It’s not easy to explain, even to one’s own satisfaction, why Young Winston is enjoyable.

Since Young Winston attempts to be a kind of vest-pocket spectacle, there are also a couple of the battles in which he fought (a set-to in the Sudan, a Boer skirmish). Attenborough stages them with all the fury of a grade school recess.

Both a brilliant artistic achievement and a fascinating, highly enjoyable film -- a combination not always obtained.

In the title role, 31-year-old Simon Ward makes as auspicious a debut in his first major performance as Peter O'Toole did in Lawrence Of Arabia,