Search - War of the Buttons on DVD

S.J. T. from FREDERICKSBRG, TX
Reviewed on 5/23/2018...

I think this is such an excellent movie - I saw it years ago on screen and have looked for years for a copy to watch it again in more detail. Thanks be to SwapaDVD!
This is a true story about class warfare going on within a "real" war, children of the more affluent community fighting with the poor boys of town during World War 2...something many of us might have experienced in our own home country...and has been going on for generations...shades of Romeo and Juliet, and of "West Side Story" if any of you readers are old enough to remember how the tensions of that "gang warfare" infected the whole coummunity, especially the girls and young women. Only this is a younger more "innocent" version, because rather than knives and guns, these young boys gang up on each other and cut the buttons off "losers" clothing...which gets them whippings from their parents, because clothing and even buttons are not easy to obtain in Europe in WW2.
Enter the girls as young seamstress rescuers...and loyalties switch back and forth as the girls are attracted to different boys, and vice versa.
My favorite combination in a story of humor and empathy carries my interest until the ugly reality enters as the Nazis approach the village, looking for a teacher reportedly hiding a young Jewish girl, and we all know from reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" how dangerous that crisis was to the town. Will the chilren's battles unknowingly endanger the lives of the local villagers? Can mere children understand the dangers and complexities of the cunning Nazi regime? Good story, and spell-binding at times!
I didn't realize when I saw it in a theater that it was a true story, but watch the ending through the credits, because it tells the "rest of the story" after the war ends, as far as the author knew it. Very interesting.