Tribute to Winnie

The Finest Hours is an earnest, intelligent, generally uncritical documentary conceived as a tribute to Winston Churchill, who will be 90 on Nov. 30. Like Sir Winston's own work, and often in his own eloquent words, the film renders autobiography as history, submerging the private man in favor of the grand public figure who served his country, and his century, as First Lord of the Admiralty and Prime Minister through two world wars. "It was the nation and the race dwelling around the world that had the lion's heart," he declares. "I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar." In a masterfully edited collection of stills, family albums, grainy vintage newsreels, and sparkling new color footage. Producer Jack Le Vien (The Black Fox) shows the great events in which Churchill played so commanding a role, from his tour of duty as a young officer in India to the disastrous Dardanelles campaign of 1915, to Hitler, Dunkirk and the blitz on the road to victory in war and ultimate peaceful retirement.

The best things in The Finest Hours, however, are not the all too familiar history but the gentle, colorful, warmly intimate views of Churchill's resting places: awesome Blenheim Palace, where he was born; his country home. Chartwell. a rambling gallery of Churchillian art set within a walled garden; Chequers, the Buckinghamshire retreat of British Prime Ministers; and the simple, spartan bedroom 70 ft. below Downing Street where Churchill growled through some of the darkest hours England has ever known.

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