Winston Churchill's self-serving memoirs of his youthful adventures are brought to the screen by the current master (or at least the most frequent practitioner) of the large-scale bio-pic, Richard Attenborough. The film follows Churchill through childhood, school, and succesful efforts win
fame in the Sudan and the Boer War, ending with his election to Parliament at the age of 26.
YOUNG WINSTON works as an action-packed adventure, with lots of rousing battle scenes and hairsbreadth escapes, but its attempt to penetrate the motivations of its hero is about as profound as a high school psychology text. Ward is convincing as Churchill, and the other performances, particularly
that of Shaw, are of a high order. Attenborough's direction, in his debut feature, is fairly accomplished and even innovative--he experimented with "flashing" techniques here, exposing the film before shooting to get subtle color tints. Well-paced, but still very long at almost two and a half
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