Hope and Glory [DVD]

I wish I could buy this on my apple TV /or Amazon because I would watch if many times, but it is only available on blu ray and I do not use a DVD/Blu-ray,It is a light-hearted view of a WW2 family and its trials, rights of passage, and the wildness of boys. Thoroughly charming

Item arrived quickly. Was surprised by the labeling on the back being in Korean.

Great movie. We forget at times what the civilians give during war time. Even in troubled times, life went on.

Knowing people that survived the blitz, English, Danish, Italian, Spaniard and Jewish that escaped in time Poland, I have heard enough of the spirit that reigned during those difficult times. Especially among those survivors that lost their entire family. My mother in law was among them. Knowing them and their stories, watching this film transported me to some of those beautiful stories of these friends that regardless of anything, saw something beautiful, cheerful and enlightening. I bet this film received academy nominations because the film delivers an authentic part of the times and place. Real life as it occurred many of their characters, events, tragedies and moments of awed joy. Isn't what life offers? What this film offers you in short form.John Boorman is an achieved director. Director of the harsh and unforgettable Deliverance and Excalibur among many others. I think this film tops his two widely recognized achievements. Performances are right, at times excellent and a couple of flabby scenes. Photography makes a lot of the scenes a joy. Music accompanies to perfection each of the views when it is present. Now, the plot, the writing is the meat of this joyful film. The story does not lack any critical ingredient to make it a perfect dish. Romance, sex, rebellion, challenge and other good stuff. Sadly, some of the scenes are not young audience proper; otherwise, everyone in the family will have an opportunity to learn about tough times in life and what a right attitude does to resolve it. I highly recommend this movie to viewers that watch films because of its sound content and love for cinema. This film is not a masterpiece but a great one!

John Boorman's fanciful, autobiographical tale of a young boy growing up in England during the Blitz is a treasure, is pleasing to look at and affectionately told. It's the story of the fictional Rowan family and their friends and neighbors, beginning on the day of the country's entry into World War II - Sunday, September 3, 1939 - and following them for a calendar year of wartime experiences. The movie is full of rich and sometimes raunchy humor but also genuine pathos, and it features a wonderful cast - at the center of which is Sebastian Rice Edwards, only 10 years old at the time, playing Bill, the son of Clive and Grace Rowan (David Hayman and Sarah Miles). He's feisty and quite mature for his age. In fact, sometimes he's more level-headed than anyone else, particularly his precocious older sister Dawn (Sammi Davis) and his dotty grandfather (Ian Bannen, made up to look 73 years old). The movie contains two distinct parts, and they're both hugely appealing. The first unfolds in the family's row house in London, where you grow attached to everyone, and the second takes place in the gorgeous English countryside (in Middlesex and Sussex), which seems more idyllic and appealing than anywhere else on Earth, a place you'll most likely fall in love with. There's a sequence that becomes a humorous take on the Biblical miracle of the fishes that will leave you in stitches, and the fadeout line often brings cheers. My only complaint: It's a movie that cried out for a sequel - or several sequels - because you just don't want to leave this wacky family.  Phil's Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime (2014 edition)

This excellent movie mixes a young London kid’s perspective on living an extremely dangerous war zone during almost every night bombing of the Blitz. It deftly mixes humor with a serious, deadly and frightening situations. The little kids, teenager and adult actors did a great job with a complex, excellent script.In contrast to the perspectives of the children, who have fun horsing around bombed out housing and buildings, and a teenaged sister getting hot and heavy with a soldier from overseas, and the terrifying and challenging situations the the adults at home and soldiers face every minute of every day. It’s a unique, funny, frightening and sad movie at the same time.

This movie follows a typical English family through the London blitz. It is beautiful, scary and outrageous at times, but ultimately heartwarming. I can’t recommend this movie highly enough.

I have been thinking a lot about this flm lately; I don't know why exactly. Perhaps it has to do with my own aging father being in such terrible contrast to Billy's Grandfather George. The parts I think of today, after nearly two decades since seeing Hope and Glory, are almost exclusively about the grandfather, and how Billy remembers their relationship while he and his mom go to the country to live with her father, to escape the London Blitz.I am saddened to see my father slip into a feebleness bordering on dotage; whereas the grandfather in this film is an eccentric character who defies old age by having never entirely grown up. He still enjoys the things that young boys do, and he plays and shoots and imagines on a level with his grandson. At the end of the film, the two of them laugh hysterically upon discovering that the school has been bombed out, and Billy doesn't have to return to school on that day after all. When another boy looks up prayerfully and says "Thank you Adolf", both Billy and Grandfather George are in complete agreement: Billy gets to return to the countryside for a while still, and his grandfather won't be alone with all those women, Billy's grandmother, mom and aunts. (That doesn't constitute a spoiler exactly: it's just a favorite scene, one of a great many.)I need another Hope and Glory *fix*, and am going to get a copy right now........

arrived fast good film but this is the rich peoples side of it ,I was bombed out in 1941 we had to go and live with my nan I was 5 years old at the time my nan lived in flats just off blackwall tunnel I had to get the rations for my nan and run the gauntlet of the other kids who would stop you to steal your rations we lived on bread and jam,sometimes the better off would ask us if we wanted some dripping that's the fat off a roast beef this was a luxuryfor us,yes I lived in London during the war how many people are in their 80s remember it

Well, what can I say about a film in two parts? First and foremost this film started out as a very good depiction of what it was like during the War and the air raids. I am almost 83 now and have vivid memories of that time.I lived in West London and although I was a child, I do remember a lot.BUT . . . And forgive me for being negative.Why did this excellent movie become a stupid farce when the principle players all went off to visit an uncle in the countryside playing cricket on the lawn and punting on the River?It had no connection to the story line at all . . . . I could not understand a working class family punting on the Thames during the War. (It spoiled an excellent film). What a pity.

I saw this with my late Dad and Nana when it was brand new in the cinema. The two of them saw out the duration of the war together whilst Grandad was off fighting in the desert and so I was keen to get their "stamp" of approval. Was it authentic?It passed with flying colours! Highlights for Dad were the "farting" in the bomb shelter (a sound created by inserting your finger inside the gas mask and blowing out) and the "let's smash things up" scene which mirrored his own shenanigans with a gang of young boys who spent their formative years with very little male oversight. The only criticism he had was the depiction of bomb sites that he said were always cleaned up pronto. I'll never forget. As we left the cinema he turned to my Nana and said "What DID you do with my shrapnel collection?" Haha, still a kid at heart.Dad always introduced this film to people with the words: "This was my war". Thank you Mr Boorman. You made a beautiful film.

When this film was released in 1987 I was coming of age too and I could really relate to the themes explored. Struggling to make sense of a quite war torn world. We have all been there, well, I have. This movie encapsulates and captures this theme perfectly. Also the 1940s too. A very evocative, moving and quite beautiful film. The acting is just sensitive, nuanced, and understated, especially from the lead character of Billy. Played superbly by Sebastian Rice-Edwards. Amazing! A quite extraordinary film which is so often overlooked and unappreciated. Hardly surprising as it is rarely shown on television. I have no idea why. It's timeless themes could very easily be understood and appreciated by any thoughtful, intelligent and also sensitive young person today. Mind you, young people today aren't quite like they once were. Could explain why film struggles to get audience.

I've just watched this film for the first time and it's simply an absolute mess. John Boorman wrote, produced and directed the film based on his childhood memories of the war with Sebastian Rice-Edwards playing him as a child (named Billy rather than John) and an assortment of out-of-their-depth actors and actresses playing his family. The trouble is that, if this is anything to go by, his family, especially his mother and older sister and aunties, were insufferable bores of the worst kind and this was fatal for the film. The characters are dull and uninteresting and I was completely unmoved by the film and never became involved with the characters or their story.Boorman couldn't get any film company interested in financing the picture and spent a fortune of his own money on it...a million pounds alone on building, on an old, abandoned airfield, a reproduction of the street of semi-detached houses where Boorman lived as a little boy. Eventually, he ran out of money and couldn't finish the film. But David Puttnam, a friend of his who was now running Columbia Pictures agreed to finance the rest of the film and distribute it.One wonders what a top director of the calibre of Fred Zinnemann would have done with this subject in his heyday. Probably the first thing he would have done would have been to have it completely re-cast and re-written. So are there any good points about it? Well, the film has great attention to period detail and looks just about as good a recreation of wartime Britain as could possibly be achieved and Sebastian Rice-Edwards, although he's not called upon to do much in the way of acting, at least looks lovely as Billy...a sort of cross between Rupert Osborne in “Konga” and Simon West in “Swallows and Amazons”. He's certainly very photogenic and the centre of attention, although I can see why this wasn't chosen for The Royal Film Performance in 1987, with him using some choice four letter words on the soundtrack...not something to present to the Queen even in 1987...especially when being spoken by a nine year old. My verdict: The cast and script and director prevent it from becoming the classic it should have been. Two stars out of five for effort.THE SONY DVD: CDR 11368. Excellent image and sound quality, 1.85:1 and 16 x 9 anamorphically enhanced. A pity that the film itself doesn't deserve the excellent transfer to DVD.