The Young Mr. Pitt

I finally got to see The Young Mr. Pitt, a film I had wanted to see for decades. Mainly because Robert Donat perfectly fit my conception of what William Pitt, the Younger was like. In that I was not disappointed, Pitt is definitely one of Donat's best screen performances.

William Pitt, the Younger 1759-1806 was the second son of William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham. As he was the second son, he did not inherit the earldom, but he did inherit his father's name and in British history, he is probably one of the five greatest individuals ever to be their Prime Minister. And he became Prime Minister at the ripe old age of 24 and held that office for most of the rest of his life.

Although certain things were left out, what was in the film stuck pretty close to the facts. When Pitt turned 21 he entered Parliament in 1781 and the following year, Lord Frederick North, the Prime Minister who lost the American Revolution was finally kicked out. There was a bit of jockeying for power and several governments were formed over the next two years when George III got the idea to ask young Pitt to take the job. He managed to win the next elections and was master of Parliament the rest of his life. He also never lost the confidence of his sovereign.

Donat captures Pitt perfectly, his only vice was every now and then to drink a bit much. No cheap swill for him though, only the finest of wines did he occasionally overindulge in. His chaste behavior around Phyllis Calvert is also true, it's pretty much established the man was celibate all his life, probably due to a low sex drive, though that's not explicitly gone into.

Without family attachments, Pitt's whole life was devoted to the protection and governance of the United Kingdom. He saw the danger of radical Jacobinism from France to British society and the even greater menace of Napoleon Bonaparte. Like FDR and General George C. Marshall reaching down the ranks to get Dwight D. Eisenhower in World War II. Pitt was the man who found Horatio Nelson and gave him command of Great Britain's fleet and who responded with victories at Aboukir Bay and Trafalgar.

As Pitt was chaste and aesthetic, his great rival of the period Charles James Fox was a rake and a gambler. Robert Morley gives one of his greatest performances also suitably cast as Fox. My favorite moment in the film is after Aboukir Bay, Fox gets a brick thrown through his window while dining with four lovely young ladies. When one of them asks what this was, Morley drolly replies, 'the voice of public opinion.'

What makes that particular scene more effective is that the next scene cuts to demonstrations against Pitt, calling for a truce in the war. The fickle finger of public opinion very graphically demonstrated.

John Mills plays William Wilberforce of whom a film was made about last year to great acclaim. He was Pitt's devoted friend and ally, but Wilberforce's crusade to abolish slavery gets a brief mention in The Young Mr. Pitt and nothing more.

What gets no mention at all is King George, III's periods of insanity and the Prince Regent, later George IV is not a character here.

The film takes us up to Trafalgar. In real life Pitt died very soon after the battle of Austerlitz which left the United Kingdom bereft of continental allies for several years. Worn in body and spirit, sadly he died without knowing of Great Britain's eventual triumph over the force of despotism.

Of course the film was made while the United Kingdom was also going through a great trial against an even greater evil, with another resolute Prime Minister who devoted his heart and soul to his country's service and protection. I'm sure Winston Churchill saw the film as some propaganda against his critics, but I'm also sure that William Pitt the Younger was a role model for him.

As Pitt should be a role model for all who put country above all.

Donat lived only a couple of miles from where I live.The house has a blue plaque and a covered drive to save him him from adoring fans.This is a typical wartime biog,when you see Napoleon, see Hitler.The film covers a lot of ground and has a linking narration. This obviously makes it rather episodic. Robert Morley is good as Charles Fox.

Robert Donat is of course the leading character here, playing both father and son William Pitt with sincerity and honour, but Robert Morley as the indomitable opposition leader Charles Edward Fox is at least equally impressing. It's a very human film watching one of the most important and famous British prime ministers from the inside, his drinking, his health problem, and so forth, but the times around 1800 are conscientiously caught on celluloid, and Herbert Lom practices his great part as the best Napoleon ever before King Vidor's "War and Peace" 1956. It's a great history lesson with great human insights, and although a propaganda film during the war, as a history cavalcade from the days of George III it is wholly convincing and most entertaining, especially the election scenes.

Only in England, surely, would anyone set out to make a propaganda movie by quoting verbatim from 18th-century Parliamentary proceedings..!

Admittedly -- as shown in the sequences where Robert Donat, as the eponymous Prime Minister, is howled down in the House of Commons -- the gentlemen of that era did not always mince their words. Still, in common with so many other famous British propaganda products of the time -- "A Matter of Life and Death", "In Which We Serve", "Pimpernel Smith", "49th Parallel" -- "The Young Mr Pitt" is a sophisticated and amazingly literate piece of work: no cheap bashing of the enemy, no sentimental romanticising of the fickle mob, no principle or personage too elevated to bear a little gentle mockery. The film's subject is presented in a manner arguably verging on hagiography (Pitt is Right, Fox is Wrong, and the former has no vices beyond a tendency to self-sacrifice)... and yet it has no qualms, for example, in counterpointing Robert Donat's great patriotic speech towards the end of the film with images of Members of Parliament yawning or exchanging long-suffering glances as he orates. By refusing to treat itself with blind veneration, it creates a depth of subtlety that stands up well in its own right so many years later, where simple-minded tub-thumping would long since have become merely embarrassing.

The script is surprisingly funny, and often sparkles: when a naval official complains that he feels more at home at sea than in politics, Pitt returns the swift quip that his rival Fox will soon feel all at sea at home. We are introduced to the King known to history as 'Farmer George' over a bowl of home-grown royal turnips, and treated to the spectacle of the Prime Minister caught out by some very important guests in mid-pillow-fight with the children of his host. By leavening its message with humour, it humanises a potentially heavy-handed political slant.

It is, of course, a one-man show, and Robert Donat proves fully equal to the task. He begins the film portraying Pitt the Elder in old age, and then develops the title character from one mocked for his youth to the sick and prematurely aged man of the final reels; and does it without overwhelming awareness of cosmetic wizardry, and with the benefit of a pair of fine expressive eyes. John Mills has the somewhat thankless role of playing reformer William Wilberforce in what is essentially the role of hero's sidekick, the ever-present character to whom Pitt can voice his plans and dilemmas for the audience's benefit. Albert Lieven is memorable as the devious Talleyrand, and Leslie Bradley and Roy Emerton make an impression in the early part of the film as the famous heavyweights of the bare-knuckle boxing era, Mendoza and 'Gentleman' Jackson.

Featuring cameo scenes for characters ranging from Lord Nelson to Danton, the film is inevitably a quick canter through the relevant history. It doesn't pretend to be a deep political analysis of the period. But as a flag-waver it aims high, and compared to your average Hollywood 'biopic' it is quality entertainment. I saw this as the fourth film at the end of a hectic day, and even under such circumstances it stood out as a more ambitious vehicle than the -- perfectly enjoyable -- rest.

It doesn't have the complexity of a great picture. But it benefits fully from the restraint and talent of its era.

The eighteenth century was the most interesting century. It was the century when the modern world was born, when countries and empires were created and as Dickens described it: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness etc. One of the most important people of that time was of course William Pitt so surely a film about the great man would be truly amazing?

Unfortunately although he was one of our greatest prime ministers, if not our greatest, he was famously dull. He would never have succeeded in this personality and media focussed age, he was focussed on just one thing: running the country and ensuring Napoleon's ambitions were thwarted. He had no significant relationships, no significant friends, no scandal, not even a social life. So, not the ideal subject for a film then!

Nevertheless Carol Reed does manage to inject some life into our hero. He is brilliantly portrayed by Robert Donat whose sense purpose we can very much empathise with. So despite the handicaps, Gaumont-British do pull a rabbit out of empty bag with this and make a pretty decent and very watchable biopic.