How I Won The War

How I Won the War is a black comedy film directed and produced by Richard Lester, released in 1967, based on a novel of the same name by Patrick Ryan. The film stars Michael Crawford as bungling British Army Officer Lieutenant Earnest Goodbody, with John Lennon (in his only non-musical role, as Musketeer Gripweed), Jack MacGowran (Musketeer Juniper), Roy Kinnear (Musketeer Clapper) and Lee Montague (Sergeant Transom) as soldiers under his command.....it is all broadly based on the Allied landings in North Africa in 1942 to the crossing of the last intact bridge on the Rhine at Remagen in 1945. The film was not critically well received. (Read more at Wikipedia)

Links to Peel
Peel attended the premiere of How I Won The War and wrote about it in his International Times column of 27 October 1967. The film was directed by Richard Lester, director of the first two Beatles films which Peel had seen during his years in America, and it featured John Lennon, the only Beatle with whom Peel established a friendship. He disagreed with the Fleet Street critics who had given the film negative reviews:


 * In my strange way I have felt for some time that most film critics are hired on their ability to write sparkling, destructive prose stuffed with pith and epigram. Anyway, I thought the film was magnificent...