Les vainqueurs

This film opened in London in the winter of 1963 at a length of 175 minutes and was universally criticized for being too long. It did not generate much box-office interest in this initial engagement and, by the time it went out on general release several weeks later, it had been trimmed by a little over a quarter of an hour. As it was a film filled with brief (or prolonged) episodes of war rather than one continuing plot-line, it was easy to shorten the film by taking out one episode in its entirety - a story concerning a young French orphan who is unofficially adopted by the platoon, and who, as the soldiers are horrified to discover, has survived the German occupation by becoming a child prostitute. This role was played by the French teenage actor Joel Flateau, who was still prominently billed on the film's posters and in the opening credit sequence. The film did no better at the box-office, and vanished from sight in Britain for many years, until, in 2004, it began to appear again on British television, and also got a DVD release in the same period. The episode was not restored, however, and Flateau's name was now excised from the credits. The film was also now missing other scenes, notably a brief one where some British soldiers, finding a piano in a ruined building, sing the traditional army song, "The Long And The Short And The Tall" - not in the usual bowdlerized version, but with liberal use of the F-word, which here was used for the first time in an English-language film.

"Psst! Feind hört mit" meaning "Shh! Enemy is listening" appears in a scene on a wall. Then it changes to incorrect "Psst! Feine hört mit". Then it changes to the correct first version again.

Opening credits prologue: ENGLAND, 1942

Some prints run 156 minutes.

Edited into Bass on Titles (1982)