Churchill: The Hollywood Years | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Peter Richardson |
Written by | Peter Richardson Pete Richens |
Produced by | Jonathan Cavendish Ben Swaffer |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Cinders Forshaw |
Edited by | Geoff Hogg John Wilson |
Music by | Simon Boswell |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Pathé Distribution |
Release date |
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Running time | 84 minutes |
Countries | |
Language | English |
Box office | £529,546 |
Churchill: The Hollywood Years is a 2004 comedy film directed by Peter Richardson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Pete Richens. It stars Christian Slater as Winston Churchill and Neve Campbell as Elizabeth II. The film is a satire on the Hollywood take on history, such as U-571 (portraying the capture of an Enigma machine as being by the Americans rather than the British) and Pearl Harbor (where American participation in the Battle of Britain was exaggerated).
Adolf Hitler moves into Buckingham Palace and plans to marry into the Windsors. A U.S. Army officer claims the iconic cigar-smoking PM was an actor named Roy Bubbles; however, he was actually USMC lieutenant Winston Churchill who had stolen an Enigma code machine and then almost single-handedly won a very alternative battle for Britain.
It was filmed between 24 March and 12 May 2003. Mainly filmed at the Royal William Yard, Stonehouse, Plymouth.
Philip French writing in The Observer called the film "a hit and miss affair". [2] Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian gave it three stars and said "It's wildly uneven and very broad, but there are some laughs in Peter Richardson's The Comic Strip fantasy of Churchill's real life as a kickass action hero". [3] However, Nev Peirce on the BBC's website panned the film, saying "Sadly, Peter Richardson suffers the fate of many satirists; in trying to mock bad movies, he's simply made a bad movie". [4] The film holds a score of 40% on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. [5]
The film grossed $288,292 on its opening weekend across 170 screens in the UK. It grossed a total of $478,981 in the United Kingdom. [6]