Young Winston [HD]

Fine bio pic
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...

Foreshadowing of Greatness
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.

Young Winston - Coming of Age in the Last Days of Empire
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...

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