Popular Films

What themes unite better-known films about the First World War?

In this episode, Jessica, Chris and Angus look at some of the better-known films about the war, covering a fifty-year period from All Quiet on the Western Front(1930) to Gallipoli (1981). Along the way, we discuss body horror, Kirk Douglas’s jaw line, European unity and whether the British have a particular penchant for cross-dressing.

References

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

La Grande Illusion (The Grand Illusion) (1937)

Paths of Glory (1957)

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)

Gallipoli (1981)

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

The Hayes Code

Battle of the Somme (1916)

The Great War (1964): ‘Making of’ documentary

Casablanca (1942)

Jason Crouthamel, An Intimate History of the Front: Masculinity, Sexuality and German Soldiers in the First World War (2014)

Emma Hanna, Sounds of War: Music and the British Armed Forces During the Great War (2020)

‘Sapper’, Sergeant Michael Cassidy, RE (1916)

‘Allo, ‘Allo (1982-1989)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

King and Country (1964)

The Long, Long Trail (1961)

Joan Littlewood, Theatre Workshop, Stratford

Deborah Thom, Nice Girls and Rude Girls: Women Workers in World War I (1998)

Sister Kate Luard, Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front (1915)

Carloyn Holbrook, Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography (2014)

Charles Bean, The Anzac Book (1916)

Tron (1982)

Mad Max (1979)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

1917 (2019)

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Professor of Modern British History at Leeds University. My research interests lie at the intersection of the histories of gender, particularly masculinity, medicine and warfare.

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A historian focusing on the First World War and popular representations of warfare. I received my PhD from the University of Sussex in 2013. My thesis examined relations between British and French soldiers during the First World War.

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Is a Visiting Research Fellow at Leeds University. My current research focuses on manpower and authority in Britain, starting with the First World War and running through until the end of the Second World War.