(Churchill: The Hollywood Years, Eat The Rich, The Pope Must Die, Stella Street, The Supergrass, TV: The Comic Strip, Glam Metal Detectives, Stella Street)
Producers:
Jonathan Cavendish and Ben Swaffer
Screenplay:
Peter Richardson and Pete Richens
Music :
Simon Boswell and Rod Melvin
Cast :
Winston Churchill: Christian Slater
Princess Elizabeth Windsor: Neve Campbell
Adolf Hitler: Antony Sher
Eva Braun: Miranda Richardson
Denzil: Romany Malco
King George V: Harry Enfield
Lord W'ruff: Leslie Phillips
Baxter: Rik Mayall
Bendle: Vic Reeves
Potter: Bob Mortimer
Martin Boorman: Phil Cornwell
Princess Margaret: Jessica Oyelowo
Chester: Steve Pemberton
Herman Goering: Steven O'Donnell
Mr Teasy-Weasy: James Dreyfuss
Jimmy Charoo: Mackenzie Crook
Waitress: Sally Phillips
Tony Blair: Jon Culshaw
Taxi Driver: Simon Day
Bus conductor: Paul Putner
Radio Presenter: Brian Perkins
President: Henry Goodman
Goebbles: David Schneider
Football Commentators: Alistair McGowan
Roy Bubbles (archive footage): Winston Churchill
Many films report history accurately. You'll find
Churchill: The Hollywood Years doesn't follow the real history whatsoever.
As the film begins, the words appear: "For 50 years, the world believed that Winston Churchill
was an elderley statesman who led the British people to victory. And that he was English... But they
were wrong."
The man we all thought was Churchill was "Roy Bubbles, after-dinner speaker and character actor. Any
work considered."
Christian Slater plays the real Winston Churchill, a US marine who comes to England to sort out the
problems of the Second World War. On his arrival, he presents the Enigma machine to Lord W'Ruff (Leslie
Phillips), the Chief of Staff at the War Office, before explaining in gung-ho terms how to defeat Adolf
Hitler (an excellent turn from the acclaimed Antony Sher). Along the way, he takes a shine to who he thinks is a young Wren named Jane
Commoner, but turned out to be the future Queen of England (Neve Campbell, perfecting a posh English
accent).
However, we soon learn that W'ruff is aiding and abetting the Fuhrer, by inviting him to England to
stay at the palace - via an amusing series of transport hitches that include The Fast Show's Simon
Day as a taxi driver and This Morning With Richard Not Judy's Paul Putner as a bus conductor -
while a party goes on, with guests including Slater, so there's going to be a few words had between the hero
of the hour and the villain.
Churchill: The Hollywood Years has some great one-liners that work better on their own than in
the movie as a whole, and it's one that, at 81 minutes, is short but fast-moving. It has great moments of
humour throughout, but doesn't pull itself together to be any kind of action movie, so don't go expecting
another Die Hard.
The cast reads like a "Who's Who" of modern British comedy. Rik Mayall makes for a great camp General,
Gimme Gimme Gimme's James Dreyfuss does similar as a hairdresser, Harry Enfield finally
does something funny for the first time in years by playing King George V, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer
camp (I can't think of an alternative word) things up further as a couple of butlers.
There's memorable
moments from Stella Street's Phil Cornwell as Hitler's aide, Martin Boorman, The League of
Gentlemen's Steve Pemberton as train engineer Chester, Bottom's Steven O'Donnell as
Herman Goering, plus support from Sally Phillips, David Schneider, Mackenzie Crook, who co-starred
as Billy Bibbitt with Slater (R.P. McMurphy) in the recent stage version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
Jon Culshaw as Tony Blair (who else would play him?!) and a class turn from Radio 4 news presenter Brian Perkins
showing his humourous side in public, instead of just on the unsurpassable The News Quiz, as he's forced
to read out statements due to a gun being pointed at his head.
And for those who always run out before a film at the cinema has *really* ended, there are closing credit gaffes
aplenty prior to the full cast list appearing.
Overall, this DVD is worth a rental but I wouldn't buy it until you've seen it once and know whether you'll
want to take a look more than once.
Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, the print looks a little too soft at times. I'm not sure if this
is done with intention for certain scenes to make them look a bit distant, such as in Tony Blair's office,
but it doesn't come across that way and could've been much sharper. The clips I'd seen of this beforehand,
and the menu clips, are matted to 2.35:1, giving the impression that's how it would've turned out.
Obviously, it didn't.
The sound is also well-used in DD5.1 when required, for the brief action scenes or as atmosphere. A brief and
worthy mention goes to the menus, after which clicking on 'scene selection' gives you a thunder of planes
heading towards you.
One reason I haven't been to the cinema in a long time is that even if there's one that was worthy of
waiting 40 minutes for adverts to finish, or listening to people chat on their mobile phones, is that
for a film as short as this one, the extras complement it up to what you'd expect from a feature-length
outing.
Behind the Scenes (14:38) blends interview snippets with footage from the film, often including
moments that didn't make the final cut; and Churchill: The Amazing True Story (19:16) creates an engaging
featurette about the apparent legend mixing footage from the film with extra in-character interviews recorded
especially for this and viewed back, in the present day, by Tony Blair (Jon Culshaw). The only downside is that
this featurette is neither in DD5.1, nor does it contain subtitles.
The five deleted and extended scenes (running almost 5 minutes in total), are mostly brief except for one
long one, and are worth a look but I wouldn't put them back in the movie. The alternative beginning and end
(2 mins) do make for an alternative, including guest appearances from impressionist Ronni Ancona and
Holby City, Big Brother and Rachel Stevens' reject Jeremy Edwards, but I'm glad these weren't
used in the final cut too.
Finally, more outtakes (1 min), a trailer (2 mins), four TV spots (1 min) and an audio commentary from
Christian Slater and director Peter Richardson conclude the extras.
The menus are impressive, as alighted to befoer, there are subtitles in English for the hard of hearing
but the chapters are few with 15.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
