Marcus Peters (Adé Dee Haastrup) is a neatly dressed West Indian riding the London Underground on 28 May 1940. Whom should he meet but Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman)! The scene (fiction) forms a dramatic moment in Darkest Hour, Joe Wright’s great film on Churchill in 1940.

Churchill, per the movie, has entered the Underground for the second time in his life. (The first was in the 1920s, when he couldn’t find his way out and had to be rescued.) He goes there as the Germans are rolling up Europe. He wishes to ask “the British people” whether they should fight on or make peace. After all, he tells them: “We might, if we ask very nicely, get very favorable terms from Mr. Hitler.”

To a man and woman they shout defiance. “Never surrender!” Their response brings tears to the Prime Minister’s eyes, and he begins reciting from Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome. “Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the gate: To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can men die better, than facing fearful odds….”

Marcus Peters then completes the verse: “For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods.”

Grown men and women tell me they wept over that scene. Me too. Macaulay’s words, I wrote, were so commonly taught in British schools then that even West Indians knew them. I thought it a deft touch, hauntingly moving. Not everybody agreed.

Oh dear, can’t have that

In “Brexit Mythmaking and Imperial Legacies in ‘Darkest Hour,’” Robert Knight links my review of the film, writing:

Macaulay’s Lays became standard fodder for several generations of public school boys, in Britain and the Empire. But the optimistic claim by Richard M. Langworth of The Churchill Project, in his review of Darkest Hour, that they were part of “an education British subjects of all stations once received” merely reinforces the myth of multicultural British equality…. drawing a line from Macaulay’s Whig imperialism to Churchill’s heroic wartime resolve to the current moment of Brexit…. Marcus Peters is an improbable creation [who] not only transforms Churchill into a purported multiculturalist, but also mutates Europe’s role from Britain’s ally against Nazi Germany into an obstacle or irrelevance to British victory.

* * *

I read all this in some perplexity. What European allies against Nazi Germany? None were left. My review said nothing about Brexit or “Imperial Legacies” or multiculturalism. In fact, in the film, neither did Winston Churchill—nor the subway rider, Marcus Peters.

Why can’t that scene be accepted without reference to skin color—representing the spirit of the people at that time? Two reasons: 1) Some of us simply cannot stop thinking in terms of racial stereotypes. 2) Some always have to think the worst of Western civilization.

Does Mr. Knight know for a fact that Macaulay was taught only in upper class British prep schools? Of course not. What is the evidence? I have some.

I bicycled for many years with a dear friend on Eleuthera, Arrington McCardy. He attended only island schools—yet he knew Macaulay. Marcus Peters (and indeed his actor Adé Haastrup) is Jamaican. Were young Jamaicans taught Macaulay, like young Bahamians back then? I wouldn’t bet against it.

So much for counterfactuals. More serious is Knight’s charge that Marcus Peters is “improbable.” Surely no black person then in Britain, he implies, would care whether the Nazis won. Why not? Because they’d been exploited for generations by the rapacious British Empire?

Much has been published to support that theme, which is “too easy to be good.” From the Bengal Famine to World War II ardor, the peoples of the Empire have been badly misrepresented.

Sheer Artistry: The Underground scene

Of course, Churchill in 1940 never had to ask average Britons whether to fight on. He knew their sentiments from their cheers in the streets—later shouting from their shattered homes, “Give it ’em back!” He knew from letters, newspapers, radio—if not from polls, which he ignored.

Carping historians have quoted unrepresentative surveys known for malcontents. Churchill’s Gallup approval rating in August 1940 was 88%. “It was a nation and race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion heart,” he said later. “I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.” (N.B.: When Churchill said “race” in such contexts he meant the English-speaking peoples, not white folk.)

Why is the fictitious Underground scene important? Because, I think, it conveys in a few minutes the national mood that backlit Churchill’s leadership. It is admirably played by gifted actors, but Mr. Haastrup’s Marcus Peters is in a class by himself.

Alone among the subway car’s occupants when the Prime Minister enters, Marcus Peters is amused. The others respectfully rise. Marcus chuckles, conveying the improbable humor of it all. As each passenger tells Churchill to fight on, Peters chimes in: “They’ll never take Piccadilly!” Finally, he completes Churchill’s recitation of Horatius at the Gate.

The train pulls up at Westminster station, and Churchill exclaims, “It’s my stop.” He leaves to address his outer cabinet—and that event did happen. “If this long island story of ours is to end at last,” he told them, “let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”

That was it. Britain would fight on. Darkest Hour reminds us of the words of Charles Krauthammer. “Victory required one man without whom the fight would have been lost at the beginning.”

Don’t mess with Marcus Peters

There are other things wrong with Mr. Knight’s article. He equates Macaulay’s 19th century racism to that of Churchill. He cites “Churchill’s indifference to Indian suffering” in the Bengal Famine, and suggests the film is an ad for Brexit. That may be Mr. Knight’s schtick, but it’s not mine. And plenty has been said in defense of Churchill to those charges.

For example: This is the same Winston Churchill who in 1899 argued with his Boer jailer in Pretoria about equal rights for black Africans. This is the Churchill remembered kindly by Gandhi for his efforts to ease inequalities for Indians in South Africa. The same Churchill during WW2 said Americans could segregate their black soldiers if they liked, but not the British. It’s the Churchill without whom the Bengal famine would have been worse. And the Churchill who wrote of the 2.5 million-volunteer Indian Army: “the response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers, makes a glorious final page in the story of our Indian Empire.” Read the evidence. If you still want to call Churchill a racist, by all means do. But first “dig a little deeper.”

In the meantime, isn’t it possible for fair-minded adults to view the Underground scene the way Darkest Hour intends us to? As exemplary of a nation that never despaired, no matter how bad the news? As a people who stayed in the fight until, as Churchill said, “those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready”?

I hope so. In the meantime: don’t mess with Marcus Peters.

Video (click here)

Aside from the links above, here is an insightful Hillsdale College discussion of Darkest Hour between actor Gary Oldman, producer Douglas Urbanski and Hillsdale President Larry Arnn.

Update for 2019

Assault and battery…

* * *

* * *

Nearly forty years ago an equally great Churchill performance, Robert Hardy in The Wilderness Years,  was received with equal acclaim by press and public. Most importantly, there was no chorus of hate, no trumped-up charges, no hint that Churchill’s overall record was in anything except positive. Alas times have changed.

Hour of trial and triumph

Darkest Hour, a film by Focus Features, directed by Joe Wright, starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill,and Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill, 2hrs 5 min, December 2017.

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…”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay

 I finally saw Darkest Hour on February 16th. The delay had not stopped me from cheekily pontificating to The Australian, weeks earlier when they asked about certain scenarios. I have no changes of opinion, but an important elaboration. Unexpectedly, I found the fictitious scene of Churchill in the London Underground tremendously moving.

Star of the show is Gary Oldman, who deserves every accolade. Heretofore I thought Robert Hardy unmatchable as a Churchill actor. I believe now there is a tie. Robert himself was confident, before he died, that Oldman would make a superb WSC. He was right. Equal praise to the ingenious make-up artist Kazuhiro Tsuji, who came out of retirement to bring Churchill back to life. Kristin Scott Thomas plays an excellent Clementine.

The late Elizabeth Layton, a faithful wartime secretary, would love her portrayal by Lily James. A minor clanger: Elizabeth was not present in May 1940; she did not join Churchill’s staff until May 1941. I feel sure she was selected because of her vivid impressions of WSC, repeated in the movie, from her book, Winston Churchill by His Personal Secretary.

Convincing and fun

The script adds depth to the character by weaving in quips. (“All babies look like me” … “Stop interrupting me when I am interrupting” … “I can boil an egg. I’ve seen it done”). The rest of the cast is fine. I feel sure Lord Halifax, “The Holy Fox,” was not the lowlife portrayed by talented Stephen Dillane. The scenes of wartime London are convincing (though by 1940 vehicles had blinkered headlights).

Churchillians will find nits to pick over certain facts, a few misquotes, and various shortcuts made to set a scene or conduct the narrative in the rapid way movies must. This has not detracted from the film’s impact on the public, which has been positive. As I wrote, Mr. Oldman hasdwon the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. His eloquent acceptance speech honored many, but did not omit his own hero, Sir Winston. He later won the  2017 Best Actor Award from the Motion Picture Academy.

Grand climacteric

In Darkest Hour the action builds like a symphony. As the situation grows ever more desperate, the Prime Minister falls into lassitude (as in fact he did), thinking he may have to seek peace with “That Man.” King George VI tells him to ask the people and take his cue accordingly. So he does—abandoning his limousine and darting into the London Underground!

In reality, of course, while Churchill had respect for the people, he needed no prompting. If he had led a government of one, he would have gone down fighting. Nevertheless, Darkest Hour takes us into the Underground. The result is electric. Tears come to the eyes. Churchill would call it “a grand climacteric.”

In a rushing subway car, the Prime Minister confronts his public. One of them, “Marcus Peters” (Ade Haastrup), might be from the Caribbean. Churchill begins to recite Macaulay (top of this article). He hesitates, and Peters completes the stanza: “…For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods…”

Marcus would know Macaulay

What stunned me was the thought of Churchill’s Macaulay being known to and memorized by a man from the distant reaches of the Empire—a shared heritage, from an education British subjects of all stations once received. It’s akin to Churchill’s broadcast reply to Roosevelt in 1941, quoting a poet he didn’t have to name, since every English schoolchild knew: “Westward Look, the Land is Bright.”

Cynics have a different take. “It was just political correctness, since there are no other minorities in the film…. Dunkirk was criticized for its lack of minorities or women. Darkest Hour is avoiding that mistake.” Well, if that was Darkest Hour’s intent, it is all right.

The tube scene is marvelous fiction. It perfectly symbolizes the courage of Londoners, as Churchill described them later…. “ Their will was resolute and remorseless and, as it proved, unconquerable…. It was a nation and race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar. ”

“Genius exacts its high price”

My impression continued through the theatrical but effective way Churchill scribbles the tube people’s names on a matchbook, then blends them into his May 28th speech to the outer cabinet. That oration clinched his support to fight on, whatever the outcome.

It was not recorded; nobody knows exactly what he said. It leads us to Darkest Hour’s final scene, in the House of Commons six days later—the greatest speech of his life, until then. “Fight on the beaches…fight in the fields, and in the streets…Never surrender.”

In an introduction to a volume of Churchill’s 1931 speeches on India, the scholar Manfred Weidhorn captured the message Darkest Hour in its own way conveys:

If Churchill had been amenable to prudence in 1931, he would have spared everyone embarrassment, but that same prudence would have dictated in 1940 negotiations with Hitler. Only the pugnacious mule of 1931 could see his way through the impossibilities of 1940. A more civilized, common-sensical soul like Halifax did negotiate with Gandhi. And, had Halifax rather than Churchill been made prime minister on 10 May 1940, he would have certainly negotiated with Hitler. Genius exacts its high price. If we like the way 1940 turned out, we have to comprehend 1931.

After more than our share of historical clangers recently, Churchill admirers can welcome all this movie offers. Unlike any recent production, it genuinely honors the heroic memory. And that’s a special thing these days. Give Gary Oldman, the cast and producers a tip of the hat.

No doubt some people also wonder if it rains up.

Fair and Balanced?

Mr. Blackwell makes a weak effort at balance, quoting Arthur Herman, eminent author of Gandhi and Churchill. “Absent Churchill,” Herman says, “Bengal’s Famine Would Have Been Worse.” He lists the true causes of the Bengal famine—which were many and varied—and Britain’s efforts to relieve the plight of Indians. These words deserve more ink than they get.

The rest of this piece mostly relies on a discredited 2010 book which failed to look at context and sources. And a historian who thinks perhaps that Churchill “didn’t prize the lives of people in Bengal very highly.” To vapid assertions not backed by fact, Churchill’s biographer Sir Martin Gilbert used to say, “Perhaps not!”

I was part of the editorial team on The Churchill Documents, Volume 19, Fateful Questions, September 1943 to April 1944 (2017). Numerous entries show that Churchill and the War Cabinet did their utmost to relieve suffering among Indians. This included shipping 350,000 tons of Australian wheat. They even offered Iraqi barley, but were frustrated to find that Indians wouldn’t eat it.

Documentary Evidence

The War Cabinet acted quickly on the danger to Indians.  On 4 November 1943 Churchill acknowledged Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s offer of Canadian wheat. This, he said, would take “at least two months” to reach India. Instead he was relying on Australian wheat,w hich would take only “three to four weeks.”

In early 1944 the British Empire exhausted its sources of food relief. Churchill turned to President Roosevelt. Desperately he appealed for help (which FDR denied, saying America, too, had insufficient shipping). Churchill wrote:

I am seriously concerned about the food situation in India and its possible reactions on our joint operations. Last year we had a grievous famine in Bengal through which at least 700,000 people died….By cutting down military shipments and other means, I have been able to arrange for 350,000 tons of wheat to be shipped to India from Australia during the first nine months of 1944. This is the shortest haul. I cannot see how to do more.

We have had much hesitation in asking you to add to the great assistance you are giving us with shipping but a satisfactory situation in India is of such vital importance to the success of our joint plans against the Japanese that I am impelled to ask you to consider a special allocation of ships to carry wheat to India from Australia…. have resisted for some time the Viceroy’s request that I should ask you for your help, but…I am no longer justified in not asking….

To the War Cabinet, Churchill said “his sympathy was great for the sufferings of the people of India.”

Does any of this sound like a war criminal?

Further evidence of Churchill’s efforts are cited in detail by the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

“I hate Indians…”

Frustrated once with Delhi officialdom, Churchill exclaimed, “I hate Indians.” In modern convention, that is an offence of genocidal magnitude. But it is hardly dispositive. In his World War II memoirs he wrote quite differently about Indians:

But all this is only the background upon which the glorious heroism and martial qualities of the Indian troops who fought in the Middle East, who defended Egypt, who liberated Abyssinia, who played a grand part in Italy, and who, side by side with their British comrades, expelled the Japanese from Burma…. The loyalty of the Indian Army to the King-Emperor, the proud fidelity to their treaties of the Indian Princes, the unsurpassed bravery of Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu, shine for ever in the annals of war….

Upwards of two and a half million Indians volunteered to serve in the forces, and by 1942 an Indian Army of one million was in being, and volunteers were coming in at the monthly rate of fifty thousand…. the response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers, makes a glorious final page in the story of our Indian Empire.

A little more balance would be welcome at the Vancouver Sun.

Walter Henry Thompson 

…was Winston Churchill’s protection officer and detective, on and off between 1921 and 1945. They had many adventures together, and Thompson wrote four books about his experiences. The first, Guard from the Yard (1938, now very rare) involved Churchill and others whom Thompson protected.

After World War II, Thompson published I Was Churchill’s Shadow (1951), Sixty Minutes with Winston Churchill (1953), and Assignment: Churchill (1956). He promoted them enthusiastically, with many book signings. As a Churchill bookseller, I used to describe a pristine copy of Sixty Minutes as “the rare unsigned edition.”

In 2005, Sixty Minutes was recently republished as Beside the Bulldog. Simultaneously there appeared Churchill’s Bodyguard: The Authorised Biography, which intersperses some new material with a large number of factual errors. The earlier works are pure Thompson and therefore worth seeking out.

Thompson’s Epic 

Thompson’s first Churchill assignment was the statesman’s Cairo Conference of 1921. Around the same time he was seconded to Churchill during negotiation of the Irish Treaty. When Churchill set out on a North American lecture tour in December 1931, Thompson was again assigned. The detective was resting after twenty-six-hours’ duty on December 13th, when Churchill was struck and nearly killed by a car on Fifth Avenue. Thompson always regretted that he had not been present, and perhaps able to prevent the accident.

Walter Thompson’s tall, angular features are frequently seen on Churchill photos during World War II. From 1939, when recalled to guard duty, he was rarely absent on the Prime Minister’s travels. Along the way, he accidentally shot himself while cleaning a weapon, and lost son in the RAF. He did however romance and later marry Mary Shearburn, one of the PM’s secretaries.

The Bodyguard Mini-series

I approached this production with doubt. The Authorised Biography contained so many howlers that I feared they would reappear in the video. But the episodes avoid this—and any hindsight moralizing, thought so necessary by producers today. It is, in the main, straight reporting from Thompson’s memoirs. Though I disliked Thompson’s steady references to the boss as “Winston,” I found no serious errors. Please advise if the episodes I didn’t watch contain some awful clanger!

The series does speculate in places. One such involves the actor Leslie Howard, “Ashley Wilkes” in one of Churchill’s favorite films, Gone with the Wind. The story goes that Howard and his bodyguard—shot down by the Luftwaffe in the belief they were Churchill and Thompson—were intentional decoys. This is of course nonsense.

The great strength of Churchill’s Bodyguard is its visuals. Some photos aren’t chronologically accurate, but most are little-known and fascinating. The producers cleverly applied the right poses to go with the dialogue, presenting what is almost a motion picture.

The synopses suggest that Thompson saved Churchill’s life in every episode. But I have no doubt that many potential threats did preoccupy him. And to his credit, he disregarded no possibility.

Churchill’s Bodyguard Synopsis (IMdb)

Sadly, all but three of these videos have been deleted from YouTube. Links to the other three (below) were still active in mid-2019.

Introductions. Here we learn how two very different characters met, and how Thompson, born in the East End, saves his boss from an IRA assassination attempt. Ten years earlier, they had both been present, unknowingly, at the Siege of Sidney Street.

Middle East, 1921. Walter Thompson gets the challenge of keeping his boss alive during a visit to the Middle East. A leading British politician is the natural target for assassins, and on several critical occasions, Thompson is helped by the enigmatic Lawrence of Arabia.

The 1920s; travels in the New World 1929-32. Churchill buys cars and a house. In 1929 ceases to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and Thompson’s duties end. Within two years, Churchill’s outspoken views gain him new and deadly enemies, and Thompson is recalled.

North American Lecture Tour 1932. Thompson keeps Churchill safe during his lecture tour, but then leaves the police force. It seems that Churchill’s career is over, too. But a sinister new force is rising which sees him as an implacable enemy. Threats to his life bring the two men together again.

* * *

From Wilderness to War 1932-40. Despite being out of office, Churchill’s enemies prove dangerous. With war imminent, French Intelligence hears of a German assassination plot. Thompson returns from retirement. Britain goes to war in September 1939, and Churchill is back at the Admiralty.

Dangerous Travels and the Fall of France 1940. Sent to the Admiralty in September 1939, Churchill becomes Prime Minister on 10 May 1940, as Hitler invades the Low Countries. He embarks on a campaign of personal diplomacy, with travels including six trips to France. To Thompson’s concern, they are often within range of Luftwaffe fighters.

Surviving the Blitz, 1940-41. The early days of the war prove difficult and dangerous. The Luftwaffe bombs London. The Prime Minister walks the streets among the people, watches air raids from rooftops, and visits anti-aircraft batteries. Often only Thompson is with him.

Meetings with FDR, 1941-42. Running a gauntlet of U-boats in the North Atlantic, Churchill sets out for meetings with President Franklin Roosevelt. On one return journey, as the PM prepares to board a flying boat for the trip home, a gunman lurks nearby.

* * *

Turning Point, 1942-43. A precarious trip to Moscow to visit Stalin is followed by victory for the Eighth Army in North Africa. Aware that Churchill is traveling, the Germans at least twice try to shoot down his plane.

Teheran, 1943. After two Atlantic crossings and two trips across the Mediterranean, Churchill grows increasingly frustrated with Allied planners and suspicious of Stalin. When the Big Three meet in Tehran in 1943, the Germans launch Operation Longjump, in which commandoes plan to parachute into the city.

The Kiss of Life, 1943. Returning from the Tehran Conference, a sick and exhausted Churchill survives a dangerous illness, Thompson keeping vigil at his bedside.

Athens, 1944. Flying to Greece to forestall a civil war, Churchill plans to stay at a hotel where communist guerrillas had placed dynamite. He changes quarters to HMS Ajax in Piraeus harbor, while guerrillas fire at the ship.

Victory in Europe, 1945. Churchill and Thompson make several journeys through jubilant crowds. Churchill wants to walk among them. Instead Thompson pulls him onto the roof of his car,  accidentally breaking a woman’s arm in the process.

Q: Did Winston Churchill ever use public transport while PM, particularly the tube?

On Courage

Q: We accept that the screenplay is a dramatisation of events. But is it likely that Churchill would have left a government car for a no-security ride on the tube? Would he stop to talk to the people before such an important speech? If not, why not?

“Bludgeon of choice”

A historian friend says the Indian Bengal Famine (1943) “is on its way to surpassing the Dardanelles (1915) as the bludgeon of choice for Churchill’s detractors.” He was commenting on the latest outburst of Bengal Famine nonsense—contested by a thoughtful Indian, as well as myself: scroll to comments.

“Bloody Indian” tracks to Ben Pimlott, editor, The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton 1940-45 (Jonathan Cape 1986), 126. Hugh Dalton was a socialist Member of Parliament who served as Minister of Economic Warfare in Churchill’s World War II coalition. Later he became President of the Board of Trade. He agreed with Churchill on nothing domestically, but greatly admired his war leadership.

In 1929, Parliament began to debate the future of India, its evolution toward independence. The end result was the Government of India Act 1935, which provided for a federation of the Raj (British India) and the “princely states,” with a wide degree of autonomy.

The Indian argument

Churchill said such ideas advanced only the Indian ruling classes and the Congress Party, at the expense of common people. Particularly affected, he said, were the 60 million “Untouchables,” lowest level of the Hindu caste system. His detractors say this was just a smokescreen for his wish to preserve the Raj. In reality it was a little of both.

Churchill loved the British Empire, but he had a lifetime affinity for the unfortunate. In the midst of World War II, for example, he railed over the disproportionate tax burden in Egypt. It mainly fell, he said, on the Fellaheen (peasantry), rather than “the rich pashas and landowners and other pretended nationalists.” In 1941 he said: “A little of the radical democratic sledgehammer is needed in the [Nile] Delta, where so many fat, insolent class and party interests have grown up under our tolerant protection.” (Thanks to Andrew Roberts for this snippet his upcoming Churchill biography.)

Lord Irwin, later Halifax, was Viceroy of India from 1926 to 1931. Naturally, he favored the 1930-32 Round Table Conferences, which took up the case for eventual Indian autonomy. There, Indian and British leaders met in London to discuss the future of the subcontinent along independent lines. Halifax and Churchill disagreed, so….

Dalton’s 1929 diary note:

Halifax one day said to Winston, “You have the ideas about India of a subaltern a generation ago. There are a number of interesting Indians coming to the Round Table Conference and I really think it would be very valuable to you to talk to some of them and bring your ideas up to date.” Winston replied, “I am quite satisfied with my views of India, and I certainly don’t want them disturbed by any bloody Indian.”

It was the kind of thing you’d say in private conversation, if not in public. I recall an altercation in a car park in Stratford-upon-Avon. It was between the Welsh coach driver on my one of my Churchill tours and an irate local motorist. My driver had blocked his car, and had grown unpleasant when the English motorist asked him to move. “Sorry, sir,” said the Englishman, as I tried to mediate. “I’m not about to take that from any bloody Welshman.”

Perfectly ordinary? Fair enough. But in the Churchill context—even though it was from 1929—such a crack about an Indian is today an offense of genocidal magnitude.

Accurate or hearsay?

The rather pedantic point of all is this one your teachers probably made to you, as they did me: “Verify your sources.” Did Churchill say it? Maybe. It fits his attitude at the time. But we can’t prove it. Why not?

Isn’t Hugh Dalton an accurate witness? After all, he’s the primary source for Churchill’s great, unrecorded speech to the wider cabinet on 28 May 1940, portrayed in the movie Darkest Hour: “If this island story of ours is to end, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.” And yes, Dalton is regarded as reliable by most historians.

But there’s a good rule for Churchill quotes, even from sources like Dalton. If the source says he heard it from Churchill directly (like “choking in our own blood”), that’s acceptable. But if he says somebody else told him Churchill said it, it remains hearsay and thus unprovable. To verify it we need something Halifax himself wrote. And, despite our best efforts to find it—he didn’t.

At least that was my rule when compiling Churchill by Himself, and I recommend it to you.

Politics of 1940

Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved unconquerable. It fell to me to express it, and if I found the right words you must remember that I have always earned my living by my pen and by my tongue. It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

What if?

Oldman’s portrayal

Tears came into his eyes as he answered gravely: “God alone knows how great it is. I hope that it is not too late. I am very much afraid that it is. We can only do our best.” As he turned away he muttered something—to himself. Then he set his jaw and with a look of determination, mastering all emotion, he began to climb the stairs of the Admiralty. It was the greatest privilege of my life to have shared those few moments with him.

Setting a mark

Mr. Stern himself offers only one Churchill quote and gets it right: “A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.” (Colliers, 28 December 1935.)

Bingo! That’s an obscure one. Forgive him for vastly exaggerating Churchill’s alcohol intake. (WSC’s “six whisky sodas” were described by his private secretary as “scotch-flavored mouthwash.”)

A Stern list…

The list of Presidential tweets quoting Churchill, as provided by Mr. Stern, suggests a middling score on the accuracy meter. Many fall into the category of “Churchillian Drift.”

These are pure fiction: “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life” … “If you’re going through hell, keep going” … “Socialists think profits are a vice. I consider losses the real vice” … “Success is not final, failure is not fatal” … “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm” … “However beautiful the strategy you should occasionally look at the results” … “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” … “Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.”

So who coined those? Who knows?  As a wise man once said: “If you don’t know the author of a choice quote, credit it to Churchill, Einstein, Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr. Everybody will be impressed, and they all said so much that nobody knows the difference.” But Churchill rarely indulged in gratuitous flatulence and preaching.

* * *

Some of the President’s Churchill tweets are close, but Churchill’s exact words are better: “Each one [of the neutral nations] hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last” (20 January 1940) … “It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary” (7 March 1916) … “The belief that security can be obtained by throwing a small state to the wolves is a fatal delusion” (21 September 1938) …“…never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense” (29 October 1941).

The President’s versions of these were minor deviations, but he did get one exactly right: “The price of greatness is responsibility.” (Harvard, 6 September 1943). We all of us might ponder that one.

David Franco, reviewing the film Churchill, starring Brian Cox, raises questions he says everyone should be asking. “Isn’t the ability to accept one’s mistakes part of what makes a man a good leader? …. To what extent should we rely [on] past experiences in order to minimize mistakes in the future? These are the questions that make a bad movie like Churchill worth seeing.”

Well, I won’t be seeing this bad movie. Described as “perverse fantasy” by historian Andrew Roberts, it joins a recent spate of sloppy Churchill bio-pics that favor skewed caricatures over historical fact.

Revisionism: A Thriving Industry

Makers of movies might think it novel to criticize Churchill, but this is far from the case. Attacks on his leadership began early after World War II and have continued ever since. There’s a thriving mini-industry in “Churchill revisionism.” But it started with books, not movies.

In 1963, R.W. Thompson’s The Yankee Marlborough portrayed Churchill as a man of flesh and blood, who made mistakes, like anybody else. In his 1970 study, Churchill: A Study in Failure 1900-1939, Robert Rhodes James focused on Churchill’s political gaffes, such as his dogged support of King Edward VIII in the 1936 Abdication crisis. Edward, later Duke of Windsor, gave up the throne to marry an American divorcee. The Duke’s tepid admiration of Hitler, and dismal performance as Governor of the Bahamas, caused Churchill to reflect: “I’m glad I was wrong.”

In 1993, John Charmley’s Churchill: The End of Glory rocked Churchill’s supporters by claiming that he should have backed away from the Hitler war to preserve Britain’s wealth, power, and empire. More recently, Max Hastings criticized Churchill’s war leadership on multiple issues in both World Wars: Catastrophe 1914, on the opening months of WW1, and Winston’s War, 1940-45.

Whatever we make of their assessments, these historians were qualified critics whose thoroughly researched theses merit consideration. Alas, we cannot say the same about the recent round of Churchill movies.

Movies Faithful to Reality

Churchill movies started off well and were honest for decades. Young Winston (1972), starring Simon Ward as WSC and Anne Bancroft as his mother, was a vivid presentation based on Churchill’s own account of his first twenty-five years. Its inaccuracies stemmed from Churchill himself in his autobiography. (In it, Anthony Hopkins played David Lloyd George. Lady Randolph says: “He has the most disconcerting way of looking at women.”)

In 1974, Lee Remick brilliantly reprised the role of Lady Randolph the television series Jennie: as accurate a portrayal as ever existed. We Churchlllians gave her an award for it—the dying Lee’s last public appearance. It was attended by Gregory Peck, who co-starred with her in The Omen, who praised her “depth of womanliness.”

That same year, Richard Burton played a believable Churchill in The Gathering Storm, about the years leading up to World War II. Again, it didn’t deviate from fact, although Burton spoiled the effect by denouncing Churchill for fictitious acts against Welsh miners, including Burton’s father. Privately, Burton had expressed his admiration for “the old boy”.…but later, the cameras were on.

The 1981 TV series Churchill: The Wilderness Years, remains the model Churchill bio-pic. Herein Robert Hardy showed us both Churchill’s human frailties and his greatness. Hardy and his writers partnered with Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert to portray the anxious politician of the 1930s, out of power, vainly warning of the Nazi menace. Brilliantly cast, the result was a masterpiece.

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Albert Finney was a solid Churchill in the second Gathering Storm (2002), a 90-minute film for television. As skillfully cast as The Wilderness Years, it featured Vanessa Redgrave in a bavura performance as Clementine Churchill. The story line, while not uncritical, did not deviate from fact. Even in the cynical, anti-heroic 21st century, it seemed, filmmakers could still tell his story without reducing Churchill to a flawed burlesque or godlike caricature. Then came “Into the Storm,” a 2009 television drama broadcast by the BBC and HBO. Here in a series set in 1945 with 1940 flashbacks, Brendan Gleeson gave us the most accurate Churchill since Robert Hardy. Things were looking good.

Or so I thought. Alas, in the last couple of years, we’ve had three films which can only be described as “fake history,” and a one-dimensional documentary that fails to tell the full story.

A Turn to the Worse

The Crown, a 2016 Netflix series covering the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II, was well acted. But John Lithgow portrayed a senile prime minister who hides his 1953 stroke from the Queen and repeatedly paints his goldfish pond in a muddle of depression. Factually, the Queen knew of Churchill’s stroke three days after it happened—and he was never so dotty as to make repeated paintings of his fish pond. The Duke of Windsor resurfaces here, promising that he will get the new Queen to move into Buckingham Palace if Churchill restores his royal allowance. Where do they think of this stuff?

Viceroy’s House has not been seen yet in the US, and we’re missing nothing. A visually elaborate production, it covers the end of British rule in India, under the last Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, whitewashing the latter at Churchill’s expense. Mountbatten’s insistence that Britain leave before the India-Pakistan boundaries were settled led to violent strife and the massacre of millions. Somehow, the film manages to blame this on Churchill, who was not even in power at the time.

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Churchill starring Brian Cox is built around the myth that Churchill opposed D-Day virtually to the moment of the Normandy landings. In reality, Churchill had sought “a lodgment on the continent” since the British were thrown out of Dunkirk in 1940. His concept of floating “Mulberry Harbors” for landing tanks and equipment dated back to 1917. This hasn’t prevented Mr. Cox from flaunting his ignorance in interviews repeating a host of canards, including the notion that Churchill wanted to invade Germany over the Alps.

I held my breath when the film Dunkirk appeared, hoping it would not be another dose of lame propaganda. Churchill doesn’t appear in it. But his absence, along with other heroes of the Dunkirk evacuation, reduces the film to a one-dimensional portrait. It’s war on a beach, with moving scenes of heroism and survival. Who was the enemy? A viewer has no idea why Churchill said after Dunkirk, “We shall never surrender”—though his words are read movingly by a soldier in the final scenes.

Hope Ahead? We’ll See

There’s no question that fictitious scenes and conversations are legitimate devices in bio-pics. But they must not depart from what we know. And thanks to historians like Martin Gilbert and the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, we know a lot.

There is cause for hope. This autumn, Gary Oldman will star as Churchill in another bio-pic, Darkest Hour, about facing Hitler’s armies in 1940. Promisingly, Oldman has consulted with qualified historians, striving to find “a way in” to the real Churchill. Colleagues who’ve seen previews say he has Churchill down perfectly. But his script contains some bizarre counterfactuals.

One can only wish him success. Perhaps this film will answer David Franco’s questions. Yes, accepting one’s mistakes does make a person a good leader. Yes, Churchill did learn from his mistakes. He was a man of quality—a good guide for our troubled decade. And after a long lapse, he deserves a film that does him justice.