HANNIBAL BROOKS

UK, 1969, 101 minutes, Colour.
Oliver Reed, Michael J. Pollard, Wolfgang Preiss, John Alderton, Peter Carsten.
Directed by Michael Winner.

Hannibal Brooks is an unusual war comedy. Set In World Wat Two, it parallels the original story of Hannibal crossing the alps with elephants. This updated version is an offbeat comedy starring Oliver Reed and Michael J. Pollard who was popular at the time, with Bonnie and Clyde. Direction is by Michael Winner, the English director, who had worked with Reed in such films as The System, The Jokers, I'll Never Forget Whats’isname. Winner was to make The Games and then move to America where he had success with a number of westerns with Burt Lancaster and some Charles Bronson thrillers, including Death Wish. A family kind of humorous war film.

1. An entertaining comedy? Adventure?

2. How seriously was the film meant to be taken?

3. Despite the humour, how grim and realistic a picture of war?

4. The picture of the POW camp life, the usual, humorous? The padre? The guards? The escape?

5. What kind of man was Brooks, his looking after Lucy?

6. Should the Germans have evacuated the animals? How important in the war situation? The prisoners of war working in the zoo?

7. What alternatives to the group were there when the guard was shot? Was the escape plausible?

8. What role did Packy have in the escape? His continual turning up and his raids? How real? How comic?

9. How well did Brooks handle the situation of escape, collaborating with Packy, quick thinking as in the house with the soldier?

10. The details of the escape?

11. Was the finale plausible, how well filmed? How tragic were the deaths, how heroic was the climb, the collapse of the guardhouse?

12. Were there any real parallels with the original Hannibal or was this just a comic idea for the film?

13. There were several anti-war sections of dialogue, many war sequences. What did the film have to say about war and its impact?