University of Virginia Library

Epoch-Making

Italian and Soviet filmmakers
joined hands to produce
"Waterloo" — acclaiming, with the
piercing blast of a field bugle, that
the event (the movie, not the
battle) was epoch-making. "The
biggest movie production in the
history of motion pictures!" the
publicity trumpets; "An all-star
international cast!" Well, Rod
Steiger and Christopher Plummer
are featured, as Napoleon and
Wellington; and it is very likely
Orson Welles that grumbles a
half-dozen lines as Louis XVIII.
After that, international stars are a
little difficult to pick out, although
the cavalry horses may well be
Arabian.

The production is big — big on a
scale the Hollywood studios, which
have a few too many Waterloos
fresh in their own memory,
wouldn't dare attempt in these
hand-to-mouth days. But big isn't
necessarily good. "Waterloo" has
big quality in only one respect, in
cinematography. We witness a
splendid, gorgeous battle begotten
of the antique concept that
aesthetics are at least as important a
part of warfare as logistics. And so
a panorama of color and motion is
stretched across the screen; scads of
infantry in French blue and British
red, Scots bagpipers in kilts and
bonnets, cannon belching scarlet
lightning and grey-black thunder,
lancers on swift white steeds — all
the martial romance that made
female hearts flutter and breasts
strain under corsets; indeed there is
an elegant scene of fluttering hearts
and straining corsets at a Brussels
ball on the battle's eve.