British politics/politicians in film

[macmurray]

I'm trying to gather a decent list of depictions of British politics/politians in British film i.e. Fame Is the Spur. No Love For Johnnie etc.

Would be grateful to any thoughts/info anyone on the forum has on this topic.

Look forward to hearing from you.

[penfold]

The Story of David Lloyd George (1918) is probably the first....Young Mr Pitt, Young Churchill......or are you more after dramatic representations than biopics??

[macmurray]

Both/any thanks...

[Hugo]

How about:-
Damage
Defence of the Realm
Paris by Night
Scandal

But perhaps significant of the healthy British attitude to politicians there are many comedies with political bagkgrounds e.g.
The Chiltern Hundreds
Don't Just Lie there, Say Something !
Left, Right and Centre
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer

[Hugo]

How about: DAMAGE, DEFENCE OF THE REALM, PARIS BY NIGHT, SCANDAL.

But perhaps significant of the healthy Brirish scepticism of politicians ther are many comedies with a political backgound e.g THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS, DON'T JUST LIE THERE SAY SOMETHING, LEFT, RIGHT AND CENTRE, THE RISE AND RISE OF MICHAEL RIMMER

[dylan]

Michael Collins
Hidden Agenda
Chance of a Lifetime
The Prime Minister
Oh, What a Lovely War

....and numerous TV series like Our Friends in the North, The Long Firm, and Days of Hope.

D.

[DAE]

i don't know if any of the following might qualify

2 George Arliss versions of DISRAEL
THE IRON DUKE
I'M ALL RIGHT JACK
YOUNG WINSTON
CROMWELL

[DB7]

"Lord Mountdrago" from Three Cases of Murder and Carlton-Browne of the F.O.

[Fellwanderer]

Originally Posted by dylan Michael Collins Hidden Agenda Chance of a Lifetime The Prime Minister Oh, What a Lovely War ....and numerous TV series like Our Friends in the North, The Long Firm, and Days of Hope. D.

...A Very British Coup, GBH, the Francis Urquhart trilogy and the Alan Clark Diaries.

British television at its very best!

[Ascoyne D'Ascoyne]

And after watching "Old Mother Riley, M.P" I'd definitely vote for her!

[Hell_driver]

The Masquerader

[Lady Skelton]

Also Betty Balfour in the silent Squibs MP

[faceoff]

I wrote this a while back on IMDb about the "No Love For Johnnie" movie. Made over 45 years ago - it shows todays politics still - an ugly picture it made too.

So the book and film of "No Love for Johnnie". For a book penned in the late 1950s it came as a shock because the lead character Johnnie Roderick Byrne is such a er - fatherless child sums it up. Nothing at all to like about him. In my mind I had been calling Byrne the so called hero. But on reflection after just re-reading the book and seeing the movie again, I think there was a hero in both film and book. This man played such a small part in both "if you blinked" you would have missed him. But I think he was the moral centre that Fienburgh wanted to bring to Johnnie Byrne's world.

Like the "Flashman" character in that series of books, Johnnie Byrne is bad boy making good. Due respect to George MacDonald Fraser but one "Flashman" book would have been enough. The fact that the hero of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" dies unremarked on some foreign battlefield whilst the cowardly school bully lies, cheats and whores his way to fame and fortune is a great plot line. Clever as the subsequent books were, they are only variations on a wonderful original theme.

Wilfred Fienburgh's book came before the "Flashman" books but does more in those few pages to ridicule the "Rake's Progress" than any other number of books. The whole book leads up to the following speech made to Johnnie Byrne at the end of the book by the fictional Prime Minister, Reginald Stevens just before he gives Johnnie his "five pieces of silver" - or a small calibre job.

Stevens tells Johnnie Byrne about the President Of The Board Of Trade who has just exited "He's has gone away to die. He is going home to his garden in the north. Oh blast it, he's going to lay out new borders for spring and he'll never see them grow. About four times in a lifetime, Byrne, one meets a good man. And he was one. He was just good. I never heard him say a malicious word about anyone. A really good man in politics stands out like a mountain peak. It's not that there are fewer good men here than elsewhere. In this place we are a pretty fair microcosm of society, but the good man stands out. I suppose we are measured in our private attitude by our public utterances. We preach a high morality, but we are ordinary blokes after all. So to the cynical and the experienced we fail to live by our words. Then there comes one who does. Quietly, without ostentation, his whole life is a mirror of his precepts. And that makes him greater by comparison with the rest of us."

I consider Mr Fienburgh's hero Johnnie Byrne had no redeeming features at all – and this speech about a good man means nothing to him except as another opportunity to progress. It is apt that the current TV trailer for cricket on Channel Four has cricketer Geofrrey Boycott recounting the habit Freddie Trueman had of saying to a batsman who didn't have the good grace to get himself out following a brilliant Trueman ball delivery. "That ball was wasted on thee, lad!". On 1st July 2006, I am sorry to note Fred Trueman has recently died.

"Trueman" or good man, Steven's speech was wasted on Johnnie Byrne. Byrne goes on to grab the small promotion to Assistant Postmaster General, dumps his wife and feels smug and really contented at the end of the novel.

Byrne bumped into the dying President Of the Board of Trade as he entered the Prime Minister's office but far from seeing a terminally ill man, Byrne's only concern about the man's tragic appearance is was what it meant for him(Byrne). Was he about to get "fired"?

In the film version, Peter Finch deserved both that Bafta and Berlin Silver Bear award just for the scene where the camera cuts back to him as Geoffrey Keen's Stevens is making this speech. Watching "Johnnie Byrne" trying to remember what the facial expression for concern looked like. Byrne realises his facial muscle memory has had so little use of sympathetic expressions, he could no longer manage them. Finch's Byrne settled instead for the look of a man suffering from indigestion. It was very dark and almost funny.

[Rob Compton]

Originally Posted by faceoff Like the "Flashman" character in that series of books, Johnnie Byrne is bad boy making good. Due respect to George MacDonald Fraser but one "Flashman" book would have been enough. The fact that the hero of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" dies unremarked on some foreign battlefield whilst the cowardly school bully lies, cheats and whores his way to fame and fortune is a great plot line. Clever as the subsequent books were, they are only variations on a wonderful original theme.

One book would never have been enough - it's been a brilliant series over 30 or so years. Of course they are variations on a theme, but the inventiveness that the author shows in the series in placing the character in different situations is woderful to behold!

rgds
Rob

[faceoff]

Originally Posted by Rob Compton One book would never have been enough - it's been a brilliant series over 30 or so years. Of course they are variations on a theme, but the inventiveness that the author shows in the series in placing the character in different situations is woderful to behold! rgds Rob

Hi Rob

Yeah I managed the first 3 books, saw that traversty of the film version with Malcolm McDowell and then gave up on the genre. You are right though; it was well done but I tired of the unscrupulous cowardly rogue diving into an historical cesspool and always coming up with a salmon on his nose. : Too true to life perhaps.

I am and have been always a romantic and want the man in the metaphorical white hat to win.