The Great War
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Mario Monicelli
Vittorio Gassman
Alberto Sordi
Silvana Mangano
Folco Lulli
Bernard Blier
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In Italy shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Giovanni Busacca is ordered to enlist in the army in exchange for amnesty from certain criminal charges. At the enlistment center he bribes Oreste Jacovacci to obtain a deferment, but Oreste does nothing to help him. Later, the two men are sent to the front on the same troop train and forget their differences as they pool their wits to avoid arduous tasks. On the eve of a battle, the company goes AWOL, and Giovanni spends the night with a prostitute, Constantina, who steals his wallet. The next day he is forced to fight in a bloody battle that results in the capture of some Austrian installations. Sent with Oreste to obtain supplies in town, Giovanni with difficulty wrests his wallet from Constantina but realizes that he loves her. Rather than participate in the battle that is raging at their camp, the two friends admit their cowardice and spend the night in town. In the morning they find that their company has been decimated, but the townspeople, thinking that they are among the survivors, welcome them with an incongruous patriotic display. Giovanni and Oreste decide to desert rather than face more enemy gunfire, but a meeting with the wife of a comrade who has been killed in battle so moves them that they rejoin their outfit. They are sent on a special mission to deliver a message to another installation but are captured by the Austrians, who demand information about an emergency pontoon bridge the Italians are building to bring in relief troops. Giovanni, who knows where the bridge is, refuses to betray his comrades and is shot. Oreste, who does not have the information, also is killed in spite of a hysterical effort to save himself. The major, remarking on the absence of the two rascals from the next battle, assumes that they have once more managed to goldbrick their way out of combat. [Sources disagree on the precise ending of the film. According to some sources, both friends are shot when they refuse to betray their comrades.]
Director
Mario Monicelli
Cast
Vittorio Gassman
Alberto Sordi
Silvana Mangano
Folco Lulli
Bernard Blier
Romolo Valli
Vittorio Sanipoli
Nicola Arigliano
Mario Valdemarin
Tiberio Mitri
Livio Lorenzon
Tiberio Murgia
Carlo D'angelo
Marcello Giorda
Guido Celano
Luigi Fainelli
Gerard Herter
Achille Compagnoni
Geronimo Meynier
Elsa Vazzoler
Ferruccio Amendola
Crew
Giorgio Adriani
Age & Scarpelli
Alfredo De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Franco Ferrara
Mario Garbuglia
Roberto Gerardi
Mario Monicelli
Adriana Novelli
Nino Rota
Giuseppe Rotunno
Luciano Vincenzoni
Luciano Vincenzoni
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Nominations
Best Foreign Language Film
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Opened in Rome in October 1959 as La grande guerra; running time: ca135 min; in Paris in May 1960 as La grande guerre; running time: 128 min. Venice Film Festival running time: 140 min.
Miscellaneous Notes
Co-Winner of the Golden Lion for Best Picture and Winner of the Best Director Prize at the 1959 Venice Film Festival.
Released in United States 1961
Released in United States September 8, 1959
Shown at the Venice Film Festival September 8, 1959.
CinemaScope
Released in United States 1961
Released in United States September 8, 1959 (Shown at the Venice Film Festival September 8, 1959.)
