June 1, 2015

Finest Hour 108, Autumn 2000

Page 40

It’s High Time for a New Video on Churchill’s Paintings

The Other World of Winston Churchill. Produced by Jack LeVien, 1964. Videotape, 54 minutes

Film maker Jack LeVien, a Churchill fan who produced the favorable documentary “The Finest Hours,” is less well known for his “The Other World of Winston Churchill,” a documentary about Churchill’s pastime of painting in oils.

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Unfortunately, not all of its 54 minutes are devoted to its proclaimed subject, and there is some pretty corny stuff: extensive stock footage showing what people do for leisure—everything except paint, it seems—while the voice of Churchill, provided by an actor, talks about the need for hobbies (or doesn’t talk at all). On the positive side, there is a touching if halting testimony by Churchill’s artist friend Paul Maze, author of A Frenchman in Khaki, for which Churchill wrote the foreword in 1934. Maze, who was one of Churchill’s artist-coaches, doesn’t tell us much about his technique, but is eloquent on what Churchill meant to patriotic Frenchmen.

There is also some superb footage of Churchill, especially that from his earlier years, although a still of him in 1901 is used to portray him during the Dardanelles crisis of 1915. Some of the later illustrations are haphazardly captioned. A shot of WSC in the 1951 election is said to be from 1945; panned shots of the brick walls at Chartwell built by himself include much higher walls he did not build; the sign on the wall he did construct, “…built by Winston with his own hands,” is misquoted. Sian Phillips plays Lady Lavery, who first taught Churchill how to “attack the canvas,” and succeeds much better than she did playing Lady Churchill in “The Wilderness Years.” The Churchill voiceover is not bad, but Robert Hardy would do it better. Painting friends Lady Birley and Montgomery are more interested in talking about themselves, and Monty is especially amusing—a voice like that and he commanded whole armies!

This film was produced in 1964, and is showing its age. We hear that a new documentary is in the works, and we look forward to it. RML