The Virgin Soldiers (Standard Edition) [Blu-ray] [Region

I watched this film many years ago and ejoyed it due to the fact that i could relate to the content. So i was delighted when i was able to purchase it from amason.

I’ve been yearning to see this film for a long time; author of the best-selling, originating novel, Leslie Thomas lives in the area I do and always wondered what I’d say if I got talking to him.

Hywell Bennett is ideal as the wide-boy Prvt Brigg and he brilliantly portrays youthful angst with that eroding realisation that he must at least do ‘something’ whilst being where he doesn’t want to be. Released in 1970, a busy time for cinema, addressing themes around such issues, especially in the U.S with Vietnam, we Brits really only having made WW2 films and not much since.

Indeed, it follows a rather watered down sort of earthy, almost puerile, pithy dialogue that appeared in, say MASH. Time has dissolved some of the edginess to the sexual liaisons and now the homosexual intonations barely get more than a nod of recognition, but they must have given the film a real feel of bravado and liberty when it was released.

There are some incredulous, laugh-out loud situational moments, almost always to do with evading duty in some way or another. To me, though, it is the sight of bookish Christopher Timothy (later TV’s James Herriot), Geoffrey Hughes (Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances) and as the medic, giving out sexual health advice, Waiting For God’s Grahame Crowden, that adds sparkle and a pleasurable connectivity.

I would say, though, that apart from Bennett’s, the acting was a little flat and unengaging and though the story wasn’t riveting, there was enough in the film to keep me occupied and entertained for the whole 90mins.

A bigger matter must be that this is not a film that is shown on TV, nor currently a DVD that you can buy and for most will only be something, like me, that one has a particular reason to seek out.