cherie Lunghi, Penelope Wilton
|
||||
| Genre | Television
|
||||
| Country | UK | Language | English | Year | 1986 |
DVD Extras
2 discs.
Technical Details
| Certificate | 15 | Length | 320 mins | Label | BBC | ||
| Cat No | BBCDVD2485 | Format | DVD | Colour | |||
| Region | 2 | Aspect | 4:3 Full Frame | ||||
Share your thoughts and opinions - write a review
Review by David Parkinson on 17th August 2007
We won't know the full facts about the first and only mutiny in the British Army until the relevant documents are declassified in 2017, but the DVD release of this splendid BBC series will do much to revive interest in Percy Toplis and his role in the 1917 Etaples rebellion, . It might also reawaken some of the controversy that surrounded the original broadcast in 1986, when questions were asked in Parliament about left-wing bias within the BBC and whether licence payers' money was being well spent on programmes that shamed the nation.
Much has been made of the factual inaccuracies in Alan Bleasdale's script, which was adapted from a book by William Allison and John Farley. Indeed, Julain Putkowski, who served as an historical adviser on the series, announced during the four-part transmission that the producers had ignored his advice and perpetuated several fallacies to heighten their drama. Subsequently, information has emerged to suggest that Toplis wasn't even in France on the eve of Passchendaele and the project has been written off in some quarters as a shameful sham.
But this ignores the many plus points, such as the provocative manner in which Bleasdale caught a seismic shift in British social history, as the lower classes began to recognise the fallibility of the ruling elite and mount the first challenges to the Establishment that would culminate in the first Labour government in 1929. He also shattered the myth of the heroic Tommy by daring to state that rogues also manned the trenches and were often as guilty of bestial behaviour as the Kaiser's troops, as they did their bit for King and Country.
The naysaying also detracts from the excellence of Paul McGann's performance as Toplis, the Derbyshire pit boy whose gift for mimicry not only enabled him to impersonate officers for his own gain, but also to expose the ineptitude of the aristocratic top brass, who senselessly sent a generation into the killing fields of Flanders in a similar spirit of self-interest that prompted Toplis's own deceptions. Few contemporary programmes display anything like the same courage.
View more reviews by David Parkinson
Recommendations from fellow customers
British Transport Films Collection (Vol 6): The Art of Travel
More films directed by Jim O Brien
More films starring Paul McGann
by Don Boyd
by Geoffrey Sax
More films starring Penelope Wilton
by Richard Eyre
by T V
by T V
by Colin Lowrey
More films starring Cherie Lunghi
by John Boorman
by Stuart Burge
Miss Marple (McEwan) - A Murder Is Announced
| Special Offers | ||||||||||||||||
|
More Great Offers
|
| BestSellers | ||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Recommended by MovieMail | ||||||||||
|
A curated collection of the best DVDs
Latest Additions
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
| Just Released |
|
Around the World in 80 Gardens The Other Boleyn Girl Be Kind Rewind Roberta Picnic at Hanging Rock |
| Coming Soon |
|
Seven Days to Noon La Vie de Jesus (Masters of Cinema) A Year In Provence Margot at the Wedding Up the Yangtze |
|
||
| Home | Film Catalogue | New Releases | Special Offers | Top 30 | ||
|
||
| Film Collections | Film Media | News | Your Account | Help | Become a MovieMail affiliate | ||
|
||
For questions or assistance, call us on (+44) 0844 776 0900 or email on enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk © 2004-2007 MovieMail, Ltd., All Rights Reserved. Find out more about MovieMail |
||
|
Days of Glory
Black Book
The Last King of Scotland
The Counterfeiters
