Waterloo: the film programme

The programme cover

The recent purchase of a number of new books for my military library this week has meant I have had to have a radical re-organisation of my bookshelves. In addition, I brought a number of books back from my mother's house this weekend. Whilst looking for these in the loft I found my copy of the programme for the film Waterloo (1970).

It's a long time since you could buy a souvenir programme of a film at the cinema! I went to see Waterloo in the Odeon Cinema, Walton, which is no longer there.

The 32 page programme is full of great photos from this massive Italian/Russian production. It tells the story of the 100 Days and also has a little about the making of the film. Nowadays, of course, they would turn this into a £19.99 paberback book.

Proper squares!

As a film it has dated somewhat and suffers from Italian dubbing syndrome but you cannot fault the way that the battle scenes are done. We will never see the like of these again. No-one will employ 20,000 extras when they can computer generate lots of little people for a fraction of the price but the effect just isn't the same.

Box loads of Highlanders! A bit mountainous for Belgium (actually the Ukraine)

Talking of little people it was the photos in this book that made me go out and buy boxes of Airfix Highlanders. Here is half of a full page spread where you can count 300 men in the Highland regiment in the forground. A bit of a contrast to Sharpe!