I’ve read that, too, and that he continued saying it up until he died.
Rayne Man, after hearing the audio of his speech I almost expected him to end by saying “Fwee Wodewick!”
Forgot to add:
Great story, Sampiro. I can easily believe it, from all I’ve read. One biographer said Wallis was so vain she had the undersides of her shoes polished.
A nitpick: The Duke of Windsor was “His Royal Highness” from abdication until death, while the Duchess was “Her Grace” from marriage until death (a longstanding bone of contention between the ex-King and his successor).
I got all choked up during the scene where the girls thought they had to curtsy instead of giving him a hug.
I’ve read that the current Queen’s children weren’t half so upset by the fact Her Majesty didn’t breast feed them as they were by the fact she did breast feed the Corgis.
What a great movie.
I liked how the speech therapist was just as insecure about his methods as Bertie was. Usually therapists are portrayed in films as a little too perfect, like Judd Hirsch in Ordinary People. But I think in reality therapists can’t really be too sure of their methods, since some of their clients probably never get better.
One thing I noticed was that some of the shots had the subjects a little off to the side, instead of in the center of the shot. It was mostly done that way in the therapy sessions.
Any ideas why the director shot it that way? Was it just a style choice or was it supposed to say something about the film?
I had to share this inadvertently hilarious article in the Daily Mail (where else?) by a cloth-eared reviewer who clearly misheard a line in the film. (Read the comments if all is not clear…) 
I can understand mishearing a line, but it seems even stranger to me that the reviewer describes Helena Bonham Carter as portraying Queen Elizabeth as “a sharp-tongued snob, crushing ordinary people”. 
It’s Philip (I write shit bios of British bands from the 1960s for a living) Norman and The Daily Fucking Mail (Hurrah for the Blackshirts!). :rolleyes:
I can sort of understand mishearing a line, but:
(1) if you want to make a career of slamming people’s mistakes like that, you’d better do your homework so you don’t look like a jackass.
(2) when she said the line, she was actually handing the child a sweety. The visual cue was right there, even for people like Norman who are apparently hard of hearing.
I, too, thought that Norman’s description of Bonham Carter’s portrayal of Elizabeth was completely off-base. Of course there’s going to be some haughtiness there. She’s a member of the British royal family during the first half of the 20th century, ferchrissakes. Not exactly a demographic prone to self-deprecation or a strong inferiority complex. But Elizabeth came across, to me, as a pretty good-humored and self-aware person, and as someone who was deeply concerned for her husband and her family. I don’t know enough about the Queen Mother to know if this is an accurate portrayal, but i do think that Norman’s description of the character is ridiculous.
Is Abp of Canterbury Cosmo Lang (Derek Jacobi in the movie) well known in England? I’ve heard the name but remembered it mainly because it sounds like a superhero’s alternate identity. In the movie he comes across as a classist and a snob but his wikiimplies he devoted much of his career to the impoverished so I was curious how accurate the depiction was.
I really don’t know anything about him, but i don’t think that there’s necessarily a contradiction there. There were (are?) plenty of upper-class folk in Britain who are both unrelenting classists and snobs, on the one hand, and yet also heavily involved in charities and philanthropy designed to help the impoverished, on the other. The whole notion of noblesse oblige is, for many people, part and parcel of being in the upper class.
Also, it seemed to me that the Archbishop’s problem with Logue in the film was not necessarily a problem with the man, per se, but rather a problem with the notion that a common man would presume to assert his equality and his authority among his betters in the way that Logue did. That’s the classist and snobbish part. But if Logue had kept to his station, and Lang had come into contact with him in a different situation, the Archbishop could well have been very gracious to him.
Well sending him to that particular boarding school was Prince Phillip’s doing. As acsenray pointed out all boys of his class were expected to go away to school. Her Majesty & Princess Maragret were both educuated at home by governesses & tutors and she was quite keen on sending her own children to an actual school where they’d mix with other (upper class) children. She’s also never been very comfortable showing any kind of emotion in public. The same can be said for most of her generation. I don’t recall seeing pictures of George VI being affectionate with his daughters in public either.
Yeah, that’s ridiculous. I didn’t see her as anything other than warm and supportive. The occasional haughtiness, such as wanting Logue to come to “Mr. Johnson” rather than the Duke come to Logue, is all understandable given the time, place and stations of the people involved. I’d love a whole movie about her, played by HBC.
If that, and the Sooty mistake, weren’t enough to file him under “Idiot, Class A” in my mind, this would have:
Man, talk about “Unclear on the Concept” that pretty much takes the cake and pie too.
This was my take as well. The character seemed like she had a good sense of humor, and while she was clearly aware of her station she didn’t strike me as at all stuck up. The only thing I can think of that might be perceived as a snobbish insult was her brief conversation with Mrs. Logue about how one addresses the Queen. I thought she was very good-natured about the whole thing though, and didn’t seem like she’d be offended if someone made an innocent etiquette mistake. She seemed more concerned with relieving Mrs. Logue’s worries about making an embarrassing blunder. Her refusal to stay for dinner also seemed like the polite thing to do, since Mrs. Logue probably felt obligated to offer but it was clear that no one would have been comfortable had the King and Queen accepted.
I went to see it with my Dad while I was in England over Christmas. We really enjoyed it.
The family next to us had brought their very VERY ancient father to see the film. Despite it being deafeningly loud, he kept saying “What are they saying? I can’t HEAR” for the first few minutes. Then when the king starts yelling rude words, the old guy said in mystified tones. “Funny kind of picture, this…” which made my Dad and I crack up.
We both thought it was an excellent film. Very well acted, moving, funny, and yep, all-round great.
Saw it. If there is justice in the world, it should sweep the Academy Awards, it is far better then other films especially the one about some social website I keep hearing about.
The Social Network is no more “about some social website” than The King’s Speech is “about some rich guy who stutters.” Or The Wrestler is “about wrestling.” Or Black Swan is “about ballet.” Or The Godfather is “about mobsters.” Or Slumdog Millionaire is “about the slums of Mumbai.” Or Brokeback Mountain is “about sheep herding.” I could go on.
Great movies can take a core subject and make it more into universal themes that people may or may not be able to relate to, but which elevates it much higher than the subject at its core. As I’ve said elsewhere, but can’t remember where, I had and have no interest in wrestling, but love The Wrestler, because the movie transcended mere wrestling. The same with The Social Network. I don’t have much interest in Facebook, but the movie transcends Facebook. Hell, same with The King’s Speech. I don’t have a whole lot of interest in British royalty, but the movie transcended the royalty aspect, even though it was a very important part.
The Social Network can and should be viewed more like a Shakespearian-themed story, set in modern day. Who gives a damn about the rich and privileged people who populate Shakespeare’s plays and boo hoo over their misfortunes? Not many, yet Shakespeare manages to make his stories transcend those things and makes us be interested. Aaron Sorkin, who has no interest in Facebook himself, does the same thing.
Anyway, this rivalry is pretty silly. They’re two very different movies, as different as could be. I think they’re both outstanding, and I wouldn’t mind to see either one of them win Best Picture. Better The King’s Speech though, so I don’t have to go through the next few decades hearing all the whining from old farts about how that “Facebook movie” won.
Of course, if The King’s Speech wins, it will be unfairly reviled by a generation of moviegoers, many of whom will not care a whit about Facebook, but who know great movies when they see one, the same sort of people who complain about How Green Was My Valley winning BP over Citizen Kane, or Dances With Wolves winning over Goodfellas, or Titanic winning over LA Confidential, or A Beautiful Mind winning over Fellowship of the Ring, or Crash winning over Brokeback Mountain. Then it’ll be you folks who have to keep defending it. It deserves defending as much as those other movies (I happen to like all those movies that won, even if I like most of the ones that didn’t win more), but man is it tiring.
Bold words, indeed.
I guess the concept of a joke is foreign to certain people.
Actually, you did.
“It’s not what a movie is about; it’s how it is about it.” - Gene Siskel
mmm