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Movie Reviews, & Film Industry Commentary
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1968 – PG – 135 min.
Director: Anthony Harvey
Primary Cast: Peter O’Toole, Katherine Hepburn, Jane Merrow, John Castle, Timothy Dalton, Anthony Hopkins, Nigel Stock, Nigel Terry
Stars ***** (of 5)
Popcorn **** (of 5)
Film Type(s): Drama, History, Middle Ages, Period
Synopsis: In 1183, King Henry II (O’Toole) decides to have Christmas at Shenon with his whole family and King Phillip of France (Dalton) so that he can decide who will succeed him as King of England. The only problem is that no one in this family trusts or doesn’t backstab one another, especially his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Hepburn), whom he has had imprisoned for ten years. Henry uses his mistress, Philip’s sister Alice (Merrow), as a bargaining chip to shift power between himself and Philip and his eldest son Richard (Hopkins), who now owns the Aquitaine and to whom Alice is engaged. Meanwhile, Henry also presses for spoiled brat John (Terry) to become King, while Eleanor presses for soldier Richard, with middle son Geoffrey (Castle) taunting them all and moving his allegiances as it suits him. Meanwhile, Philip uses the disharmony to advance his own agenda with a secret of his own. This was the first film for both future James Bond Dalton and Oscar winner Hopkins (who credited Hepburn as his greatest teacher in acting).
Review: This powerful adaptation of James Goldman’s play of the same name is a rarity in Hollywood: a period drama that is highly entertaining to all. More fascinatingly so because it is, effectively, a true story. A royal battle royale of wit, betrayals, madness, and cunning ensues, all to great affect to us as the audience, like Hepburn’s delivery of Eleanor’s greeting to her sons that is a zinger that sums up the ‘role of sex in history’ and Henry’s wonderful line that sums of the film: “What shall we hang? The holly or each other?” Director Harvey chose to show how life in winter was really like in the Middle Ages: Lots of heavy clothing in freezing dark corridors with pageantry only occurring briefly in public before the warm clothes are re-dawned. For those that have enjoyed stories of Robin Hood or 1995’s Braveheart, this is an excellent opportunity to see how the royals of those pieces (King Richard the Lion Hearted [aka. Longshanks], greedy Prince John) came to be in the places they are now known to have been. One of this film’s piece of infamy comes from the fact that Hepburn tied (with Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl) for Best Actress for this role. John Barry’s haunting Score and James Goldman’s script from his own play also won Oscars.
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