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Henry VIII's male chauvinistic desire to begat a male heir for the throne of England is a tale often told from many points of view. In Anne of a Thousand Days it's told from the point of view of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII and mother of the infant child who became Elizabeth I.

Anne Boleyn, a high spirited young lass of 18, catches Henry VIII's eye at court. One of his previous dalliances was with her older sister Mary and that paid off well for the Boleyn family. Father Tom sees riches and glory even more and persuades her to really keep the king panting.

Anne succeeds all too well. Henry divorces Catherine of Aragon and marries Anne. But all he begats is another daughter. And Henry still wants a son and he's got an eye on another. It all ends tragically for the Boleyn family.

It's important to remember that as the film opens Henry VIII having caught sight of Anne at his court denies permission for her to marry some young lord whom she is in love with and vice versa. Had he looked elsewhere, had he moved on, all this might never have come to pass.

Anne of the Thousand Days took 21 years to come to the screen. It ran on Broadway for a year in 1948-1949 and starred Rex Harrison as Henry VIII. Richard Burton joins a great list of actors who've portrayed Henry VIII on the screen. Probably the young Charles Laughton did him best, but Burton is certainly fine.

Genevieve Bujold in her screen debut is a stunning and fetching Anne, too fetching for her own good. Poor kid though, in other than a monarchist society that was becoming more absolute during Henry's reign, she'd have married the man of her dreams and lived happily ever after.

Anthony Quayle is a fine Cardinal Woolsey though I prefer Orson Welles in A Man for All Seasons. Michael Hordern as Thomas Boleyn destroys more than one member of his family through his own ambition.

Irene Papas makes a tragic Catherine of Aragon. By all accounts Catherine was a pious woman who had incredible rotten luck with her pregnancies. Only daughter Mary survived who grew up to be the Queen known as Bloody Mary. She settled some accounts when she became Queen.

I think the best supporting portrayal is that of John Colicos as Thomas Cromwell. This Cromwell was the great uncle of the more well known Oliver Cromwell. Oliver has his supporters and detractors, but I've never seen a good word in any history books about Uncle Tom. Colicos has him pegged just right as a serpentine intriguer. By the way after the period of this film is over, Thomas Cromwell made one too many intrigues and got on Henry VIII's wrong side. People usually didn't live long after that and Cromwell was no exception.

When he wrote Anne of the Thousand Days, Maxwell Anderson grew up in a society of law. I think a fine appreciation of that fact comes into the moral of the story. Even an absolute monarch has to obey laws or no one is safe. Until Henry VIII was off this mortal coil, no one was.

King Henry VIII is the most Oscar-nominated character in history, having earned one for Charles Laughton who held chicken drumsticks like no on in "The Private Life of Henry VIII", his sole nomination for Robert Shaw who stole the show in "A Man of All Seasons" and last but not least to join that prestigious line-up: Richard Burton. Of the three, he might be the most sensible hence the least memorable. Henry was remembered for his flamboyance and exuberance and somewhat Burton decided to play him coolly yet with the vulnerability of a child bullied by a great divine instance that refuses him male heirs. After watching "Becket", I read Burton wished he could play the part of Henry who had a richer range of emotions, but the more I get into Burton, the more I feel his weary and contemplative approach to acting, he's got charisma and yet authority hardly emanates from his because he's too tormented to even control himself, which isn't too unwise an actor for a character like Henry VIII.

That's why his reign is just a darling for Hollywood. It has everything: obsession, love, lust, passion, hubris, politics, conspiracy, trials and many heads ending on the ballot. It's below-the-waist matters leading to the most pivotal episode of British history and producing one of its greatest monarchs Queen Elizabeth or as Pauline Kael put it "Anne's posthumous triumph". So, who needs books to learn about British monarchy history when you have Best Picture nominees (and occasional winners)? After having been inspired by Thomas More's integrity in "A Man of All Seasons", mesmerized by the rising charisma of "Elizabeth", now I feel like I almost completed my knowledge about Henry VIII's tumultuous reign with Charles Jarrott's "Anne of the Thousand Days", adapted from Maxwell Anderson's play. And I'm so proud to recognize some names like Norfolk or Cardinal Wosley (remarkably played by Anthony Quayle) And as Anne, Genevieve Bujold, is the perfect match for a Burtonesque character, a woman who can control the man who wants to control everything.

Anne is a young experienced girl, deprived of that virginity upon which the legend of her daughter would be built. She's lively and has a personality that throws sparkles all over the court. We first see her being lifted by her fiancé Lord Percy (Terence Wilton), she's in the air short enough so one head turns to her direction and notices her, it's the king. From that moment, he'll only have eyes for her. These three seconds are simply perfect and give that edge to cinema over the play where eye-language can't be perceptible. That look is the first brick to pave the road of a cultural revolution in Britain but it's handled in a rather trivial way. The Queen Catherine of Aragon, played in all matrimonial dignity by Irene Papas who specialized in roles of martyred wives, leaves the royal ball, the music stops but the King insists the show must go on. That scene find a powerful echo later in the film when Anne is the Queen and Henry starts having eyes on Jane Seymour, showing that the reign of Henry VII was all but a series of new beginnings.

The whole challenge of "Anne of the Thousand Days" is to make this transition from one Queen to another a riveting experience on both a human and political level, with Bujold's performance as a queen who wouldn't sell herself cheaply to a man who absolutely adores her is full of surprisingly unpredictable scenes. That Burton makes his King a little more accessible allows her to play 'hard to get', she has reasons to loathe him as she was prevented to marry her true love but on the other hand, she was advised not to give herself too easily for Henry would immediately renounce her. It is a slight possibility that she truly loved him and thus feigned indifference. And it is possible that Henry followed his courts' advisers to show his tender side. The film is a like a romantic game of hide-and-seek that hides graver diplomatic matters (with Spain and the Vatican) and one woman's personal ambition.

Anne wants to be the Queen and she promises sons if he can make her so and if he can't divorce Catherine, he'll use his power to cancel his wedding. It all can be summed up in Thomas More's warning to Norfolk "tell him what he ought to do, not what he's able to do". It's the most dangerous thing to tell a man such as Henry for what he can do because he'd realize sooner that he can do anything The catch is that Anne must fulfill her promise and if a king can make himself marry anyone, he can't control which chromosome he gives. The film is then a series of political machinery that all end up breaking on the wall of destiny: Henry can't have a male child, not one that can live after birth anyway. And divorce is like murder, one you do it once, the second time is no other and so.

The little weakness of the film is that we get from a passionate sequence between the two to Henry's immediate rejection of Anne after the second "failed birth" and so her demise seems rather abrupt, not as smooth as Thomas More's slow descent in disgrace in "A Man for All Seasons", but then-again Burton's performance redeems these flaws as he never really displays true hatred, he's just a man who wants to convince himself that he's doing the right thing. And Anne is not a heroine either, she has the blood of purer souls in her hands but it was worth having the future of England in her womb. The film is the collisions of two dangerous convictions: "I will have a son", "I will bear the future monarch of England", guess who was right?

Based on the play by Maxwell Anderson, Anne of the Thousand Days is one of those great historical dramas they do not make anymore. Rich in color, costumes and settings, and supported by the superb performances of the whole cast (outstanding Richard Burton as King Henry VIII and Genevieve Bujold as Anna Boleyn) make this a still fine and shining piece of a historical drama. Like The Lion in Winter published one year earlier, Anne of the Thousand Days is another great game of love, drama and intrigues at the Court of a English king.

Around 1525 Henry VIII fell hopelessly in love with his wife's newly acquired maid-of-honor, Anne Boleyn. A seemingly uneventful, probably unimportant infatuation changed the history of England radically and the history of the world forever. Who in Great Britain at that time ever dreamed that the events unfolding in their king's castle was about to change their lives so much. And it's true. Henry VIII, fascinating in himself, probably didn't even realize what his love for this woman was going to mean. Has there ever been a more tantalizing historical figure to study? This man moved -- literally -- heaven and earth to win the heart of this reluctant, uncooperative, insignificant girl. And no one plays Henry better than Richard Burton, combining wit, cruelty, and selfishness in one unforgettable character. This movie is such a charmer, even if it does take some historical liberties. Bujold is superb as the spiteful, spoiled Boleyn. But even in her transformation in this film is tragedy: she goes from the crown to the block with such speed that even her "head" must have spun! Any student of Tudor history, or anyone just wanting to see a good-old-fashioned epic, will love this movie. I like to think that Burton comes the closest to portraying what Henry VIII must have really been like. But even if you don't like history, Tudor England, or the stars in this movie, watch it anyway. You'll be glad you were born when you were and NEVER the object of a king's love.

With a surprisingly strong script and good performances, the film delivers as a late 1960s production that reveals a cinema that was in transition into the modern era. As a historical drama it deserved its one Oscar win and 9 other nominations. It avoids the plodding performances of most costume dramas of the time, while not quite delivering the stunning intimacy that was achieved by the BBC two years later in its landmark "Elizabeth R" mini-series 1971 - (achieved through micro-direction, dedication to detail and precision use of the small screen close-up - who ever said film is the same medium as broadcast television?)

Richard Burton turns in arguably the best performance of his career as Henry VIII. Had his performance revealed just a shade more gravitas and reflection, he surely would have picked up an Oscar.

I'm glad to say that British commercial TV managed to air a decent print of this picture over the Christmas season 2006, even though the cinema-scope frame edges were cut off. Well worth watching, but if you shop for a DVD, do make sure it is in the correct format so the full 35mm squeeze / 70mm letterbox frame is visible. A classic from the '60s and a rare achievement.