NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

thinker1691 Hollywood takes many liberties when combining History and the real life of great Englishmen. In this sea epic, based on an original story by Curtis Kenyon, the movie is called " Lloyd of London. " Combining the navel exploits of Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) with that of the Insurance Market, Lloyds of London (1688-1900). This is a fictional account of two boys Jonathan Blake (Freddie Bartholomew and Tyrone Power) and Horatio Nelson (Douglas Scott and John Burton) growing up through the ages culminating during the Napoleonic Wars. Realizing that wealth and snobbery go hand in hand, Blake is determined to become an integral part of English aristocracy and influence, while Nelson raises through the naval ranks to achieve notoriety against the French. The movie makes much between men at sea and the financial power in England, so too between lovers both unrequited and not. George Saunders plays Lord Everett Stacy the principal foil which Powers had to contend with. An interesting contest between loyalty and love and which becomes more adroit when it comes to dealing with life. Tyrone is superb and the cast makes this movie a good candidate to become a Classic among Black and White films. ****

Robert J. Maxwell This is one of a sort of sub-genre that appeared on screens in the late 1930s. Let's see, there were biographies of all these tycoons, inventors, and successful businessmen -- Alexander Graham Bell, Reuters, Dr. Ehrlich, Robert Koch, and even Diamond Jim Brady. It's hard to imagine why these stories were so popular in the depths of the Great Depression. Maybe hope sells.Handsome Tyrone Power is the fictional Jonathan Blake who rises to a position of importance within the insurance company, Lloyd's of London, in the late 1790s, earnest here, rather than dashing. His girl is Madeleine Carrol. His friend from boyhood is Horatio Nelson. You know, Nelson? Trafalgar Square? His enemy is the dandyish, rich George Sanders who plays a snobbish cad for a change. He's marvelous with all that frothy lace at his neck. He's adopted a tendency to speak with a patina of elegance, pronouncing the word "me" as "meh." As in, "She died and left meh her entire faw-tyune." I have no idea how much of this tale is fabricated, though I doubt that a man pulled up in front of the tavern that housed the original Lloyd's and asked to see Doctor Johnson. (That would be Samuel Johnson, who said: "Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.") Who is asking? the doorman replies. "Benjamin Franklin." It's a nice little touch anyway.There is no poetry here, so don't look for it. The movie is to art as a Boston rocker is to furniture. It is hard and functional. It's designed to get the job done and it accomplishes its goal. It represents old-fashioned Hollywood craftsmanship. It's mostly studio bound but atmospheric as all get out. And it not only entertains, it "educates", as the Moguls would have phrased it.

jwiit In response to ADAMSHL's comment on LLoyd's insuring slave ships-In one scene when the insurers were in deep trouble, Blake was asked if he would insure a slave ship and he curtly said no! to emphasize the director's view of that practice.It is a pleasant change to watch a movie that flows through the acting and dialog rather than sound effects and extreme graphics. I could even understand all the actors voices in spite of 60 yr old audio technology. Most present day English movies have horrible sound and many words are lost because of the actors elocution.The main value of this movie is not a history lesson in politics but one in the lives of those who lived in that period and their environment, clothing, etc.

adamshl In retelling this piece of history, the writers left out one item. Between 1688 and 1807 one of the prime sources of Lloyd's of London's revenue was by insuring ships engaging in slave trading.* This enabled Britian to establish itself very rapidly as the chief slave trading center in the Atlantic.British ships carried more than three and a quarter million humans into slavery. This shocking statistic casts a deep pall on Lloyd's of London. It may be have been an embarrassment to the writers to include this in their screenplay; still a fact of this magnitude can be considered a sad omission.The rest of the film is well presented with beautiful acting and production values. Both Bartholomew and Power are excellent, as are Carroll and Sanders. _______________ *According to Wikipedia Enclycopedia "Lloyds in London...was a popular place for ship owners...especially those involved in the slave trade....Historian Eric Williams notes 'Lloyds insured slaves and slave ships...and quickly obtained a monopoly on maritime insurance related to the slave trade and maintained it up through the early 19th century.' "