Reviews Archives - Page 11 of 11 - Richard M. Langworth

Great War — “With the grenadiers”: Churchill (seated, center) and fellow officers of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, Ploegsteert, Belgium, 1916. At WSC’s right is his longtime colleague in war and peace, Archibald Sinclair. (Creative Commons, Samleighton87)

A New Edition of “Thoughts and Adventures”

2 June 2009 Comments 0 Comments

An erudite new foreword and extensive footnotes instruct the modern reader by describing events, people and places no longer familiar. There is also a thick set of notes, on the origin of each essay, its titular and textual variations. In many cases we learn how it came to be written.Truly this is as eminent an edition of Thoughts and Adventures as we could hope to have—a tribute to the editor and Mr. Courtenay, as to the author. It serves inform future generations of Churchill’s political instinct, judgment, foresight and magnanimity.

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End of Glory: “Into the Storm” with Brendan Gleeson and Janet McTeer (2009)

2 June 2009 Comments 2 Comments

Into the Storm, a television drama broadcast by the BBC and HBO. Produced by Ridley Scott, directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan. Brendan Gleeson as Winston Churchill and Janet McTeer as Clementine Churchill. Screenplay by Hugh Whitemore.

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods…”
—“Horatius,” stanza XXVII in Lays of Ancient Rome, by Thomas Babbington Macaulay. Recited at the beginning and at the end of “Into the Storm.”…

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Baseball: The Summer of 1960

31 May 2009 Comments 1 Comment

As a sequel to 1960, let’s take 2019. See “Nats Win!”

Until 2019 I was a frustrated fan of the Washington Nationals, as I was the old Washington Senators. As a New York schoolboy in the Fifties, I’d go up to Yankee Stadium to root for the Senators when they were in town. Always wore my navy blue cap with the white block “W.” Big, scary Bronx voices would shout: “Hey, kid—the Washington section’s in the bleachers.”

The Senators were perennial heartbreakers, although in mid-1952 they were only five games out of first place and considered to be pennant contenders.…

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“The Last Lion” Volume III is Published

5 March 2009 Comments 98 Comments

Paul Reid has not written a biography, but rather an old-style “life & times” narrative with guns and bullets, political conniving, oft-repeated (but worth repeating) anecdotes, lovely touches of the personal, and the most important asset—a hero. It is a nice cruise down a rather lengthy river that you’ve sailed before. Still, it is a lovely and literate view of familiar territory that massages old stories, nurtures legends, and points gently to miscalculations and mistakes of the hero—who flawed though he was, remains a hero.

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Albert Finney in “The Gathering Storm”

2 March 2009 Comments 3 Comments

“The Gathering Storm,” a film for television produced by BBC Films and HBO Inc.. Starring Albert Finney as Winston Churchill and Vanessa Redgrave as Clementine. First aired April 2002, 90 minutes.

Churchill films seldom engender unanimity. But everyone who watched the preview, by kind invitation of the British Consul in Boston, had the same reaction. “The Gathering Storm” is really good. Even in a cynical and anti-hero age, filmmakers still can avoid reducing Churchill to a flawed burlesque or a godlike caricature. Except for huge gap in the story line, “The Gathering Storm” is outstanding.…

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