'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'

"What is it really about?"

That's a comment from a critic in 1943 when the film was release. Smack in the middle of World War II as London was getting bombarded by the Nazis.

For the time, it's an interesting film. According to legend, Winston Churchill did not like the movie and at one time almost stopped production and later tried to halt its distribution.

And no one knows why. Theories include maybe Churchill saw Clive as a caricature of himself. But no one knows for sure.

Anyway, it's tough to nail down just what the writers and director was trying to say here. About warfare or about England.

Clive, at worst, is naive. That's not so bad. And who was necessarily railing against having to fight the Nazis?

We perceive, now, World War II as being noble in that there was a distinct line between right and wrong. Although the enemy was legitimately wrong, war is never noble. Even if it means a monster is stopped.

Clive saw war as a means to an end, a necessary means to a necessary end. At the time, the directors nor Churchill knew about the ignoble wars that have jaded us about conflict, like Vietnam or the Gulf War. Still, how necessary were the conflicts in the United States or Africa for the British. Tons of sons and brothers died on both continents to maintain an unmanageable empire that clearly had an expiration date. That blood was spilt for nothing and that had to be maddening.

Fighting Nazis isn't wrong; war is. And without war, there aren't Nazis.