Waterloo (film)

Waterloo was a Soviet-Italian film of 1970, directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. It was the story of the preliminary events and the Battle of Waterloo, and was famous for its lavish battle scenes.

It starred Rod Steiger (portraying Napoleon Bonaparte), Christopher Plummer (portraying the Duke of Wellington) with cameos by Orson Welles (Louis XVIII of France). Other stars included Jack Hawkins as General Picton, Virginia McKenna as the Duchess of Richmond and Dan O'Herlihy as Marshal Ney, whom he closely resembled.

The film includes some fifteen thousand Soviet foot soldiers as extras and two thousand cavalrymen, some of which were cossack horsemen. Fifty circus stunt riders were used to perform the dangerous horse falls. These numbers brought an epic quality to the battle scenes. This is particularly true of the panning aerial shots of Marshal Ney's cavalry charging up and over the escarpment to break like a wave around the British squares. The slow motion section of the charge of the Scots Greys is a tribute to the painting "Scotland Forever!" by Lady Butler in Leeds City Art Gallery.

Plot

The film opens on Château de Fontainebleau in 1814. Paris is besieged by the Austrians and her allies. Napoleon Bonaparte (Steiger) is urged by his marshals to abdicate but he refuses, defiant. Then he hears that one of his last garrisons has surrendered, so he signs the document. He is banished to an island in the Mediterranean with a small army of 1,000 - Ney (O'Herlihy) calls it a honourable exile.

After a tearful farewell to the Old Guard, he is carted away, where he spearheads large reforms for 10 months until he escapes Royal Navy patrol and sails back to France. Ney, now under the allegiance of the restored Bourbon king (Welles) is asked to capture him at Grenoble. Ney agrees, eager to earn the respect of the court, who just the day before insulted his "low birth" wife by addressing her as "Madame" despite her title. He declares he'll bring Napoleon back to Paris "in a cage", to which King Louis says to himself it isn't necessary.

The two men meet on the road from Grenoble. Napoleon, sensing the mood of Ney's troops, goes forward unarmed and asks them if they really want to fire at him.

Instead they greet him with cries of "Vive l'Empereur!". Ney is instantly swayed and marches with him and his former soldiers. They return to Paris to a warm welcome by the people. King Louis has fled and the Hundred Days has begun.

Napoleon appoints Louis' former Minister of War, Marshal Soult Chief of Staff and he corresponds to the families of the deceased during the war and plans a campaign for the defence of France. He realises he will be attacked but genuinely offers peace to his enemies, who once more, ignore him and declare war.

Prussia and the United Kingdom's forces manoeuvre to counter Napoleon's expected thurst. The armies are not well coordinated and separate, to the joy of Napoleon who prepares to place his army between them and defeat one followed by the other.

Attention is now drawn to Wellington (Plummer), who attends a ball organised by the Duchess of Richmond, where Picton and other generals are present. One of his soldiers is engaged to her daughter, and the Duchess begs him to keep him away from the battlefield so she won't wear black before white as she puts it. The young officer declares he will bring back a cuirassier's helmet. Picton overhears and points out that if he ever meets a cuirassier, he'll be lucky to escape with his life, never mind a helmet.

The ball is interrupted by General Mueffling (John Savident), who announces that Napoleon has crossed the Belgian border at Charleroi, much to Wellington's displeasure. He realises that Napoleon has got between himself and Blucher's Prussians and is on the road to Brussels. Hastily looking at his map, he decides that they will meet at Waterloo.

The soldiers are now on their way to Waterloo. Attention then turns to Marschall Blücher (Sergo Zaqariadze) who is seventy-two years of age and yet he commands the Prussian army and re-buffs advice by General Gneisenau to retreat. Wellington has done so, but Ney joins Napoleon rather than preventing their consolidation, which has not occurred yet. Wellington arrives at Waterloo, and asks Blücher to join him in the battle but Mueffling wants a new horse to reach him. Wellington is not amused. Before this, an Irish soldier plunders a pig understandably for food. Looting is a capital offence but when Wellington catches him the looter claims the pig got lost and he was trying to find her relatives! Wellington tells Richard Hay:

I do not know what they do to the enemy, but by God, they frighten me!

Napoleon is in pain because of trouble with his stomach but when he is asked whether he wants the doctor, he refuses and following a few minutes, he orders his generals out of his outpost after going through tactics. A storm is raging outside with heavy rain pouring down.

The day of the battle dawns bright and dry. Napoleon invites his generals to breakfast, where they hear that the bell at the local church rings. The generals realise it's Sunday but are puzzled why the bell is ringing, with a battle looming. de la Bedoyère mentions the pastor is reluctant to stop the sermon.

Napoleon is in a happy mood compared to the night before but now the commander of artillery brings bad news. The rains of the night before make it impossible to maneouvre the French guns. The battle must be delayed until the ground dries. Napoleon, who agrees with Ney that they had fought with muddy boots previously, alone among his generals realises that each delay brings the Prussians closer. He is annoyed and leaves his breakfast to look at the battlefield.

The armies move into position opposite each other. Both commanders take turns to ride amongst their troops. Posonby marvels at the precision of the French formations, while Wellington refuses permission to an artillery officer to fire long range shot at Napoleon himself. "Leaders of armies have better things to do than fire at each other!"

The battle starts shortly after 11.30am with cannon fire from the French. Napoleon then sends a diversionary infantry attack against Wellington's right flank - the Chateau of Hougoumont - with the view to stretch the Allied line and to "see how good a general he (Wellington) really is". Welligton ignores this attack and keeps his line firm.

Napoleon sends the corps of the Duc d'Erlon up the ridge where Wellington's men are sheltering from the French guns. As they crest the rise they are locked in fierce fighting but are repulsed by British cavalry. Picton's troops plug a gap in the line but a French musket ball goes through his hat and enters his head, killing him. Meanwhile the British cavalry have chased the French all the way back to their lines but have become disorganised and blown. Napoleon sends his Polish lancers to attack them and William Ponsonby is killed after his horse gets stuck in mud.

As the battle proceeds Wellington re-organises his lines, moving them a few yards further back, so they are out of the reach of the French artillery. Ney sees the movement and believes they are retreating, so orders the French cavalry to advance on them. The Allied units form infantry squares to repel the massed cavalry attacks. A soldier by the name of Tomlinson (Oleg Vidov) loses his mind and wanders from his square and shouts out "Why do we have to fight each other?". He is later seen dead. Richard Hay rallies the faltering squares, urging his men to "think of England" before he is struck by a musket ball and killed, much to the upset to Wellington, a good friend.

The attacks are repulsed and the French have no fresh troops left, yet Napoleon can see that the cavalry attacks have weakened the Allied line. He determines that the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte is the key to the battlefield and orders its capture. After fierce fighting, a French flag flies above it and Napoleon asks Ney to tell Paris that the battle and the war has been won.

Napoleon now sends forward the Imperial Guard to smash the failing allied line. Wellington is desperate. He asks for "night... or Blucher!" but Maitland's Guards Division is on the reverse of the slope, lying down unseen in the grass, waiting for the French. Wellington calls out to him "Maitland - now is your time!". The Guards stand up and at point-blank range fire volley after volley at the French column.

At the same time the Prussians burst onto the battlefield with Bluecher's warning he will shoot any man he sees with pity for the French, and the Imperial Guard withdraws defeated, amid great consternation. French morale collapses and a general retreat begins, as Wellington gives the signal for a general advance.

The Imperial Guard forms squares to ward off the advancing allies as the French retreat quickly turns into a rout. To save their lives a British officer offers surrender terms to Cambronne (Yevgeny Samoilov), who replies with the famous "mot de Cambronne". Meanwhile, and a rare departure from real-life events, the British have bought up artillery under their flag of truce and now blast the French square, killing most in it.

In reality, as once the battle has been won, Blucher and Wellington met to signal the defeat of Napoleon, which is not seen in the film. ^[1]. Wellington is not cheered by his victory. As he surveys the battle scene he laments that "all my friends are dead!". When he sees that looters are already robbing the dead (they are scared off by gun fire) he remarks that "Next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won".

Meanwhile Napoleon, surrounded by Ney, de la Bedoyère and his marshals, is seen leaveing the battlefield in his coach, knowing that this time his days as Emperor, really have ended.

Trivia

• A four hour version is said to exist, but has not appeared, leaving a concise two-hour version.
• When Picton first speaks in the film, he speaks differently from later on (on the battlefield, he has a formal accent, before this he clearly lacks this). This denotes the dubbing made by Robert Rietty as Jack Hawkins lost his thorax to cancer.)
• Four interpreters were appointed for the director, so that his ideas would be understood better by the non-Russian actors.
• Plans for this film were laid as early as 1964, as the producer was searching for funding for a large Napoleonic War project. Mosfilm stepped in afterwards when it was clear American funding was out of bounds. So it is correct to think that the film is a "sequel" to Voyna i mir, proving how far Bonaparte went following 1812.
• The film was originally intended to star Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole but the start date for shooting was never convenient for the two stars to appear together. De Laurentiis attributed the poor performance of the film in certain regions to the lack of "star power" in the cast, despite Orson Welles' two cameo appearances.
• Terence Alexander has claimed the KGB monitored the non-Russian actors.

1. ^ A picture exists of Christopher Plummer talking to Sergo Zaqariadze, both as their respective roles

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