HANNIBAL BROOKS. (1969) DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY MICHAEL WINNER. STORY BY MICHAEL WINNER AND TOM WRIGHT. SCREENPLAY BY IAN LA FRENAIS AND DICK CLEMENT. MUSIC BY FRANCIS LAI.
STARRING OLIVER REED, MICHAEL J. POLLARD, WOLFGANG PREISS, HELMUT LOHNER, PETER CARSTEN, KARIN BAAL AND AIDA THE ELEPHANT AS LUCY.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This is a comedy set in World War Two, with many funny and touching scenes but, for the most part, nearly entirely unbelievable. The mad thing is that the first half of the story is actually based on fact, and there really was a British POW in World War Two, name of Tom Wright, who actually did work in Munich Zoo looking after an elephant called Lucy.
It's scripted by the two lads who created, among other things, the superb 'Eighties comedy-drama series AUF WIEDERSEHEN PET, the story of a bunch of thoroughly British labourers who go to Germany during the recession to find work on the building sites.
Kevin Whately from INSPECTOR MORSE and later, LEWIS, played the family man Neville who was slightly pussy-whipped by the old ball-and-chain. Jimmy Nail brilliantly portrayed the wildly politically incorrect, footy-mad Oz from Newcastle. Oz to a ballerina in one episode: 'Are you the chief hoofer, like?'Timothy Spall was Barry, whose thing was to end up in prison in nearly every series.
A few Christmas specials followed the several series' of the comedy, but none ever really reached the dizzying heights of those marvellous early episodes. Tim Healy, hubby of TV actress Denise Welch, Christopher Fairbank, Pat Roach (as Bomber who always referred to himself in the third person, as in, Bomber doesn't think much of this dump!) and Gary Holton also starred. Happy days.
A few Christmas specials followed the several series' of the comedy, but none ever really reached the dizzying heights of those marvellous early episodes. Tim Healy, hubby of TV actress Denise Welch, Christopher Fairbank, Pat Roach (as Bomber who always referred to himself in the third person, as in, Bomber doesn't think much of this dump!) and Gary Holton also starred. Happy days.
Anyway, to HANNIBAL BROOKS which apparently makes it onto British TV every Christmas but I'd genuinely never heard of it till now. I can see why the British people would love it though. It's very pro-Tommy and anti-Jerry, if you will allow me to make use of the not terribly politically correct terminology of the time.
Oliver Reed and his adorable pachyderm make fools and buffoons of the Nazis every step of the way, with Reed's character Brooks wise-cracking, quipping and dead-panning lines to them such as: 'What colour?' when asked if he's seen an elephant wandering around the place unsupervised. A real Nazi would probably have slapped him silly for giving such cheek but the Nazis in the film are powerless, seemingly, in the face of Brooks's dazzling repartee.
The lines are wonderfully funny but none of it is really believable. Brooks is a British prisoner-of-war who is made to look after an Asian elephant in Munich Zoo. After the Zoo is bombed by the Allies, who presumably didn't always know what they were aiming at, it is decided that Lucy must be taken to Innsbruck Zoo where she'll be safe. Lucy the Elephant packed her trunk...
Oliver Reed as Brooks is detailed to go with her, along with two Nazi guards, one nice, one nasty, and one beautiful Polish female cook, who is obviously here just doing duty as the eye-candy. When Brooks runs afoul of the nasty Nazi, he's forced to flee retribution and make his way over the Alps to the Swiss border and to safety, with Lucy in tow, of course. Hence the nickname Hannibal, another madman who attempted a similar feat several centuries ago.
The scenery is fabulous. The film was made on location in all the gorgeous parts of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in which the action is set. Talk about the hills are alive with the sound of music! The mountains, snow-capped or otherwise, the streams and rivers, the fields filled with sheep and goats, they're all truly magical to behold.
Even the marching bands proceeding through the picturesque villages in their lederhosen are just as we imagine they would have been in Hitler's day. The busty Frauleins wear the low-cut dirndly dresses that Hitler favoured and tie their blonde hair up in plaits while they go about their daily business of milking the cows and keeping their smiles plastered firmly to their places. The film has a fantastic musical score as well.
Oliver Reed is supported by Michael J. Pollard as Packy, an American escaped soldier who went on to lead a group of partisans in the forest, sabotaging the Germans at every turn, even if it's only for 'a few cans of bully-beef.'
Pollard was supposed to have taken a lot of drugs while filming HANNIBAL BROOKS, which might explain why it's almost impossible to make out a word he's saying, he mumbles so goddamn much...!
Olly Reed as Brooks squeezes in a few anti-war statements along the way, along the lines of what's-it-all-for-at-the-end-of-the-day kind of thing but, as an anti-war film, HANNIBAL BROOKS isn't terribly believable.
It's really just a tremendously fun romp in which heart-throb actor and hellraiser Oliver Reed and a cute elephant see to it that a few meanie Nazis get given what-for, amidst the mountains and the rivers of a genuinely stunningly beautiful Germany.
A note on the elephant. Lucy was played by Aida, the real-life elephant who had arrived in Rotterdam Zoo in 1940 aged just five years old. She passed away in 1981, aged forty-six, after having survived no fewer than eighteen Allied bombing runs over Rotterdam between June 1941 and December 1944 and the Nazi food blockade of the Netherlands as well. She must have been a sturdy wee heffalump, this Aida lady.
Aida's elephant stand-in apparently kept trying to kill Oliver Reed by pushing him over a cliff with his tail or squashing him against the rocks. Maybe it was the smell of booze he didn't like, haha.
Reed raised his usual hell during the making of the film and, what with his drinking and Michael J. Pollard's alleged drugging, it's actually kind of a miracle that the film was ever made at all. But made it was. And that's a good thing, right? Surely we need more movies starring Oliver Reed, an elephant and a handful of posturing, preening Nazi nincompoops in the world, not fewer...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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