Today, Winston Churchill is regarded as one of the great leaders of his time, and a hero for helping to guide Great Britain through the crises of World War II. But in the 1930s, Churchill 's place in history hardly seemed assured; his early warnings against the growing threat of the Third Reich were taken seriously by few of his contemporaries, and he suffered through a variety of personal, professional, and economic setbacks before German attacks on England gave credence to his theories about Hitler's desire to overtake Europe, and gave Churchill the opportunity to rise to the greatness that was his destiny. The Gathering Storm is a made-for-television biographical drama based on Churchill 's memoirs about his life leading up to World War II. Albert Finney stars as Winston Churchill , Vanessa Redgrave plays his wife, Clementine, and Derek Jacobi appears as Stanley Baldwin. Jim Broadbent and Ronnie Barker co-star. Produced for the BBC, The Gathering Storm received its American premier on the HBO premium cable network in the spring of 2002. — Mark Deming