The Gathering Storm

 Year 14, Day 147 - 5/27/22 - Movie #4,150

BEFORE: This is it, the midway point for the year, I know we've only had five months so far in 2022, and a typical year is 12 months, but I only watch 300 films per year, not 365, so 150 marks the halfway point - I'm maybe three films ahead of schedule because I doubled up a few times, a couple of months ago.  

Three more days in May, so another 22 films gets me to Father's Day and then in just about a month I'll start my Summer Rock & Doc Block, that's a month-plus of documentaries that should ALSO all link together, believe it or not.  They don't all have to be about rock music, it's just that the first documentary block that I programmed which also kept the chain going was all about rock music, from the birth of the Beatles to the retirement of Rush.  Though this year there will be docs about Neil Young, Alanis Morissette and umm, Kenny G, they don't ALL have to be about music - comedians, actors, actors, painters and even one prominent oceanographer will be highlighted this year, and the block starts on June 26 or 27, about a week after Father's Day, I think.  I haven't completely blocked it out yet, except that I totally have - but it's flexible, I can still change it around but I just don't want to.  

Jim Broadbent carries over from "Six Minutes to Midnight". 

THE PLOT: Winston Churchill's wilderness years prior to World War II, when only he could see the threat that Adolf Hitler and a re-armed Germany posed to Europe. 

AFTER: Heading into Memorial Day weekend, this is just about exactly where I wanted to be, filmically speaking.  This seemed like a rather important film, in addition to being topically on point, so I'm glad it ended up as the halfway marker, film 150 for the year.  Another film before this one would have lined up my last World War II film with the holiday itself, but then that would have kicked this film down to #151, so I realize I can't have everything.  The chain can't be perfect all the time, so I'll settle for a chain that lasts all year.  I'll still need to close that gap between the end of the Summer Rock & Doc Block and the start of Shocktoberfest, but that's a problem for another day.  When I get a bit closer I'll count the available slots in August and September and work something out - then it's just a simple matter of connecting the last horror film to something Christmas-ey. 

The last time I had films about Winston Churchill in the countdown, one of them focused on the time period around the Dunkirk rescue, if I seem to recall. Is that right?  Yes, "Darkest Hour" focused on those events of 1940, after the UK was at war with Germany, but before the U.S. was. And then there was the 2017 film "Churchill", starring Brian Cox, and that one was set in 1944, in the days leading up to D-Day.  Tonight's film goes back further, to the mid-1930's, when Churchill was part of the minority party in Parliament, he would propose motions and raise arguments warning the other members of the House of Commons about the danger of Germany rebuilding its arsenal, and he was largely ignored.  

Winston and his wife, Clemmie, moved out of London at this point, to their country home, Chartwell House in Kent, so that Winston could focus on writing a biography of his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough.  There were some financial difficulties, some leading from their son Randolphs gambling debts, so they were forced to economize. (I don't know, maybe sell one of your two houses? Just spitballing here.). After an argument, Clemmie decides to go on an extended overseas trip for four months, ostensibly to help someone trap Komodo dragons.  Winston forbids her to go, which of course makes her want to go even more, so she does.  While she's away Winston passes the time by making landscape paintings on their grounds, feeding his many animals, building a brick wall a little bit each day, and writing letters to his wife, who he suspects has fallen in love with her male traveling companion.  He also takes baths while dictating his speeches, so be warned, the film comes very close to showing the audience "the Full Winston". 

He also convinces a minor government official to get him the full classified details about Germany's progress in building up their armaments, different factories that are manufacturing airplane parts around Germany, and where they might be assembled into bombers.  Churchill knows that Hitler's up to something, he just can't prove it yet, but once he gets the evidence, it helps to turn the other members of Parliament against the appeasement policies of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.  And then once Germany refuses to pull out of Poland after invading it, and war is declared, Churchill is put in command of the Royal Navy as First Lord of the Admiralty.  

By this point, Clemmie has returned, and it's a bit vague here what the exact nature of her relationship with her male traveling companion was, but I suppose that's all water under the bridge.  The point is she came back to Winston, so does it really matter what happened when they were on a break?  Churchill himself admits here that he's not an easy man to live with or love with, so there's that.  I know from "Darkest Hour" that from his new Admiralty position, Churchill's just a short hop away from being Prime Minister, once Neville Chamberlain falls out of favor.  And we'll pick up Churchill's story in the sequel film, "Into the Storm", in 2 days.  That film was made 7 years later, and for some reason, doesn't share any actors with this one, so I've been forced to improvise a little bit here.  

(I could have used "Six Minutes to Midnight" to link the two films, but I needed that as a connection from the Judi Dench films, so that wouldn't have worked.  Trust me, I really looked for a better way to do this, but once I flipped around that section of the chain to get the WW2 movies before Memorial Day, I lost a great deal of the flexibility.  Tough choices have to be made sometimes. Putting the two Churchill films in chronological order took precendence here.)

Also starring Albert Finney (last seen in "The Dresser"), Vanessa Redgrave (last seen in "Smilla's Sense of Snow"), Linus Roache (last seen in "Barry"), Lena Headey (last seen in "Gunpowder Milkshake"), Derek Jacobi (last seen in "Effie Gray"), Ronnie Barker, Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "The Last Kiss"), Celia Imrie (last heard in "The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales"), Hugh Bonneville (last seen in "Mansfield Park"), Gottfried John (last seen in "Proof of Life"), Anthony Brophy (last seen in "The Professor and the Madman"), Edward Hardwicke, Tom Hiddleston (last seen in "Only Lovers Left Alive"), Tim Bentinck, Diana Hoddinott, Dolly Wells (last seen in "45 Years"), Emma Seigel, Lyndsey Marshal, Nancy Carroll (last seen in "An Ideal Husband"), Danielle King, Laurie Flexman, Rohan McCullough, John Standing (last seen in "The Eagle Has Landed"), Simon Williams (last seen in "Goodbye Christopher Robin"), Kenneth Hadley (last seen in "Holmes & Watson"), Joanna McCallum, Gerrard McArthur with archive footage of Adolf Hitler (last seen in "Resistance")

RATING: 6 out of 10 Dundee cakes (which are light fruitcakes with almonds on top, apparently)