Customer Reviews

Young Winston [VHS]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the story of Winston Churchill from his troubled boyhood up until he emerged on the scene in Parliament as a young man. Anne Bancroft stars as his mother, Jenny, and Robert Shaw as his father, Sir Randolph Churchill. Bancroft's character is less promiscuous than was Churchill's real mother. Shaw, however, captures the distant relationship between father and son and accurately portrays the elusive Parliamentary leader.

The young actor portraying Winston joins them in an excellent performance. He balances Churchill's raw ambition with his overwhelming sense of honor and high calling. He foreshadows, but does not overplay, the speech patterns and unique orating style of the future Prime Minister.

Winston Churchill's early years make for a fine movie. By all rights young Winston should have been an upper class twit or a hopeless depressive. Although born in a palace he had a childhood none of us would want. His parents were terrible as the movie plainly shows. Her father was a brilliant, complex man and is wonderfully portrayed by Robert Shaw (Quint from Jaws and Red Grant in From Russia with Love). On his good days Lord Churchill is a distant father, and a poor husband but Robert Shaw makes you care about him when he destroys his career and you pity him when his mind starts to decay.

The late Anne Bancroft plays Jenny Churchill who although one of the most beautiful and charming women in England was a somewhat negelctful mother who didn't seem to pay attention to her son until he was grown and began to pull away from her.

Then the movie goes from sad to funny to sad again. Teenaged Winston developes a brittle cocksureness that alienates quite a few people but is an effective cover and reaction to the crappy childhood he endured.

Finally, after his father's death Winston ungergoes a Henry V-esque transformation. The neglected, "dumb" kid becomes a soldier, briefly a POW, writer and then a politician who would eclispe everything his fahter ever did. Simon Ward does a great job of playing a Winston Churchill most of us are unfamiliar with. The costumes are great. The scenary is great. The battle scenes are disturbing. It's a worthwhile and entertaining film.

One of my favorite movies of this historical period, offering military history-buffs a companion piece to that great film The Four Feathers. Simon Ward, who plays the lead role, bears an uncanny resemblance to the real young Churchill. Robert Shaw is very convincing as Lord Randolph, as is John Mills in the role of Lord Kitchener. The film follows Churchill's formative years at home, school, military life, and politics. The outdoor camera work is superb. Especially memorable is the depiction of the last cavalry charge by the British Army, that of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman in 1898. I enjoyed the use of the narrative "voice" of the old, familiar Churchill to connect various scenes together. The technique is seldom employed nowadays but seems to suit that historical period, and one can almost imagine oneself sitting in Sir Winston's drawing room in the late stage of his life, enjoying a private brandy and cigar with him while listening to his tales of adventure. The story of how a neglected child of a British politician and an American beauty queen, physically abused and not very bright in school, watching his terminally ill father fade away while his family faces financial ruin, who finally finds something that he is good at and who lays the groundwork for ultimately becoming the leader of his nation. Now that is certainly a story worth seeing.

This movie belongs in every serious DVD collection, and should be enjoyed by every lover of great films, but, ironically, it is only available in Germany, not in England or America. The German DVD requires an all region DVD player, but any lover of film will have one of those -- how else to watch The African Queen, The Magnificent Ambersons, Robert Mitchum in Farewell My Lovely or Lawrence Olivier in Othello. The German DVD is in English, and uncut. But why is this fine and very entertaining movie not available in the US?

This is a very fine picture which follows very closely WSC's early autobiography 'My Early Years'. The book (and film) cover the years 1874 (YOB) to his first election to parliament in 1906, at age 26. I have used the film as an introduction to a 12 lecture course on this very remarkable man.

A laudatory, and long, biopic about the young Winston Churchill from childhood trough his years as a war correspondent in Africa during the Boer War and the rebellion in the Sudan, to his first election to Parliament. Director Richard Attenborough's attention to correct historical detail is deserving of kudos, for it can be so easy to fudge everything in favor of some sort of superhero tale. Robert Shaw and Anne Bancroft as perfect as Winston's father, Lord Randolph and his American mother, Jennie. And Simon Ward, as the older Winston, is marvelous. A side note on Attenborough: while any other director would simply have had Winston pack an ordinary revolver, Attenborough goes to the trouble to ensure that Winston packs the Mauser C96, a pistol Churchill wrote of in his memoirs quite fondly, as it saved his life on more than one occasion. This movie is testament to the fact that one can tell the facts correctly and still be most entertaining.

Young Winston is the story of Winston Churchill. It begins with him being sent off to school at about six, but spends much of its time with him as a young officer in the British Army. The best part to me was the episode during the Boar where he was captured and then escaped. I've been to the spot where he was captured and it was rendered very well in the movie. Indeed it was to see this event that I bought the movie and I was not dissappointed.

Although he had a craving for publicity and perhaps over stated his own abilities, he was certainly no coward.

They don't make movies like this anymore, and that's a sad fact. The movie recounts Winston Churchhill's life before he entered politics, and boy what a life he led before his 25th birthday! If Winston had never entered politics, he would still have gone down in history as a noted soldier/writer.

Winston saw it all. He was there in the 1897 punitive expidition on the northwest frontier of India when the area went up in flames. He was there too in 1898 in the Sudan when the Viceroy of India, Lord Herbert Kitchener, decided to take back Khartoum from the Mahdi forces, who 13 years earlier had taken Khartoum and killed General Gordon. During this campaign, Winston took part in the last charge of British cavalry! He was there in the Boer War (1899-1901). While helping British soldiers retreat from a Boer commando trap, Winston was captured, but subsequently escaped. Unknown to Winston during the time he was running from the Boers, his escape had turned him into a world celebrity. All the papers from America to Europe were speculating as to the fate of the young Winston. Those papers on the British side of the war were hoping his escape was successful, while those who favored the Boers were hoping for his re-capture. After three weeks on the run, Winston crossed into East-Portuguese territory and FREEDOM! Needless to say, when he ran for a second time for public office, he won, and Winston started the second part of his life, which is the part the history books and television shows like to concentrate on.

If you want a good but "light" version of W.S.C. life then this is a good place to start. I just wish that someone would do say like Manchestors books on him into a film. It is one hell of a good story that needs telling more now than ever. I frankly feel that Churchill will be rated the Man of the 20th Century and a sort of Cassandra to boot. He had that much vision into the future.

I saw this movie in the theater when it was first released. I am into history, so I really enjoyed the historical nature of the film. When I discovered that it was available in DVD, I jumped on it! Terrific performances by the late actors, Anne Bancroft and Robert Shaw. Of course, the young Simon Ward did a wonderful job as Winston Churchill. I'm pleased with the DVD in every way.