Churchill's Secret

The Brits do television so well. This is a classic example of that. The film covers the last years of Churchill's last term as prime minister after he had suffered a stroke. It's interesting that the filmmakers would focus on a bad period in the life of a national icon yet still pay great tribute to him while also staying historically accurate. (Can you imagine, for example, Hollywood doing a film based on Ronald Reagan's last years with Alzheimer's?) Nor did they sugarcoat Churchill's dysfunctional family. Randolph comes off as an arrogant, drunken jerk, which he was. There are superb performances all around. This is a very British and a very good motion picture!

This 100 minute long film was made for UK TV and stars the incomparable Michael Gambon as Churchill. It is 1953 and he has just suffered a second stroke. Proving that spin was alive and well even back then, the powers that be and the Tory party wanted to keep the truth hidden. So he is whisked off to his ancestral home to recover.

The film is based around the nurse who was drafted in to care for him – this is Ramola Garai ('Suffragette') who plays Millie Appleyard and she is both convincing and a lovely on screen presence. The drama unfolds around the International situation and the warming up of 'the Cold War' and domestic policies as well as the far too cosy a relationship Churchill had with the Newspaper moguls.

So is it any good? Well with a coterie of great actors it was always hard to make this fail. Lindsay Duncan plays Clemmie Churchill and is – as always- excellent. The massively talented Bill Patterson plays Lord Moran and we have 'Ripper Street's own Mathew Macfadyen playing Randolph Churchill at his swaggering best. The drama was never going to be edge of seat stuff but the performances are all solid enough to hold your attention. I actually really enjoyed it even though it could have been better, but I was hooked for the full run – recommended.

Michael Gambon as Winston and Lindsay Duncan as Clementine Churchill lead a good cast in a good recreation of the 50s and the hidden crisis that the United Kingdom had at the time. If you can imagine a situation where Barack Obama suffered a stroke and Joe Biden was also incapacitated with bad jaundice then you have some idea of what Great Britain was going through. And the media stayed silent.

After leading the Conservative Party to victory in 1951 Churchill two years later sustains a serious stroke and it's touch and go. Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary was considered the heir apparent, in fact he had even expected to lead the party in 1951, but patiently put his ambitions on a backburner.

Alex Jennings plays an increasingly impatient Anthony Eden who felt that Churchill had just stayed on and Eden was ambitious to have his turn at the top of the greasy pole. What you're seeing here concerning them is true enough. What is not shown is that when the torch passed Eden got himself and the country in a royal mess over the Suez Canal and his government barely lasted two years.

My favorite is Michael Macfayden as Randolph Churchill. Winston's only son was the belligerent drunken lout you see here. But like his three surviving sisters could never come out from so great a shadow. Oddly enough Winston's relationship with his father Randolph was somewhat the same.

The only equivalents I can see in our history was when Grover Cleveland had that cancer operation one of the very first performed in his second term and no one knew until 20 years later. Also Churchill's counterpart FDR spent an entire month during World War II almost in seclusion at Bernard Baruch's estate in South Carolina and the public never knew at the time. Roosevelt was in almost terminal exhaustion from war leadership and he would die within two years of that.

Churchill's Secret is good history for the viewer.

Surprisingly I enjoyed this more than some of the other movies about Churchill recently. Probably because it doesn't go over familiar ground that has been done to death. This movie concerns a stroke he had. His party's attempted to cover it up. Another interesting aspect is his children's reactions to his illness and recovery. It's not a flattering portrayal of his family life but as we do know there were some alcohol problems with his children.

Michael Gambon acts very well even if he isn't physically like Churchill as much as some of the other portrayals. Michael Macfayden steals some scenes as the belligerent drunk son. Lindsay Duncan is the most elegant looking Clementine of recent screen portrayals.

Worth a watch even if you think you have seen too many biopics about him.

The cast for this film was amazing. It's hard to have a declared spoiler as we generally know how the story ends from the history books. The movie allows a little glimpse into the internal family conflicts of the most famous Prime Minister in British history. I'll say that not enough explanation is given regarding concerns for Eden, who is barely visible in the film though he was arguably a major rival for the PM and trying to trip up the aging Churchill to make a name for himself. There's another movie that treats this aspect of Churchill's life more thoroughly. This film is more homey.