For Americans, after Yorktown, there seems a vague jump of six years of history we ignore. We know Washington, Lafayette, and Rochambeau defeat Lord Cornwallis but we tend to ignore the period of the Articles of Confederation government - except for the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and Daniel Shay's Rebellion and the Constitutional Convention.
Few concentrate on the issue of the Peace Treaty of Paris in 1783, and how Lord Shelburne sacrificed his political career to get Parliament to swallow it (Shelburne was very generous because he, like Franklin, realized that America's best interest was to have gradual rapprochement with Britain). The political mess in England was dreadful. Lord North was discredited, and replaced by the Marquis of Rockingham, who died. Rockingham was replaced by Shelburne, who got the peace but lost his office. And suddenly North returned supported by one of his persistent critics during the war: Charles James Fox. The "broad - bottom" ministry of North and Fox struggled for about a year when it lost a vote of confidence. King George III was happy about this (he disliked Fox), and turned to an unexpected figure to head the new government: William Pitt the Younger.
Pitt the Younger was the son of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham: the architect of great victory in the French and Indian (or Seven Years) War, which had left Britain the most powerful country in the world. The Earl had tried to prevent the American Revolution, but failed. He died in 1778, shortly after giving another drubbing on North's failed policies in the House of Lords. His title went to an older son, but his younger son and namesake went into Parliament. A brilliant speaker and organizer, Pitt the Younger was also a smart economical theorist. England needed peace - it had done very badly in the war (the only major war in nearly three hundred years it lost). It did have some naval victories under Romney and Hood in the Caribbean and Hughes (barely) over the brilliant Suffren in the Indian Ocean, and did acquire Florida, but it lost it's main empire.
Pitt the Younger gave England a good respite. He rebuilt the fleet, and he encouraged agriculture and industry (the film briefly covers this - even mentioning the forgotten Richard Trevethick and his early locomotives). He was determined to continue, but history was against him - he found that his monarch's health was uncertain (see THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE), and that the French Revolution unsettled Europe. From 1792 through 1815 Europe had only two brief periods of peace. Pitt was Prime minister until the first peace in 1802, and then Prime Minister from 1804 to his death in 1806. His economic dreams and his desire for peace were ruined by the French and Napoleon I, but he lived long enough to make certain that Napoleon would ultimately fail.
Except for not mentioning the insanity of the King (Raymond Lovell here), the movie is actually fairly factual. It does sugarcoat the reforming urge of Pitt the Younger (Robert Donat). He did rebuild the economy, and did set the stage for final victory. But he was willing to keep many corrupt political practices like "Rotten Boroughs" and government bribery. Unmentioned in this film was the 1797 great mutiny of the British fleets Pitt had rebuilt, because dockyard corruption affected the men's pay and rations. A more balanced view of Mr. Pitt appears in THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE where he is seen as a master manipulator that he was.
But this film was a British war film, meant to really compare Pitt's activities against Bonaparte (Herbert Lom, in his first appearance as the "Little Corporal"*) with the current struggle with Hitler. It doesn't quite work historically. Not only was the Younger Pitt capable of winking at corruption, but his opponent Charles James Fox (Robert Morley here) was a charming, if virtually ineffective supporter of democratic reform. Fox led the Whigs until his death in 1807. He did hold high office again in 1806 - 07 as Foreign Secretary under the Duke of Portland, but he died too soon. In the film he is made to seem an obstructionist who is ready to make peace with France too quickly (like Nevil Chamberlain with Germany, perhaps). He was actually far cagier than that, and the film at least suggests that Fox realizes (when Napoleon's invasion of Britain seems probable) that Pitt must return to office over Henry Addington, his somewhat weaker successor.
(*Lom, of course, replayed Napoleon in the film WAR AND PEACE with Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, and Mel Ferrer.)
Donat gives a splendid pair of performances as Chatham (briefly at the start) and Pitt the Younger. He captures the workaholic and near inebriate who worked and drank himself into an early grave before his fiftieth year (but managed to serve one of the longest tenures as Prime Minister). A romance is created for him with Phyllis Calvert, which is doomed due to his public sense of duty. Also there is the appearance of John Mills as William Wilberforce, forced to watch his campaign to wipe out slavery in the British Empire put on hold (this is not shown totally - a twenty year old "Masterpiece Theater" series did better on that subject). Note too Albert Lieven's Talleyrand, willing to serve the new master of France (Lom) but already showing his manipulation of Napoleon to get him to do his work (and also undercutting Nappy's comments about the weaknesses of Pitt and England). As a whole it is pretty good as history told in film. Certainly a film to come back to now and then.
Few concentrate on the issue of the Peace Treaty of Paris in 1783, and how Lord Shelburne sacrificed his political career to get Parliament to swallow it (Shelburne was very generous because he, like Franklin, realized that America's best interest was to have gradual rapprochement with Britain). The political mess in England was dreadful. Lord North was discredited, and replaced by the Marquis of Rockingham, who died. Rockingham was replaced by Shelburne, who got the peace but lost his office. And suddenly North returned supported by one of his persistent critics during the war: Charles James Fox. The "broad - bottom" ministry of North and Fox struggled for about a year when it lost a vote of confidence. King George III was happy about this (he disliked Fox), and turned to an unexpected figure to head the new government: William Pitt the Younger.
Pitt the Younger was the son of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham: the architect of great victory in the French and Indian (or Seven Years) War, which had left Britain the most powerful country in the world. The Earl had tried to prevent the American Revolution, but failed. He died in 1778, shortly after giving another drubbing on North's failed policies in the House of Lords. His title went to an older son, but his younger son and namesake went into Parliament. A brilliant speaker and organizer, Pitt the Younger was also a smart economical theorist. England needed peace - it had done very badly in the war (the only major war in nearly three hundred years it lost). It did have some naval victories under Romney and Hood in the Caribbean and Hughes (barely) over the brilliant Suffren in the Indian Ocean, and did acquire Florida, but it lost it's main empire.
Pitt the Younger gave England a good respite. He rebuilt the fleet, and he encouraged agriculture and industry (the film briefly covers this - even mentioning the forgotten Richard Trevethick and his early locomotives). He was determined to continue, but history was against him - he found that his monarch's health was uncertain (see THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE), and that the French Revolution unsettled Europe. From 1792 through 1815 Europe had only two brief periods of peace. Pitt was Prime minister until the first peace in 1802, and then Prime Minister from 1804 to his death in 1806. His economic dreams and his desire for peace were ruined by the French and Napoleon I, but he lived long enough to make certain that Napoleon would ultimately fail.
Except for not mentioning the insanity of the King (Raymond Lovell here), the movie is actually fairly factual. It does sugarcoat the reforming urge of Pitt the Younger (Robert Donat). He did rebuild the economy, and did set the stage for final victory. But he was willing to keep many corrupt political practices like "Rotten Boroughs" and government bribery. Unmentioned in this film was the 1797 great mutiny of the British fleets Pitt had rebuilt, because dockyard corruption affected the men's pay and rations. A more balanced view of Mr. Pitt appears in THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE where he is seen as a master manipulator that he was.
But this film was a British war film, meant to really compare Pitt's activities against Bonaparte (Herbert Lom, in his first appearance as the "Little Corporal"*) with the current struggle with Hitler. It doesn't quite work historically. Not only was the Younger Pitt capable of winking at corruption, but his opponent Charles James Fox (Robert Morley here) was a charming, if virtually ineffective supporter of democratic reform. Fox led the Whigs until his death in 1807. He did hold high office again in 1806 - 07 as Foreign Secretary under the Duke of Portland, but he died too soon. In the film he is made to seem an obstructionist who is ready to make peace with France too quickly (like Nevil Chamberlain with Germany, perhaps). He was actually far cagier than that, and the film at least suggests that Fox realizes (when Napoleon's invasion of Britain seems probable) that Pitt must return to office over Henry Addington, his somewhat weaker successor.
(*Lom, of course, replayed Napoleon in the film WAR AND PEACE with Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, and Mel Ferrer.)
Donat gives a splendid pair of performances as Chatham (briefly at the start) and Pitt the Younger. He captures the workaholic and near inebriate who worked and drank himself into an early grave before his fiftieth year (but managed to serve one of the longest tenures as Prime Minister). A romance is created for him with Phyllis Calvert, which is doomed due to his public sense of duty. Also there is the appearance of John Mills as William Wilberforce, forced to watch his campaign to wipe out slavery in the British Empire put on hold (this is not shown totally - a twenty year old "Masterpiece Theater" series did better on that subject). Note too Albert Lieven's Talleyrand, willing to serve the new master of France (Lom) but already showing his manipulation of Napoleon to get him to do his work (and also undercutting Nappy's comments about the weaknesses of Pitt and England). As a whole it is pretty good as history told in film. Certainly a film to come back to now and then.