You won't be disappointed!

That was an excellent one.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Fine BBC production about key players in a lesser known period of history, the fact that they are ancestors of Winston Churchill is interesting but really doesn't factor into the story. The real focus is about royal power struggles and the emergence of the Churchill line. A bit stagy and it shows its age in film quality but the performances make all that secondary. John Neville is good but this really belongs to Susan Hampshire as Sarah Churchill who is by turns kittenish, vixenish and noble. A top star in England since the 60's her talent is great and her presence enchanting it's a pity she's not better known. She is in the same league as Diana Rigg, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench.

This was the first and still my favorite presentation on Masterpiece Theatre. It was based on Winston Churchill's biography of his most noted ancestor, John Churchill First Duke of Marlborough. OF course with Winston writing it, John Churchill turns out to be something of a plaster saint.Well, Marlborough may have been Great Britain's greatest land soldier, but a saint, no one but Winnie would think that. What's not shown is Marlborough's political dexterity, his opportunism, his acquisitiveness. In the four volume life of the Duke, Winston gives some rather tortured explanations about certain incidents in his life. The series lightly glosses over them. Loyalty was not one of his bigger virtues.A clearer picture is given of Sarah Jennings, the Duchess. She was close to Princess, later Queen Anne and through her really, was Marlborough able to rise to perform the great military deeds he did perform in the War of Spanish Succession. Another reviewer was dismayed how it showed that petticoat politics brought about his downfall. Yes, but petticoat politics enable him to rise in the first place. Sarah was something of a shrew and could really wear on one's nerves. She certainly did with Queen Anne, who by all accounts was probably one of the most decent people ever to be monarch in England/Great Britain. That's what brought down the Marlborough hegemony of the first decade of the 18th century.John Neville and Susan Hampshire will forever be enshrined in my mind as the perfect conception of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Margaret Tyzack is also a perfect Queen Anne, in fact the whole cast seems like it stepped right out of the late Stuart era.Someday we may get a more accurate and balanced picture of the Duke of Marlborough and his era to compare this with. Maybe one not written by a descendant who was interested in glorifying the most prominent branch on the family tree.

I saw most of this fine historical mini-series when I was 12 years old( though I missed The Battle of Blenhiem episode)-and I found it very easy to follow.( But then again, I have been a voracious reader of history since I was about six.) The film is faithful to Winston Churchill's somewhat hagiographic treatment of his pretty roguish ancestors, and to the Whig interpretation of history , with brave England saving us all from having to speak French. Still, despite thhese faults, it is a very good costumer. John Neville, John Standing, James Villiers, and the incomparable Susan Hampshire put in excellent performances. I was moved by the death of Godolphins wife, and amused by the great scene when an anti- Catholic mob surrounds Nell Gwynn's carriage, shouting " Its the Catholic whore!". She answers " Be silent, good people, I am THE PROTESTANT WHORE", and they burst into cheers.

One of the early multi-episode full-color costume dramas by the B.B.C. This being a British historical piece with a cast of dozens, many American viewers found it hard to follow at first. Indeed, many tuned in only because, in 1971, they were mostly W.W. II veterans who were hooked by the idea of a T.V. show about Winston Churchill's ancestors. But then, history is very hard to distill into a simple beginning-middle-end story form.The series ends with the death of John Churchill. A pity because Sarah survived her husband by 22 years and there were many interesting incidents in her widowhood - she wouldn't have been Sarah if she didn't have any.One incident I have in mind concerns her plans to marry off her granddaughter - Lady Diana Spencer - to Frederick, Prince of Wales. She even offered to put up £150,000 as dowry (that would be, in today's terms, serious money.)Nothing came of it though. Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, scotched the idea and arranged a marriage for the Prince to some German princess.Which was just as well. Frederick, once having done his Royal duty, went back to his favorite pastime of getting drunk with his cronies until all hours. Afterwards they would cruise London in the dark, throwing brick-a-bats through front windows - the more expensive, the better - and then looking at the occupants faces when they saw who the scum of the streets was.Frederick never made it to the throne. Having caroused one time too many, he died in his 30s from just about anything there was to die from back then. His eldest, George, became Prince of Wales and later, King George III, the Meshugganer Monarch, whose own madness may well have been hereditary - and may still well be.So, as you can see, Lady Diana Spencer was much better off never marrying the Prince of Wales, worthless no-good bum that he was.