Horatius at the Gate

Rating: Null/10 (3 March 2018)

One of Winston Churchill's favorite authors was Lord Macaulay, who wrote of the heroism of Horatius who held off the Etruscans from invading Rome, due to his heroism in guarding the bridge. "Darkest Hour" portrays Churchill's similar actions in rallying Great Britain in his first month in office as Prime Minister in the dark days of May, 1940. The only difference between Churchill and the ancient Roman hero was that Churchill was using words in an act of patriotism in some of his greatest speeches.
Some of the most interesting scenes in the film are those where Churchill is dictating his speeches to a typist, a fictional character named Miss Layton. Unknown to Churchill through most of the film, the secretary has lost her brother, who died while on the retreat to Dunkirk. It was Churchill's defiance of Hitler and his stand against the members of his war cabinet (especially Viscount Halifax and the disgraced Neville Chamberlain) that resulted in the successful evacuation of nearly 300,000 troops from Dunkirk.
Churchill eloquently said that "success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to control that counts." Britain was truly alone in the dark days of 1940. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, and Norway had fallen to Hitler. Soon, Belgium and France would capitulate. No help was forthcoming from America. Churchill recognizes that England had to take control of her own destiny.
When Churchill was appointed Prime Minister, he had a string of failures to his credit in the disastrous Gallipoli campaign of World War I, the paternalistic policy on India, his contrary stance on the Russian Civil War, the gold standard, the support of Edward VIII in his marriage to Wallis Simpson, and the Norway adventure. He was essentially cashiered as a politician and in the "wilderness" throughout the 1930s.
Yet, in May,1940, Churchill took center stage while admitting that he had "nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." One of the turning points in the film was when King George VI gave Churchill his unconditional support for resistance. There were to be no negotiations with Hitler. Viscount Halifax was correct when he acknowledged that when Churchill addressed Parliament in his famous "fight on the beaches" speech, he had successfully "mobilized the English language and sent it into battle."