GusF Based on Winston Churchill's 1930 autobiography "My Early Life: A Roving Commission, this is an excellent and engrossing account of the early life of the future British Prime Minister. It has a very strong script by Carl Foreman, a previously blacklisted American screenwriter whose other works include "High Noon", "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "The Guns of Navarone", which hues closely to the historical facts. I have seen several reviews criticising the film for being confusing for jumping around in time but I had no such problem. It begins with a depiction of Churchill's service as a cavalry officer in India in 1897 before dealing with his childhood. I have not read "My Early Life" but I have read other autobiographies and biographies which begin with an exciting moment from the subject's life before dealing with his/her life in a more linear fashion so I don't see what the problem is, frankly. The film is very well directed by Richard Attenborough, my favourite director of all time. It makes great use of the locations from Churchill's birthplace Blenheim Palace (which I have visited) to Morocco and the action scenes, particularly the armoured train escape, are very exciting.In his first leading role and his biggest film role overall, Simon Ward gives a fantastic performance as the title character. He is exactly as you would expect Churchill to be and, in fact, was at that age: enthusiastic, extroverted, determined, arrogant and full of vaulting ambition. The film portrays Churchill as a good and decent young man but he is far from perfect as he occasionally gets in over his head and make impulsive decisions, a trait that he inherited from his father. The older Churchill, voiced by Ward in a very good impersonation, serves as the narrator and openly says at one point that his military service and work as a war correspondent were designed to increase his profile so that he would ever a better chance of being elected to Parliament. I don't know if this is a direct quote but, in any event, it is a refreshingly honest tact for the film to take. During two speeches, one to a reporter and one in Parliament, Ward perfectly captures Churchill's inflections and the theatrical manner in which he often spoke in public.Robert Shaw is excellent as his father Lord Randolph Churchill (a role originally offered to Attenborough himself), who is depicted as an emotionally distant father who spends little time with Winston. The older Churchill says that they only had three or four in-depth conversations in their lives and I have no trouble believing that. While Randolph would be considered neglectful in an emotional sense these days, this was a pretty common state of affairs among the British upper class in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. At the beginning of the film, Randolph is a young and strong man who has a bright future ahead of him and speaks very well in the House of Commons. However, after he is diagnosed with syphilis, he goes into a steep mental and physical decline and his final speech in Parliament is very moving as he repeats himself and stumbles over his words constantly due to his condition. Anne Bancroft has the largest role of any woman in the film as Churchill's mother Lady Randolph and is likewise extremely strong. Lady Randolph is depicted as a supportive mother but the older Churchill says that he loved her from a distance like the sun. She does her best to keep him on the straight and narrow when he spends more money than he has and tries to stop him from throwing his career away as his father did.As is typical of Attenborough's films, the film has a very strong supporting cast such as Pat Heywood as Churchill's devoted nanny Mrs. Everest (who was more of a mother to him than Lady Randolph), John Mills as Lord Kitchener (as in Attenborough's first film "Oh! What a Lovely War", Mills is cast against type as the closest thing that the film has to an individual antagonist), Ian Holm as "The Times" editor George E. Buckle, Anthony Hopkins as Lloyd George, Edward Woodward as Captain Aylmer Haldane, Patrick Magee as General Bindon Blood and Laurence Naismith as Lord Salisbury. It also features many great actors in smaller roles such as Peter Cellier, John Woodvine, Basil Dignam, John Stuart, Attenborough's brother-in-law Gerald Sim, Colin Blakely, Julian Holloway, Thorley Walters, Norman Rossington and Robert Flemyng. The director's then daughter-in-law Jane Seymour has a very early role as Churchill's love interest Pamela Plowden while the film features one of the final roles of Jack Hawkins, who died the next year. As was often the case in his later years, he was cast in a role that did not require him to speak as he had unfortunately lost his voice due to throat cancer and the removal of his larynx.Overall, this is an excellent film which does a great job of exploring the early life of the one of the most important politicians of the 20th Century.

Prismark10 Young Winston is based on Churchill's autobiography and therefore has a whiff of horse manure about it as he inflates his own importance in events. After all Churchill was more complex and complicated and in World War 2 he ended up being the right man at the right time but only in recent years do we see archive footage of him looking worse for wear with having a few drinks too many and this was during wartime.Only in the last few years I have seen sound recording footage after Britain had been victorious where Churchill was being booed by the crowd. I need not remind you that in the 1945 election held after victory in Europe, the Conservatives were soundly beaten by the Labour Party. Something was not quite right as the history books would have you believe.In this films directed by Richard Attenborough we see his distant relationship with his father, Lord Randolph Churchill marvellously played by Robert Shaw. His difficulties at school, his reckless behaviour in the military before he turns his ambitions to journalism and then politics.The film has flashbacks as well as scenes of various characters being interviewed by an unseen interrogator. I saw a version of the film many years ago that contained a dream sequence where an older Winston has a conversation with his father which is very moving. A recent version of the film has this scene edited out which robs the film of a lot of pathos.The film is handsome, finely mounted, well acted, Attenborough almost makes Churchill look like a prototype Indiana Jones with his military escapades but it has all the markings of a bio pic made a few years after the death of a subject widely regarded as a hero and whose flaws were swept under the carpet.You will never see this version of Churchill nowadays or at least I hope note.

Steffi_P In the second half of the twentieth century the biographical epic came into its own. The past hundred years had thrown up a lot of inspirational figures in politics and war, and as that generation of heroes began to die off, and the big motion picture developed an intimate streak, high-budget biopics became a matter of course. And, like anything that is produced often, there soon becomes a standard way of doing it.The writer of Young Winston was Carl Foreman, of High Noon and Bridge on the River Kwai fame. He had a strong starting point – the writings of Churchill himself, full of the man's sense with words and subtle humour. Foreman structures the first book of Churchill's biography into a coherent and entertaining screenplay – sensibly opening with a burst of action from a period in Churchill's adulthood, which not only hooks the audience but also gives us a promise that this adventuresome time will be returned to later. This is especially important since there are moments in the first hour or so where Young Winston threatens to become a dry, domestic biography. But Foreman makes an error in his striving to get various supporting details across. There are several of these bizarre "interview" segments, where major characters are grilled by an unseen questioner, clunkily breaking up the flow of the story. The revelations in the interviews are important, but a writer of Foreman's calibre should have known better and woven them into the regular narrative.Foreman also produced, and he selected Richard Attenborough on the strength of his debut Oh! What a Lovely War. Attenborough seems perhaps a little overwhelmed by all the gadgetry of a larger production. His work looks pretty, but doesn't seem to have much point to it, especially the many slow zooms which become a little irritating. Still, there is his ability to create memorable and iconic imagery, both of actors and of landscapes. He also takes care to make the final shot of one scene dovetail somehow into the first shot of the next. For example a slow tilt upwards following Anne Bancroft on a staircase cuts to an opposing downward tilt to bring us in on the teenage Churchill's speech in the school hall. Such smooth linking devices are useful in a picture like this that has many sudden changes in place and tone.Attenborough was apparently also chosen for his ability to pick a decent cast. He pushed hard for Simon Ward in the title role, and on the whole made a good choice. The fresh-faced Ward deftly depicts Churchill's transition from eager teen to levelheaded military officer. However his adoption of the real Churchill's famous mannerisms and speech patterns in the final scenes verges on the ridiculous. Anne Bancroft gives a steady performance as his mother, although she is perhaps too good at playing cold-hearted women, and when her character's tenderness begins to sour towards the end of the picture it suddenly appears Lady Churchill is going to turn into Mrs Robinson. The finest turn is that of Robert Shaw as Winston's father. He makes Lord Churchill's descent into syphilis-induced dementia poignantly real – you can see the man he was in there still, disintegrating. There are also plenty of big name cameos, but frankly these are far too brief to be of any note or impact on the picture.So, altogether a mixed-bag of a life story. Everything we need to know is there, it just seems that on all accounts this was not a very cohesive effort, in which script, performances and general production have no particular aim or arc. As such, there are some great set pieces, and considered in bits most of Young Winston is very well done. As a whole however, it has neither the sweep nor the power to give us the impression of a life lived.

intelearts Young Winston definitely shows Attenborough on a large scale - one can see where some of the crowd scenes in Gandhi came from - and is a cracking film.Entertaining from start to finish with a riveting performance from Simon Ward, who never quite reached these heights again and went on to light adventure roles like the Duke of Buckingham in the Three Musketeers.All in all, this is history light, but it completely watchable. It cleverly mixes the battle scenes and the politics to produce a Boy's Own adventure with great costuming and nice attention to details.Helped along by an excellent all-star cast you can't really go wrong if you like adventure history films - the last half hour is superb, and a two hours long it doesn't waste time but never rushes.Great fun, and just serious enough to remind you why the Churchill myth, rightly or wrongly (and the film never touches the darker side of Churchill) meant that in 2003 he was voted the greatest Englishman of all time.