Agree with all this- they could easily have deleted him entirely without damaging the movie. I would have thought they’d make more of Neville Chamberlain whose “peace in our time” comment- even though it’s a misquote- is well known even to most Americans who know anything of the time period, and it would be a good opportunity to set the record straight on his actual words.
Wife and I saw this Saturday and both really enjoyed it. I thought the feeling of “imprisonment by one’s royalty” was really evident, both in Bertie’s obvious joy at making a “commoner” friend (even if he wasn’t sure how to go about it at first) and, of course, David/Edward’s complete rejection of it.
The protrayal of Churchill is indeed one of the more obvious distortions, all the more so as it is entirely unnecessary. The scene in which he encourages Bertie to think about becoming George VI would have worked better - and made more dramatic sense - if it was Baldwin, not Churchill, telling him this.
But equally Churchill’s presence at some point is absolutely essential. Even as it is, the film is vulnerable to the criticism that, however important George VI’s wartime radio broadcasts may have been, they cannot credibly be compared to Churchill’s. Churchill’s absence would be too conspicuous. Personally, I would simply have had a short scene in which the two of them meet socially, with Churchill encouraging Bertie in his efforts to find a cure on the basis that he had overcome his own childhood speech problems. Then, at the end, the montage of the king’s subjects loyally listening in to his speech should have ended with a brief shot of Churchill listening to it as well. We would all have got the point.
Nor was I too fussed about the casting of Timothy Spall. Every British actor of a certain age and a certain build gets to play Churchill eventually. Few ever try for more than a caricature. This was just Spall’s turn.
The problem with that is that another criticism to which the script is already vulnerable is that it glosses over George VI’s apparent support for appeasement. Ignoring Munich allows them to sidestep the issue of Chamberlain’s notorious appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace later that evening. Mind you, how the script does deal with the appeasement issue is very clumsy. The scene in which Baldwin resigns is just weird. Far better for them to have shown Chamberlain being appointed as Prime Minister. The king could then have said something along the lines of, ‘So good of you to take over from Mr Baldwin. Now, what about this Herr Hitler chappie?’ ‘Yes, Your Majesty, he is a bit of a problem, but I think I can handle him.’ The king nods in polite agreement.
Since the film’s an unexpected smash, there’s plenty of room for a sequel, one concentrating less on his speech obviously than on the war. Plenty of room even for David and Wallis as the king and his handlers must do damage control on the Duke of Windsor’s former friendships with Göring and von Ribbentrop and as he calls during wartime to bitch about his post in the Bahamas and his wife’s lack of HRH (factual) and the decision not to evacuate the girls during the blitz, and the time when the Queen Mother cracked under stress and ran through the streets of London chanting “I-killed-Sirius-Black!” for no real reason.
There’s a famous magazine cover photo that I can’t find with a quick google, but it’s of three queens- Mary, Elizabeth (the queen consort), and Elizabeth II- in profile with heads bowed at George VI’s funeral. (Here is a picturefrom the same time.) Also a great scene to include.
Since they had several scenes together I wonder if Derek Jacobi and Colin Firth ever compared notes on playing stammerers. I read an interview with Jacobi once in which he said he did have trouble leaving the stammer on the set sometimes when filming I Claudius.
Not to mention the strange and embarrassing incident during a meeting between the King and Churchill when the disheveled-looking Elizabeth suddenly exclaimed, “I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school.”
This being before the revelation that the king and Churchill were in fact the same person.
Today being the anniversary of the death of George V, an entry on David/Edward VIII popped up in my This Day in History feed.
This wiki is particularly badly written and edited, but if half of the entry is true…good lord, what a dick. Quasi-fascist, clueless, and a pretty virulent racist.
I read part of a bio of Wallis Simpson years ago and it mentioned an incident with a journalist whose name I do not recall- he wasn’t Larry King but somebody of that ilk, a male Liz Smith basically who was famous for writing about celebrities and fairly softball interviews. He told the biographer about his memorable dinner with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in the late 1960s.
The reporter was young and was hella-pleased to get this interview because he was just beginning to get a name but he was neither rich nor famous yet. He thought the interview went very well and the Duke was pleased with it when it appeared and called and invited the journalist to join him and the Duchess for dinner at his favorite restaurant. Repeat: the Duke invited the journalist to dinner.
The Duke and Duchess of course chose an extremely swanky place, the type where if you weren’t the Duke and Duchess of Windsor you’d never have gotten a table on short notice- and the journalist spent what was a fortune for him on new clothes for the event. He described the food as excellent, the wine better, the Duke kept insisting “you must try the x” and “join me in another bottle of y” and a great time was had by all until, you guessed it, the check came.
The Duke made it extremely clear that this meal was on the journalist. The price was exorbitant- probably the equivalent of well over $1,000, possibly much more than that, in current money for three people and this to a guy who wasn’t at all rich and was already living above his not considerable means. Further the Duke, instructed in etiquette from the cradle and having spent decades no longer King of England and thus knowing he WAS expected to pay his own bills- would well have known it was incumbent upon him as the man who invited and chose the restaurant- to pay, but nope. Totally stiffed the journalist who had to pay with a check that he then had to go make good, the Duke and Duchess not even contributing to the tip.
Per this article, the journalist wondered if this the Duke’s revenge for something in the interview he didn’t like but upon asking around he learned that this was actually something the Windsors did fairly often. They loved to dine at the expense of others and rarely informed them “this is on you” when ‘inviting’ them out. Some people came pre-warned and would accept the invitation and then inform the waiter “I cannot intrude on His Grace’s hospitality so I will be paying for my own meal”, which would obviously infuriate their graces. Another who was placed in a similar position to the journalist was not only stunned but he knew there was no way in hell he could pay for this even if he wanted to which he didn’t, so he began a waiting game and even slid the check to the Duke. They waited for a condensed eternity before Wallis finally said something like “Oh for God’s sake David, pay the damned check!” and acting as if they were having to pay for a beggar before leaving very obviously not amused (i.e. their graces were graceless).
This type of behavior along with other notorious stinginess (underpaying servants, never tipping, stiffing or at least very slow paying hotel and merchant bills) led to the speculation that the Windsors were living in genteel poverty and were cash broke. Even Wallis seemed to believe this and when her husband died assumed she was now essentially penniless and was going to have to sell her art and jewelry. Instead she was astonished to learn far from leaving her flat he was a multimillionaire and much of his wealth was in cash.
When she died in the 1980s she bequeathed her jewels and other personal estate to charities and at auction they raised almost $50 million. While it was a big 'un, this was apparently her only known donation to charity.
For me, it served to underline the difference in parenting styles between Bertie & Elizabeth, and Bertie’s parents. The scenes with Bertie, young Elizabeth, and Margaret are extremely funny and touching, and show a tremendous warmth. It’s clear that he’s the polar opposite of his own father (and likely intentionally so). I also wondered if part of that closeness came from the fact that Bertie had no expectation of being king, and thus no expectation that he was raising a future queen.
Just saw this today, an excellent film. Colin Firth is rightly up there for all the awards going, but really Geoffrey Rush is absolutely superb in every scene he’s in. It’s a total pleasure to watch something made by people at the top of their game.
I think Elizabeth was considered to be Edward VIII’s likely (eventual) heir even before the abdication. Edward VIII never had any children despite sleeping with quite a lot of women before Wallis. According to the biography I read of George VI, both he and his brother caught the mumps when they were in their early teens, which could have rendered Edward VIII sterile.
George V’s letters to his family were often quite affectionate. It’s too bad he couldn’t manage the same affection in person.
Great film. Been a long time since I’ve been to a movie that got applause at the end.
Hope it wins the awards it deserves.
He never acknowledged any children, but there were a couple who were rumored to be his. There’s an Australian footballer named Scott Chisholm (picture) nicknamed The Prince because of a rumor he’s Edward VIII’s great-grandson. Scott’s mother was the half-aborigone daughter of David Anthony Chisholm (1921-1987)- can’t google up a pic but one’s gotta be online- whose mother Mollee Little was a Sydney socialite who per legend had an affair with the Prince of Wales on his tour of the provinces. Per the story she married a man named (Roy) Chisholm when she became pregnant with the prince’s lovechild and foreverafter the family received money and jobs courtesy of the royal intervention. No idea of the evidence for this, but David Anthony Chisholm is the man whose name comes up most in speaking of potential House of Windsor bastards.
Jackie O’s sister Lee Radziwill’s first husband was Michael Canfield, widely alleged (including by himself) to be the illegitimate son of Edward VIII & George VI’s younger brother George, Duke of Kent with Kiki Preston, an American socialite. Canfield was adopted in infancy by an American millionaire publisher and after his marriage to Radziwill was annulled he married the significantly older Frances Laura Charteris, whose other husbands over the years included Viscount Long and the Duke of Marlborough.
Saw this movie earlier this week and loved it.
And agreed–loved the scenes with Bertie and his daughters. They were obviously a close and loving family, which makes me wonder why Elizabeth turned out to be a somewhat cold and distant mother. Now, I’m not an expert by any means, so I might have this all wrong, but that is always the impression I’ve had. I’ve seen film of her greeting a very small Charles with a handshake after a long trip. And then there was that horrid boarding school he had to go to.
And then Charles, like his grandfather, turned it around again. I know Diana gets all the credit for being such a warm and wonderful mother, but I’ve never heard that Charles was anything but kind and affectionate with his kids, too. That was the one thing they always agreed on, AFAIK. There’s that famous clip of Will and Harry running onto a ship to greet Diana, and she gives them both a big bear hug. What they never show, though, is that just a few seconds later the boys then run to their father, who greets them with an equally big hug!
Sorry, got off on a bit of a tangent, there…
Slightly off topic but given the discussion about Edward VIII can I put in a plug for the old TV series Edward and Mrs Simpson. Excellent depiction of the whole sorry mess and left - in my mind - an indelible impression of Edward Fox as David. (In fact it was hard to take on Guy Pearce in the role - kept thinking something was not quite right! Apart from anything else Pearce is much too rugged. David was considered handsome but it is hard to see it from the photos of the time.)
You really think you can draw conclusions from their public behaviour?
And that’s because Elizabeth was a cold and distant mother? I think pretty much all boys of Charles’s social class were expected to go through that.
Seriously. You really think you know anything about these people?
Geez, what’s with the hostility? I out and out stated that I wasn’t an expert, and that these were just impressions I had gotten. Please, correct me if I’m wrong…I’d love to be educated on it, and I’d love to know that Elizabeth was a warm and loving mother, because otherwise I think she’s a pretty cool person.
No cite but I thought King George VI used to call his family ’ We Four’ before he was the king. He wanted to be closer to his childred then his parents.