'The Story of David Lloyd George' review

[Lokke Heiss]

I've been asked to post my review of a Maurice Elvey film, The
Story of David Lloyd George

Elvey's most interesting film at the 1997 Pordenone festival was a real curio, The Story of David Lloyd George (Ideal Film, 1918). Clocking in at a very long 172 minutes, the movie recounts the life and times of the British Liberal Prime minister Lloyd George who was in office at the time this film was shot. You know you are in for the complete story when the film
starts off by showing Lloyd George's birth certificate!

Elvey attempts to display Lloyd George's rise to power as a proletariat myth, a British version of Abraham Lincoln. I admired the technical polish of such an early film but the slavish uncritical worship of a sitting politician made the film look like a very grandiose bouquet of flowers from a gushing worshiper. Lloyd George himself may have become nervous about the film being seen and criticized as hagiography and election propaganda. For reasons still unclear, the film was pulled before it was finished, and had never been shown to an movie theater audience before the 1997 festival.

The one scene that really caught my eye was where the camera lingers on Lloyd George's secretary a little too long...just a beat longer than it needs to. I thought to myself: 'that means something.'

And it did. As I heard the story later, that woman was George's mistress.

[Spiny Norman]

Feels good if you think you spot something and it turns out you were right.

Always funny, films or television that has been unseen for so many decades. So many years of reception are missing, as if their existence was wiped from our memories in a strange twilight zone kind of way. There are some more strange examples.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

There is an interesting book on the film which came out several years ago which I picked up for a very modest sum whilst on holiday in the Isle of Wight. At the time I'd not even heard of the film although I knew a number of Elvey's works. Will try to unearth it sometime so as can post the full title.