Posted on 01/09/2018 11:18:14 PM PST by iowamark
Please pardon the vanity. I just saw Darkest Hour. It was really excellent and moving. Both history and drama. Some lines and scenes are obviously fictionalized. The scene with Churchill riding the subway is silly, but I understand the need for dramatic license.
It is about the last three weeks of May 1940. Churchill becomes Prime Minister, even though Chamberlain, Halifax, and King George dislike him. Hitler invades France, which becomes a rout. Halifax insists on peace negotiations with Hitler. Churchill wavers, but decides to fight on. It is impossible to say what might have happened if Britain had made a deal with Hitler.
I strongly encourage all to see Darkest Hour. The cast is all excellent.
Gary Oldman as Churchill, Kristin Scott Thomas as his wife, Ben Mendelsohn as George VI, Lily James as his secretary, Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain, Stephen Dillane Lord Halifax.
I generally go to a movie theatre only a couple of times a year. The missus has been put on notice for this one. Cannot wait to see it.
The film is good and it appears to be the way most people learn history now. Once we all read books. If the film inspires people to look things up on Google, then it is good.
The fact that it came out after the “Dunkirk” film hurts it a bit but it is still a fine work.
I am currently plowing through Churchill’s massive magnum opus, 6 volume History of WWII. It is not at all surprising that he won the Nobel prize for Literature for it.
The man was amazing and understood not only the Axis’ intentions by the early 1930’s he understood Stalin as well.
England indeed stood alone and we must give thanks for his perseverance, fortitude and statesmanship.
Oldman (Churchill), who played George Smiley in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is scheduled to be the protagonist in “Smiley’s People.” YouTube has the 1979 BBC series (6 episodes) available for viewing now in case you want to preview a rather complex plot.
Maybe, but let me take a crack at it.
Without the burden of a two-front war, Operation Barbarossa succeeds and Hitler pounds Stalin to dust.
Germany links up with Japan in Asia, Italy subdues Africa, they take the Middle East.
With unlimited supply of energy and manpower the Axis faces down America where suicidal pacifist forces make it impossible to rearm in a timely manner
A new dark age dawns
The End.
Or, The Man in the High Castle...?
I hope its better than Dunkirk,
Dunkirk was ridiculous in every way
Darkest Hour is brilliant inspirational and brilliant
In every way
I disagree with the Soviet part. Operation Barbarossa did in some part succeed but Hitler’s SS so antagonized the Russian people that they began to fight the Nazis in a truly vicious partisan way.
I think what would have happened is that the Soviets and the Nazis would have beat themselves to death on the Russian steppes and there would have been no iron curtain.
We would have beaten the Japanese in Asia, and started the desert campaigns across North Africa into Italy just as we did.
It would have been more difficult, but we would have eventually won against them.
“The scene with Churchill riding the subway is silly”
He did it. They used the names of the actual people that he talked to. It was a technique that he innovated to sway the other politicians.
Quotes:
“You can not reason with a Tiger when your head is in its’ mouth.”
“He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”
“Will you stop interrupting me while I am interrupting you!”
“Please tell the Privy Seal (Attlee) that I’m sealed in the privy. I can only deal with one shit at a time.”
“I’m coming out in a state of nature!”
“He’s a sheep in sheep’s clothing.”
“Why replace the organ grinder with the monkey?”
“An appeaser is one who hopes the crocodile will swallow him last’’.
“The Hun is either at your throat or at your feet’’.
The heavy water experiments would have succeeded as Britain will not have knocked them out; will we have perfected our uranium bombs before Germany could have brought their nukes to use against us?
He did it.
Preposterous!
Watching the movie, my reaction was, this is simply taking way too long for the distance traveled.
That's not to say he didn't connect with ordinary citizens.
After all, Churchill was half-American!
When the movie leaves the theaters it will be on Blu-Ray 3 weeks later.
I’ll see it then
Sounds about right..
We had an ocean between them and us. No one had a delivery system at that time which could have reached across the ocean.
They would have probably used what they could against the Russians, but ultimately it would have done little good. The Nazis were losing behind the lines against the partisans and all the other thousand little irregular warfare activities.
And nuking the battlefield, which is what the Nazis would have done, would have hurt them just as much as the Soviets. No one had any idea what that weapon would really do. We at least had distance between our troops and the Japanese, there was little or none between the Nazis and Soviets, and Hitler would not have cared anyway.
The act of bombing the Soviets would have galvanized the USA into hyperactive research and activity, which would have given us what we needed to defend ourselves.
I hope that you don’t really believe that that scene was real.
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