The King's Speech (movie)
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:38 pm
There's a reason it won all the awards, it is good, well acted, accurate to the history of the time, nuanced and well written. Worthy of the price of admission.
It is the triumph of a stutterer who can't speak in public and a glorious story.
But late in the movie you do meed Neville Chamberlain (yes the "appeasement" fellow) and you do meet Winston Churchill who was not yet prime minister and hero of WW2.
the summer of 1936 saw the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin and the Winter Olympics in Garmische-Partenkirchen with all the pomp that Adolf Hitler could bring to the games. !936 was the Nuremburg Rally that we see in so many newsreels.
December 1936 was the abdication of Edward for Wallis Simpson and his brother "Albert Frederick Arthur George" second son of George V, became George Vi. . . his daughter is Elizabeth II, the current queen of England.
This would be a tiny story for a small screen movie. When the speech coach and the prince meet for the first time, the speech coach sends a young boy (not more than 9 y/o) out to say to his next "student" that Mrs Johnson (the fake name used by the prince) may wait for Mr Johnson and as the child gives this little speech, he stops and begins one stutter and then a second. A deep breath and the kid finishes without impediment. Here is the grown man who cannot utter a word on most occasions being confronted with a child struggling in the same and conquering the impediment. Of that one scene, an excellent drama exists.
But this is King George Vi who stayed in London during the Blitz and who was bombed in Buckingham Palace during an air raid and who lost a younger brother in the war. The King who rallied Britain at the darkest time in all of its history.
The only reason that you can't stand and cheer the end of this movie is that the King's Christmas 1936 speech was a call to arms for the war to come. No one cheers that war.
It is the triumph of a stutterer who can't speak in public and a glorious story.
But late in the movie you do meed Neville Chamberlain (yes the "appeasement" fellow) and you do meet Winston Churchill who was not yet prime minister and hero of WW2.
the summer of 1936 saw the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin and the Winter Olympics in Garmische-Partenkirchen with all the pomp that Adolf Hitler could bring to the games. !936 was the Nuremburg Rally that we see in so many newsreels.
December 1936 was the abdication of Edward for Wallis Simpson and his brother "Albert Frederick Arthur George" second son of George V, became George Vi. . . his daughter is Elizabeth II, the current queen of England.
This would be a tiny story for a small screen movie. When the speech coach and the prince meet for the first time, the speech coach sends a young boy (not more than 9 y/o) out to say to his next "student" that Mrs Johnson (the fake name used by the prince) may wait for Mr Johnson and as the child gives this little speech, he stops and begins one stutter and then a second. A deep breath and the kid finishes without impediment. Here is the grown man who cannot utter a word on most occasions being confronted with a child struggling in the same and conquering the impediment. Of that one scene, an excellent drama exists.
But this is King George Vi who stayed in London during the Blitz and who was bombed in Buckingham Palace during an air raid and who lost a younger brother in the war. The King who rallied Britain at the darkest time in all of its history.
The only reason that you can't stand and cheer the end of this movie is that the King's Christmas 1936 speech was a call to arms for the war to come. No one cheers that war.