The Duke 2020 Roger Michell, English
The Duke
In 1961, a 60-year-old taxi driver steals a Goya painting of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. He sends a ransom note to the government saying he will return the painting if the government invests more care for the elderly.
Directed by: Roger Michell
Starring: Jim Broadbent as Kempton Bunton, Helen Mirren as his wife Dorothy, Fionn Whitehead as Jackie Bunton, Matthew Goode as Hutchinson, and Aimee Kelly as Irene.
The Duke is based on an amazing true story of the theft of Francesco Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. In 1961, the British Government purchased the portrait for 140,000 English pounds. It was put on display in the main entrance lobby of the Gallery on 2nd August, 20 days later at about 9:30 am, it was reported to the Police that the portrait was missing. It took four years for the painting to be recovered, and the man tried for this crime was a 61-year-old pensioner from Newcastle named Kenton Bunton. He was an enlightened working-class man whose fervent beliefs concerning the rights of the lower class and the elderly consistently got him fired from whatever job he managed to procure. Much to his wife Dorothy’s consternation, one of his subjects was the death of their daughter. In July 1965, Bunton walked into Scotland Yard and confessed to the crime. He declared himself “sick and tired of the whole affair.” He also stated, “My effort has been honest to goodness skulduggery but evil, No.” Bunton gave a statement in which he admitted taking the portrait from the National Gallery in 1961 and explained he had kept the painting in a cupboard in his bedroom at his home in Newcastle and had no intention of keeping the painting. He was found not guilty of the theft of the painting itself but of the frame, which was never recovered. Bunton was sentenced to 3 months in prison.
Only 50 years later did the full story emerge; Kempton had spun a web of lies. The only truth was that he was a good man, determined to change the world and save his marriage to wife Dorothy. How and why Bunton used “The Duke” to achieve this is a wonderful story.