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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

My Boy Jack


asdarley

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I have just seen the trailer for My Boy Jack...

The trenches the troops are seen going over the top from seem a little too well made for the Battle of Loos (though I stand to be corrected!)....what do people think? Is this going to be worth watching or drive us mad with inaccuracies?

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I work with someone who told today that they are going to the premiere of their brother-in-law's movie - yes, you guessed it!

Funny world...

Adrian

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I have just seen the trailer for My Boy Jack...

The trenches the troops are seen going over the top from seem a little too well made for the Battle of Loos (though I stand to be corrected!)....what do people think? Is this going to be worth watching or drive us mad with inaccuracies?

Well lets see

"All quite on the Western Front,you know the one remake " staring Richards Thomas, Ernest Borgnne

the best American speaking Germans Ive ever come accross.

TV Drama's either work or they dont I would guess for us people on the forum we look for mistakes on purpose instead of assosiation ourselvess with it the Drama's

typical Brits

anyway

beats Curry-nation tress

Paul

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I have just seen the trailer for My Boy Jack...

The trenches the troops are seen going over the top from seem a little too well made for the Battle of Loos (though I stand to be corrected!)....what do people think? Is this going to be worth watching or drive us mad with inaccuracies?

worth a watch, never judge a film by its trailer is my motto,

tafski :D

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I will try to follow the story as it unfolds. If this play is about anything, it is about a young man being killed and the effect that had on his parents. As long as there are no tanks or tommy guns or boobs of that nature, I won't be assessing the revetments for numbers of sandbags.

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This is of course the story of Rudyard Kipling and hes quest in finding hes son who was killed at Loos while serving with the Guards

'My Boy Jack' (1916)

'Have you news of my boy Jack?'

Not this tide.

'When d'you think that he'll come back?'

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

'Has any one else had word of him?'

Not this tide.

For what is sunk will hardly swim,

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

'Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?'

None this tide,

Nor any tide,

Except he did not shame his kind -

Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,

This tide,

And every tide;

Because he was the son you bore,

And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

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I will try to follow the story as it unfolds. If this play is about anything, it is about a young man being killed and the effect that had on his parents. As long as there are no tanks or tommy guns or boobs of that nature, I won't be assessing the revetments for numbers of sandbags.

I watched it last night and thought it was excellent. The war scenes were suitably horrific but the relationships between the four family members and their reaction to Jack's decision to join the Guards and his subsequent death were, for me, the highpoint of the programme.

It showed the fear and suffering that what was present in millions of homes across the world during those fateful years.

Harry

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Yes, I enjoyed it too, it was very gripping.

The battle scenes were indeed horrific, but I have to say that some of the camera work was a bit distracting, but that was what a battle was like i suppose, quick and bold.

Steph

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I thought it was excellent, I think Daniel Radcliffe can shed the Harry Potter mantle. His father and mothers differing reactions to his desire to join up and his sister was superb.

The battle scenes were just horrific enough (my 11 yr old watched it with me) and it was nice for me to see some evidence of womens role on the home front which is so often forgotten in WW1.

Really well done.

K

Yes, I enjoyed it too, it was very gripping.

The battle scenes were indeed horrific, but I have to say that some of the camera work was a bit distracting, but that was what a battle was like i suppose, quick and bold.

Steph

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i to found it very well done,i thought all the main actors were superb.as someone who has worked alongside daniel in four movies i know what a remakable actor he is.also he is a very warm and thoughtfull person.i learnt also that kipling was passionate about britain,

best regards jamesbow

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Hi All,

After spending the day sober and looking forward to a good drama from ITV, I have to say that I was terribly disappointed in this factually innacurate representation of the story of Jack Kipling. The manner in which one of the biggest jingoists of the war was turned into a victim - Rudyard Kipling, whilst portraying the soldiers (regulars I hasten to add, that actually put a good account of themselves at the Battle of Loos) as lacking in moral fibre and ignorant, I find more than off-putting. When so much credence was put into this production, I fear, like other myths, this will become the accepted fact.

The script made some of the scenes painfully cringe-worthy i.e., Kim Cattral relating the closeness of her son after he has been pronounced missing. Way too much artistic license for my liking. :)

Aye

Tom McC

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Tend to agree. Rather disappointing and the scene at the end, whether true or not, of RK reciting to the King very artificial. Where, also, were the references to works like 'Epitaphs of the War'. In particular things like:

COMMON FORM

If any question why we died,

Tell them, because our fathers lied.

and

A DEAD STATESMAN

I could not dig: I dared not rob:

Therefore I lied to please the mob.

Now all my lies are proved untrue

And I must face the men I slew.

What tale shall serve me here among

Mine angry and defrauded young?

If they wanted to portray the effect of one young man's death on a family as singular as the Kiplings then some reference to RK's huge sea change in opinion needed a reference or two.

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Utterly appalling.

Do you know, when Jack looked through a crack in the trench wall they showed French and not German cruciform sections for the barbed wire.

Utterly disgraceful. What do they pay researchers for?

Bring back hanging, I say.

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I found it very watchable. I did spot a few bloopers myself, but as long as they don't interfere with the main theme of the story, I think they can be forgiven. I think a few lines at the end of the show, giving some information about how Jack's grave had supposedly been found and the debate surrounding it, would have been good.

Barrie

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The manner in which one of the biggest jingoists of the war was turned into a victim - Rudyard Kipling

He was hardly alone in his support of the war and surely in losing a son he was as much a victim of the war as any other parent who suffered in the same way (whatever their class or beliefs) - or do you have to hold certain beliefs in order to have feelings??

Neil

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Neil,

I won't answer your point as I don't feel the need to. However, if you are going to use a quote from me, then please use the whole sentence so that it is taken in context.

Thank you.

Aye

Tom McC

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Bill,

I have similar thoughts. The sea-change in Rudyard Kipling was not sufficiently portrayed, nor his need for closure which I don't think was ever reconciled, and maybe acounted for his work with the IWGC. A golden opportunity was missed.

Aye

Tom McC

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I missed it; when is it being repeated?

S

I didn't watch it. The thought of Harry Potter going over the top was enough to put me off. I did watch a programme on the History Channel that followed the fortunes of Newfoundlanders who fought on the Somme. Heartbreaking.

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I missed it; when is it being repeated?

S

I sure it will be repeated again. If you can't wait, the DVD is available shorty (19th Nov).

My Boy Jack

Lyndon

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Having firmly left my Anorak in the hall, I found it very good indeed. What's more my wife who doesn't possess a WWI anorak also enjoyed it. I thought David Haig portrayed Kipling senior very well (I've mainly seen him in comedy so I was plesently surprised at the performance). I also thought Daniel Radcliffe did a sterling job as John Kipling (didn't think of Harry Potter once whilst watching). I'm glad that the story didn't venture into the area of John's last resting place & the conflicting views on this as I think it would have detracted from the part of the story it did actually portray. As someone who didn't like the Holt's book of the same title I was just happy that the segments I disliked the most in the book didn't surface in the programme (I appreciate that the Television film was based on the play rather than the Holt's book but I was worried all the same).

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Haig`s representation of Jack as a popular platoon commander and crack shot who died a heroic death doesn`t seem to quite chime with previous suggestions on the GWF. Was there factual basis for this representation?

On a general point, I`m always surprised to see nomansland shown as smothing like a hillocky scrapyard. They may be right, but I imagined there to be very little in nomansland once you`d cleared the wire. And flattish with shellholes.

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I haven't seen 'My Boy Jack' although it's sitting on the recorder waiting to be viewed.

However, the BBC's programme about Wilfred Owen which was screened early yesterday evening was pretty much as good as they come. Well done to Jeremy Paxman for hitting exactly the right tone, not being afraid of having an opinion and knowing his stuff. Well worth catching if / when it's ever repeated.

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On a general point, I`m always surprised to see nomansland shown as smothing like a hillocky scrapyard. They may be right, but I imagined there to be very little in nomansland once you`d cleared the wire. And flattish with shellholes.

Reading accounts of life in the lively sectors of the line where ground was continually being fought over, no man's land appears to have been littered with discarded equipment, weaponry, bodies (and/or bits of) in various stages of decomposition, barbed wire heaped in piles by shell fire and general detritus. You'd also have to factor in to this scene churned, oozing mud (depending on the weather conditions), mine craters (with high standing lips) and shell holes.

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