Film / Dad's Army (2016)

A 2016 comedy war film, based on the TV series but set somewhat later during World War II. Directed by Oliver Parker, it stars Toby Jones as Captain Mainwarning, Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson and Catherine Zeta-Jones as Rose Winters, a glamorous reporter.

In the spring of 1944, the Germans are trying to find out about plans for the forthcoming Allied invasion. They send one of the their spies to the southern coast of England. There, Captain Mainwaring of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard is suffering from a lack of appreciation for his work towards the war effort. While on a patrol, his platoon encounters Rose Winters, who tells them that she's in the area to write an article about them for a national magazine. Hilarity Ensues.

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This film provides examples of:

• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the original series, Mrs. Mainwaring is a profoundly unpleasant person who makes her husband's life a misery. In this film, she's a gruff but ultimately good-hearted character and she and George, while often bickering, do actually care about each other.
• Adaptational Wimp: In the original series, Hodges was a big, loudmouthed bully of a man who was always on the verge of a blustery rage. In this film, Martin Savage gives a much more downplayed performance than the late Bill Pertwee; his Hodges comes across as more of a sneering snarker.
• Adapted Out:
  • The Verger was one of the original series' biggest recurring characters but is nowhere to be seen here. Possibly justified due to his status as a Satellite Character to The Vicar and Hodges, both of whom were given smaller roles.
  • Private Sponge (the most prominent member of the platoon in the series who wasn't a main character) is also absent.
  • Other recurring characters from the series not to appear in the film include Captain Square, Mrs. Yeatman, and Mr. Bluett.
• Artistic Licence – History: Cissy and Dolly find out that Rose is the spy by making a phone call to Paris. That would have been impossible at the time due to Paris (and the rest of France) being under German occupation.
• Ascended Extra: Godfrey's sisters, Cissy and Dolly, were incredibly minor characters in the original series and were more often mentioned than seen. Here, they actually contribute to the story with their own sub-plot.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Captain and Mrs. Mainwaring. And, in a strictly platonic sense, Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson.
• Bait-and-Switch: During the climactic battle, Walker runs away. Mainwaring and Daphne both see this and are (respectively) appalled and ashamed. In actual fact, though, he's running to get his truck, which he uses as a makeshift battering-ram to attack the German position.
• Brick Joke: When not in uniform, Mainwaring deliberately dresses like Winston Churchill; Rose — seemingly the only person to notice — ingratiates herself by complimenting him on this. Later, he's wearing that get-up in the confrontation with the Germans on the beach (the platoon having scrambled into action so quickly that they didn't have time to change into their uniforms), causing confusion among the Germans, with some of them wondering if Churchill himself has come to fight them.
• Borrowed Catchphrase:
  • Near the beginning of the film, we see Hitler borrow the lines from the title song:
    Who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Churchill?
  • Mainwaring borrows Jones' "Don't panic! Don't panic!" when breaking the news that a Nazi spy is in Walmington.
• The Bus Came Back: Private Walker, who was written out of the original series following the untimely death of his actor, James Beck, is shown to have returned to Walmington-on-Sea by 1944 and resumed his duties with the platoon.
• Call-Back: Early on, we see a map room where arrows with swastikas on them are arranged pointing at Britain, just like in the opening credits of the original series. Similarly, the closing credits sequence begins with the caption: "You have been watching", followed by scenes of the various characters marching, with captions that show the actors' names but not their characters' names — just like in the original series.
• Canon Foreigner: Rose Winters was created just for this film. Most of the other characters are (or are based on) characters from the original series.
• Casting Gag: Ian Lavender, one of just two surviving members of the original cast, has a cameo role as Brigadier Pritchard, the regular Army officer in charge of the Home Guard units. In other words, the actor who played the most junior member of the platoon in the original series is now playing Mainwaring's superior officer.
• Chekhov's Gun: The mention by Daphne that Rose Winters's dress is Chanel. This leads the men to the discovery that she is the Nazi agent they're looking for - Cissy and Dolly Godfrey contacted the Chanel company, who confirmed that Rose is a regular customer from Berlin.
• Composite Character: Two of the supporting female characters appear to be this. In the original series, Walker had a pretty blonde girlfriend called Shirley (Edith in some episodes but played by Wendy Richard regardless of her name). Here, he has a pretty blonde girlfriend called Daphne. Likewise, Pike was sometimes shown to have a somewhat shy girlfriend called Ivy, whereas here he has a somewhat shy girlfriend called Vera.
• Contrived Coincidence: The fact that Wilson was Rose's tutor at Oxford.
• Distaff Counterpart: Building on a concept from the original series episode "Mum's Army", the platoon is shown to have a women-only Auxiliary Territorial Service support unit consisting of their significant others, led by Mrs. Mainwaring.
• Femme Fatale Spy: Rose Winters, who uses her feminine wiles to ingratiate herself with the platoon, find out vital information about the Allied invasion plans and cast suspicion on Wilson.
• Friend in the Black Market: Walker, as ever.
• Friendship Moment: Between Mainwaring and Wilson, at the end.
  Mainwaring: Touch and go, old friend. But we got there in the end.
  Wilson: Friend, sir?
  Mainwaring: [snapping out of it] Eyes front, shoulders back! You're a sergeant of the home guard, not a sack of potatoes.
  Wilson: Thank you, sir. You really are most awfully kind.
• Gallows Humour: When Jones is dangling from the clifftop, Frazer laments that he "never got his measurements" (for his coffin).
• Historical Domain Character: Oliver Tobias plays Admiral Canaris.
• Home Guard: The basis of the film, although — as in Real Life — its members are feeling somewhat under-valued as the war is very much going in the Allies' favour by 1944, rendering them surplus to requirements. The Home Guard was actually stood down at the end of that year, although not formally disbanded until several months after the war ended.
• Humble Hero: Averted; back in the original series, Godfrey had been awarded the Military Medal for bravery as a stretcher-bearer during World War I, but didn't wear the medal ribbon on his uniform. Similarly, Wilson and Frazer had both seem active service in WWI (respectively, as an Army officer and a Royal Navy cook) but didn't have the medal ribbons on their uniforms. In this film, they do.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When the platoon encounters the German landing party and the U-boat, they don't hesitate to take them on — and nor do their female counterparts in the ATS.
• Little Old Lady Investigates: After suspecting Rose isn't who she seems early on, Cissy and Dolly Godfrey have a little sub-plot where they do some research and make a few phone calls which in turn makes it so they are the first ones to discover that Rose is the Nazi spy in Walmington.
• Malaproper: Jones.
  Jones: Sir, I need to tell you something in complete continence.
• Man in a Kilt: Frazer proves that he's a true Scotsman by lifting his kilt and mooning at the Germans.
• Mistaken for Spy: Wilson falls afoul of this after Rose manages to convince Mainwaring that he's the spy, resulting in his arrest.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The platoon is sent to guard an Army camp which is actually a fake Army camp (with inflatable tanks) designed to trick the Germans into thinking that the Allies are planning to invade France via the Pas-de-Calais rather than Normandy. Naturally, they muck things up and ruin it, causing one of the inflatable tanks to float away.
• Out of Focus: Compared to the original series, The Vicar and Hodges barely have any screen time here and are reduced to only a few scenes each.
• Phony Veteran: Jones, of all people, is shown to be one of these. He confesses to Mainwaring that while he was in the Army and did go to the Sudan, he was in the catering division and not a frontline soldier. He started making up stories about being a frontline soldier when he got home, as he reckoned that no one wanted to hear stories about him making tea for the actual frontline soldiers.
• Real Event, Fictional Cause: After the group is tricked into destroying a mock invasion force intended to trick the Germans into thinking that the D-Day landings would take place in the Calais area, the Brigadier in charge (Ian Lavender in a Remake Cameo) admonishes them, saying that now they have to move their invasion back to June, which is when it happened in real life.
• Remake Cameo: Ian Lavender as the Brigadier.
• Retcon: Some elements from the original series are changed here:
  • In the finale, "Never Too Old", Jones married Mrs. Fox. Here, the two are merely courting.
  • In the lost episode, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker", Walker was called up to the Army but was quickly discharged due to him being allergic corned beef (a staple of Army rations in WWII). In the film, it is implied that this was all a lie ^note  although this was somewhat ambiguous in the series, as he also claimed at times to not be in the Army due to being in a reserved occupation as a wholesale supplier .
    Rose: You're young for the Home Guard, Joe. Didn't you enlist?
    Walker: Colourblind.
    Rose: Oh.
    Daphne: I thought it was an allergy to corned beef?
    Walker: Yeah, that an' all.
  • Late in the series' run, Pike received his call-up papers in "When You've Got to Go", only to be turned down due to having a rare blood group. Here, the reason given for Pike not being in the Army is that he has flat feet.
  • Most controversially, Jones' stories of fighting in the Sudan (as memorably shown via Flashback in "The Two and a Half Feathers") are revealed by Jonesy himself to have been lies — he was only in the catering division.
• Secret-Keeper: Jones confesses to Mainwaring that his old war stories were lies. Since he is still a Lance-corporal at the end, it can be assumed that Mainwaring decided to keep quiet about this.
• Soldiers at the Rear: Jones was in fact one of these in the Sudan.
• Spotting the Thread: Cissy and Dolly Godfrey are the only people to spot the flaw in Rose's story — but only because they're the only people in Walmington-on-Sea who read the magazine she claims to write for.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: During the climactic fight, Mrs. Mainwaring arranges for the ATS to provide covering fire from the clifftop. All of the ladies are knocked off their feet by the recoil from their rifles — which, given that the are non-combat support personnel who have probably never fired guns even in practice situations, is hardly surprising.
• Unseen No More: In the original series, Mrs. Mainwaring was an unseen character. Here, she's played by Felicity Montagu and runs the local ATS unit — and is just as pompous as her husband.
• The Vicar: Frank Williams, who made his name for playing one of the archetypal examples of this in the original series, reprises his role. The end credits even list his character simply as "The Vicar".

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