Enjoyed the flick for years but never noticed until today. When Coy A stops, it's like a compressing accordian instead of halting and marching in unison like a military unit is supposed to do (unless just straight up "halt" is given). See from 2:01 to 2:06
Well okay. There IS an "accordian" effect, but that would be due to a lack of a "halt" order or lack of a " mark time" order? The real thing that should bother you about this scene is the sheer difficulty of not only whistling in unison and staying in tune, but of reaching any sort of volume that can supposedly be heard from the distance that the camp inmates are shown to. I mean try it for yourself sometime. Even a large group will barely be heard by the people around them let alone anyone else at a distance. And while on the subject of "community whistling", in one of Spike Milligan wartime diaries he shows us an advertisement for BBC wartime radio program that invites listeners to do exactly that, whistle along with the show. From memory, Spike tells us that he looked forward to nothing better than a good whistle after a hard day's work, a tongue in cheek comment. Community whistling must have been a wartime thing that seems to have gone out of favour in postwar Britain and everywhere else for that matter. Whistling generally has to be done into a microphone to be heard at all by anyone outside of a radius of ten feet. I wonder if a modern revival is possible with the help of social media? In a group it will probably devolve into tuneless blowing of air, rather than the in time melody depicted for the film. And the brass band that joins in when they are marking time. Where did they appear from? For those interested, the lyrics to "Colonel Bogey" in wartime were changed somewhat, from I'm not sure what to... Hitler... Has only got one ball.. The other.. Is hanging on the wall. His mother... The dirty bugger.. Cut it off when he was small.. And NO..Adolf Hitler had BOTH testicles INTACT. It was Allied propaganda that his nether regions were somehow different to the average man. Bolshevik
The lyrics I know are: Hitler, has only got one ball, Goering has two, only they're very small Himmler, has something similar and Goebbels has no balls at all!
Hang on! They can't be the correct lyrics. The second line has too many syllables.. And the last line about Goebbels not enough syllables... So, to fit the tune with the correct amount of syllables in every line, we are left with... Hitler.. Has only got one ball.. Goering.. Has two but very small.. Himmler Has something similar And poor old Goebbels Has no balls.. At all!!! Sylliballically, that fits the tune. Try singing your version to the tune. It doesn't match up. Bolshevik I'm sure there were many wartime variations of this fine old marching tune. I wonder what the original lyrics were, and exactly from what period or battle did the tune spring from, and who was the composer? Wikipedia has a page on this. It's from 1914. The golfing term "Bogey" has a link to the composer and the tune itself. Marvelous what you turn up if you take the trouble to look! Modern media really does replace our memory! It's really is an information superhighway
Clean version from the '40s. Whistle while you work Hitler is a jerk Mussolini is a weenie so whistle while you work.
There is another variation on "Whistle While You Work" Whistle while you work Hitler is a twerp. He's half barmy.. So's his army.. Whistle while you work There was also a movie rescreened during wartime, no doubt for the morale boosting properties of the film, starring the indomitable Gracie Fields called "Sing As We Go". Spike Milligan attended a screening of it, and fell over laughing at a particular scene where the cast and extras rush the screen. Milligan quipped that they were all trying to get away from Gracie Fields as fast as possible. According to Wikipedia.... Andrew Marr, in "A History of Modern Britain", singled out "Sing As We Go" as an icon of British pop culture in the 1930s, concluding.. "Fairy tale or not, this is probably the worst film I have ever seen" While also states .. "The main them of this movie ( written by Allan Par Davies) was used by the comedy group Monty Python in a parody song called " Sit on My Face"." Well now, that particular track is from the Python record "The Contractual Obligation Album", and I have listened to the lyrics, which I will quote from memory. You might like to listen to "Sing As We Go" and sing along with these lyrics to the tune... Sit on my face.. And tell me that you love me. I'll sit on your face and tell you I love you too.. I love to hear you moralize.. When I'm between your thighs.. You blow me away!!! Sit on my face.. And let my lips embrace you.. I'll sit on your face and let my love be trueelee! Life can be fine.. If we're both 69.. And we sit on our faces in all sorts of places all day.. Till we're blown away!!!! And this ditty is followed by an announcement.. "This record has been skillfully crafted by British comedians using ancient classical well worn hand tooled jokes, and has been specially designed to sit at the back of your record collection amongst the old Frank Sinatra albums, to be brought out and split up when you get divorced. Any complaints about the humourous quality of this album should be addressed to British Airways, Ingram's drive, Greenwich."
