Saw "The Darkest Hour" today. What a great film. What a great leader. Spoiler alert:

[applegrove]

I loved the comment after Churchill's 'fighting on the beaches' speech that he had 'mobilized the English language'. Sums it all perfectly.

[oldtime dfl_er]

1. Originally spoken by

Edward R. Murrow. I had to look it up after seeing the film, because I too loved that line. Here's the source:

https://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/quotes-faq/

I found it kind of annoying that they chose to show Churchill as an all-day every-day drinker. It was an unnecessary exaggeration.

[applegrove]

3. Back in the day in creative fields people drank. Politicians, journalists,

Mad men, they all drank. AA wasn't as popular back in the day. People were less healthy.

That being said there was some questions as to intervening in churchill's drinking after the war. For god sake most said. Let the man drink. He deserves anything he wants at this point.

[Ron Obvious]

2. Loved the film, loved the acting...

Hated, just hated, the tube scene. I don't mind slight historical inaccuracies, such as giving the secretary a brother dying at Dunkirk, but I almost lost it at that ridiculous, misguided tube (subway) scene. Churchill, the aristocrat, rubbing elbows with the commoners in the tube who convinced him to never give up? Nonsense! A black man capping Churchill's Horatio at the Gate quote and Churchill, a bigot even by the standards of his day, listening respectfully and clasping his hand? Ludicrous!

And so totally unnecessary as the real story is more than fascinating enough without that farcical, Hollywoodesque nonsense.

[applegrove]

4. I found that scene to be the most exacting. Churchill was dyslexic. Dyslexics

Last edited Sun Mar 11, 2018, 09:01 PM - Edit history (2)

get their best information from primary sources...actual experiences. Not from reading or study. Or military expertise. So getting information from the people rings very true. Don't know if it was embellished in the tube scene but I have no doubt he got the best information on what to do for the people from the people. Remember Eleanor Roosevelt was FDR's eyes and ears on the people and she was dyslexic. Dyslexics have trouble learning complex human created fictions like banking or advanced university degree studies that are based on a wide body of expertise created by generations of experts. They are fantastic at facts on the ground in dynamic and real situations. Thinking laterally (civilian boats evacuating dunkirk) is also a dyslexic strength. I don't know about the black character. Had heard the same about Churchill and race. Though it was common in his time (remember it was the holocaust that ended the popular pastime of talking about eugenics). So maybe some poetic license but the scene rang my bell. Come to think of it everyone knows churchill was racist so maybe that character was added to add tension.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.cinemablend.com/news/1731500/did-that-pivotal-darkest-hour-scene-really-happen-joe-wright-fills-us-in

[CTyankee]

5. jBest line: "Coming out in a state of nature!"

And the young typist fled...

Gary Oldman deserved his Oscar. Helluva performance. Helluva of make up job on Oldman.

[applegrove]

6. Make up artist won the Oscar for Churchill. He also did the Grinch years

back. Really talented guy.

[MFM008]

12. Oldman is amazingly talented

As an actor.
That's why despite whatever he's done in his past,
Was set aside.

[CTyankee]

22. I never heard that but I'm out of touch.

Could you PM me with what that was about?

[MFM008]

23. His X wife claimed

Last edited Thu Mar 8, 2018, 01:09 AM - Edit history (1)

He hit her in the face with a telephone.
His oldest kid with her said it never happened.
There we are.

[applegrove]

24. Okay. I'll delete.

[Aristus]

14. "Sir, the Lord Privy Seal is on the telephone, and wishes to speak with you immediately."

"Tell the Lord Privy Seal that I am sealed in the privy, and can only deal with one shit at a time!"

[byronius]

7. I went with my daughter and blubbered through the whole thing.

I have to buy it and watch a few more times.

[applegrove]

8. I took it to my dad's nursing home and played it for him and his health care

aide. 20 minutes into it he said "can we buy this". I said we already own it. He was so cute. He's someone who had an LP of Churchills best speeches when I was growing up.

[byronius]

9. That particular period, that particular story, is just so intense for me.

I've studied it for years.

'Battle of Britain' does the same thing to me. Opening credits, I start snuffling. Powerful human history.

[applegrove]

10. I'm not a cryer at movies but yeah...out of the history of the world

that is a story I like the best. I think everybody does. My dad was a tween when his father was in Britain during WWII so he was greatly affected by the history. He had many books on WWII. And military history in general. I never read them. Listened to the album with a friend once as a teen. Am only now reading about WWII when I can stand to. Often it gives me the heebie jeebies when Hitler is the subject. Churchill is the most likeable of leaders. And so good with words. Never will there be another quite like him. What a unique character he is. Probably the funniest politician. Remember Lady Astor said to him: "if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee" He replied "if I was your husband I would drink it". Very 3D thinking. The movie was just perfect.

[applegrove]

11. If you are a fan of the Battle of Britain I have a story for you. A guy who grew up

down the street from my dad was quite a few years older. When WWII happened he ended up as a pilot who trained other pilots. By the end of the war he was flying Spitfires over the English channel. When he was 90+, 65 years later, a rich man in the neighbourhood bought a spitfire and offered to let him have a go. Obviously my dad's friend said no. I think when my dad's friend died the rich man got in that spitfire and did a flyby. Never knew the pilot or his family very well myself as my dad started going out for lunch with him after he retired. But he was revered for what he did. They all were. And they built quite the world after they came home from war. No surprise the conmen had to wait until almost every last one of the greatest generation were out of power or dead to make a play for world domination again. And so we find ourselves where we are. I keep telling Americans to fight and remember wisdom will come from all that pain as it did for the greatest generation. And with that wisdom the US will lead the world again.

[byronius]

13. Great story.

The Battle of Britain is one of those pivots in human history where the fate of the human species hung on the actions of a few flawed, exhausted, suffering men. The Best Story.

We're in one of those now, I think, just a new type. Robert Mueller is a warrior, and a lot is riding on his shoulders.

[sl8]

15. "An actor read Churchills wartime speeches over the wireless."

From https://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/myths/an-actor-read-churchills-wartime-speeches-over-the-wireless/

An actor read Churchill’s wartime speeches over the wireless.
By Sir Robert Rhodes James

The fact is that he did it, and no one else did it for him.

On June 4th, 1940 in the House of Commons, at the darkest moment in British history, Winston Churchill made one of the greatest speeches in the annals of oratory. It galvanised a hitherto skeptical Commons, and its superb use of language and spirit of defiance affected not only his fellow-countrymen but echoed around the world, not least in the United States. Wars are not won by speeches, but they are by leadership, and that speech gave the authentic voice of a confident leader who wanted to lead.

...

Allen Packwood of the Archives Centre replied that “there is simply nothing in our collections to prove it [but if Shelley recorded the speech on 7 September 1942, as the record label says, why did he do it? Churchill originally delivered the speech over two years earlier, and did not broadcast it (portions were read by a BBC announcer). Churchill did record the speech himself — at Chartwell after the war — and it was ultimately released by Decca Records…. the time lag makes it clear that Shelley did not record the speech to be broadcast when German invasion was imminent….It is a huge leap to say that, just because there is evidence he recorded this Churchill speech in 1942, that he delivered BBC broadcasts in the summer of 1940.”

...

Much more at link.

[applegrove]

18. Ah. I thought the cadence of Gary Oldman's "Never surrender" was

different that what we had on the Churchill album we had growing up.

[DuckBurp]

16. I thought the scene in which Churchill went into the Tube was terrific

He went there for transportation, but he ended up talking to the people and asking them what they thought. At first they were overwhelmed that the Prime Minister was taking the subway. They opened up to him and shared their thoughts, which was a pivotal point in helping him make up his mind. I don't know if that event was factual, but it sure was powerful.

[Ron Obvious]

19. It was absolutely not factual

Churchill wasn't interested in commoner's opinions and didn't suffer self-doubts in the first place. Terrible scene, pure Hollywood fantasy, IMO.

[DuckBurp]

20. So, I take it you don't know, either.

It's just a movie. Poetic license is allowed.

[Ron Obvious]

21. Not to this extent.

Making up a brother dying at Dunkirk for the secretary is one thing. The tube scene was completely ahistorical as well as farcical.

[applegrove]

25. Churchill was a man of the people as a dyslexic and I think that scene showed it.

Though you are right it was made up.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.cinemablend.com/news/1731500/did-that-pivotal-darkest-hour-scene-really-happen-joe-wright-fills-us-in