When the Queen told Churchill: Stop making me sit through these dreadful films

For nearly 50 years the Queen has graced the red carpet at Royal Film Performances. But newly discovered documents show that in the early years of her reign she found the movies so dreadful she complained to then Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill during an audience at Buckingham Palace.

She may have once even considered boycotting the event.

The 1954 Royal Performance of the film Beau Brummell - starring Stewart Granger and Elizabeth Taylor - was a particular cause of displeasure. The Queen and her officials were also unimpressed by three previous films - Where No Vultures Fly, Because You’re Mine and Rob Roy The Highland Rogue.

In a memo concerning the Beau Brummell screening dated November 19, 1954, Churchill’s Private Secretary David Pitblado told Sir Frank Lee, the Permanent Secretary at the Board of Trade:

‘The Prime Minister asked me to look into this when he returned from his audience with the Queen. The Queen had told him what a bad film it was and he, on his own initiative, wanted to see what could be done about it for the future.’

The declassified documents show that both Buckingham Palace and Downing Street began to despair with the choice of films in the Fifties.

In a further memo dated November 25, 1954, Sir Frank noted: ‘There is no doubt at all that the quality of the films shown to HM on the last four occasions (which I have also had the misfortune to attend) ranged from the mediocre down to the vulgar and distressing.



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