The Young Mr Pitt

The Young Mr Pitt

A scene from the film
Directed by Carol Reed
Written by Frank Launder &
Sidney Gilliat (screenplay);
Viscount Castlerosse (additional dialogue and original novel)
Starring Robert Donat,
Robert Morley,
Herbert Lom,
Ronald Shiner
Music by Louis Levy
Cinematography Freddie Young
Edited by R.E. Dearing
Release dates
 21 September 1942
Running time
 118 min
Country United Kingdom & United States
Language English

The Young Mr Pitt is a 1942 British biographical film, directed by Carol Reed and starring Robert Donat, Robert Morley and John Mills.[1] Made in black-and-white, it was produced by Edward Black and Maurice Ostrer for the British subsidiary of 20th Century Fox.

Outline

A biopic, made in wartime, of William Pitt the Younger, it concerns his struggle against revolutionary France and Napoleon. Pitt, son of William Pitt the Elder, becomes the youngest Prime Minister that the United Kingdom has ever known at 24, wins an election on the promise of peace and prosperity, yet ironically ends up as the presiding spirit of an interminable war with Revolutionary France. Both his health and his private life suffer from the strain. The period costumes were designed by Cecil Beaton and Elizabeth Haffenden.

Similar parallels with the struggle against Hitler's Germany were implied in That Hamilton Woman (aka, Lady Hamilton, 1941), made by Alexander Korda in the United States[2] with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in the leads.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/58942?view=cast
  2. ↑ Patricia Warren British Film Studios: An Illustrated History, London: B.T. Batsford, 2001, p.33, 145
  3. ↑ In his first English-speaking role

External links