Fire Over England

Renowned and handsomely-mounted early British spectacular with imposing credentials – producers Alexander Korda and Erich Pommer, cinematographer James Wong Howe, art director Lazare Meerson, special effects creator Ned Mann – and a cast virtually assembling the cream of the crop working in the country at that particular moment – Laurence Olivier, Flora Robson, Leslie Banks, Vivien Leigh, Raymond Massey, Robert Newton, James Mason – all of which is complemented by a suitably rousing score from Richard Addinsell.

The narrative revolves around the planned invasion of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I by the Spanish armada of King Philip II (with help from British traitors); the former is magnificently embodied by Robson (who would eventually return to the role in Hollywood for the Errol Flynn vehicle THE SEA HAWK [1940]), while the latter is played by Massey as a sleek but cagey monarch. With one of the dissidents among her ranks (Mason) intercepted, the English Queen appoints a young naval officer (Olivier) – who had just lost his admiral father to the Spanish Inquisition – to assume the conniver's identity and travel to Philip's court in order to obtain the names of his associates and establish the enemy's strategy for attack. Complications arise when one of the Spanish ruler's subordinates (Newton) is revealed to be married to the woman (pretty Tamara Desni – the German-born Russian actress died in France only last month at the venerable age of 97!) who had previously cared for the wounded Olivier, their respective fathers having been the best of friends. Torn between betraying his country or his wife, Newton engineers Olivier's flight home – whereupon the latter receives a knighthood, before being promptly sent by his sovereign (along with the conspirators newly-swayed to patriotic duty) on a mission to destroy the approaching enemy fleet!

The film maintains a good balance throughout between romance (thanks to Olivier's matinée idol looks, he's briefly involved with Desni apart from his love interest in England – provided by future wife Leigh, as the Queen's lady-in-waiting, in the first of three on-screen collaborations…though Robson herself is shown carrying a hesitant torch for veteran and devoted chief adviser Banks!), intrigue (in effect at both camps), action (including raids by pirate ships, a couple of chases, discreet swordplay and culminating in the final elaborate fiery offensive) and propaganda (WWII was already looming at this point). While the print I viewed turned out to be anything but pristine, I was grateful to have finally caught this altogether splendid historical epic; incidentally, I'd become acquainted with several wonderful Korda productions over the years on both Italian TV and VHS – but, oddly enough, FIRE OVER ENGLAND itself seldom turned up until now in my neck of the woods!

There is not real film about the events leading to Philip II's great enterprise of 1588, the sailing (and destruction, as it turned out) of the great Spanish Armanda. To understand the story would take too many twists and turns. I recommend Garrett Mattingley's classic account of the Armada from the 1950s for those interested. Philip, tired of the aid that Elizabeth I of England gave to the Dutch and French Protestants, made a plan to transport an army under his nephew, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Palma, from Belgium to England using the Armada. He put the fleet under command of the Spanish nobleman, the Duke of Medina Sidonia. But Medina Sidonia was not a sailor (although a conscientious nobleman and servant of Philip). The Armada would first suffer a raid (by Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake). After it was repaired it did sail, only to find the faster English ships of Drake, Howard, and Frobisher more deadly, and the heavy winds, seas, and storms even deadlier. Many ships were wrecked off Scotland and Ireland. It was one of the worst naval catastrophes of history.

However it was also Philip's finest moment. Always a firmly religious man, he did not despair at the disaster to his fleet and plans, but he saw it was God's will. He actually put together Armadas again twice in the 1590s, but neither got as far as the first one did.

The complications of the story make it too confusing for anything but a full television seris: Philip was spurred on when Mary, Queen of Scots was executed in 1587 - he had been named her appointed heir to the English throne in her will; the French religious wars were approaching a critical moment, and Mary's uncle (the Duc de Guise) was leader of the Catholic forces at war with King Henri III of France and King Henri of Navarre (the leader of the Huguenots). There have been films dealing with Elizabeth's sea rovers, such as Drake ("Seven Seas To Calais", "The Sea Hawke"), but only this film tries to tackle the actual story of the Armada. As an adventure story it is excellent. As history, not exact but pretty good in parts.

First it does touch briefly on Mary's execution, in an early scene where one of Mary's servants tries to assassinate Elizabeth (Flora Robson). It really concentrates on the complex world of Elizabethan spying and the Elizabethan Catholic "underworld". The latter is an unfair description, for the Catholics were being persecuted in England. They had been supporters of Mary, and now that she was killed they gave support (mostly begrudgingly) to Philip. England's master of spies was Sir Francis Walsingham (who does not appear in this film). Instead the espionage against Spain is handled by Robert, Earl of Leicester (Leslie Banks) in the film - but in fact, Leicester died in 1587 in Holland, so he was not around for the Armada.

Lawrence Olivier is splendid in this early role as the young agent sent to spy on Philip and his plan (going in place of James Mason, who committed suicide in trying to avoid arrest). Olivier manages to get close to Philip (Raymond Massey) but that is not fully possible. Philip does not even like Englishmen, but he is willing to go along with the Catholics to get rid of Elizabeth and her regime. Philip is not easy to fool, and in a marvelous (almost comic moment) he stops Olivier from disclosing anything by finding that there was one name Olivier does not know that he should.

I won't go into the rest of the film's story. Watch it to see how Olivier still manages to escape and save England, and end up with his love (Vivian Leigh). For a 1937 historic film it is quite good, even if it could not tell the completely true story of the invasion of 1588.

I'm afraid I was disappointed by "Fire over England", having pinned too many hopes on this film of all those in the Olivier season: based on a novel I'd loved as a child, starring Flora Robson as Queen Elizabeth with names such as Raymond Massey, James Mason and Robert Newton among the supporting cast, and featuring Vivien Leigh as the real-life love interest of a Laurence Olivier described as channelling Douglas Fairbanks and John Barrymore as he does all his own stunts, what could hold more promise? Like "The Sea Hawk", it was a picture I'd heard of and had long since been waiting to see.

But great anticipation places an insuperable weight on a film. "The Sea Hawk" disappointed, and Olivier is no Flynn. The character is petulant and callow, admittedly -- but I couldn't identify with Michael emotionally (not aided by the fact that he appears to be trifling completely untroubled with the affections of two ladies at once, which deprived the love scenes of their conviction: it didn't come across as a conflict of loyalties, but as having your cake and eating it), and I found the action sequences uninspiring. The stunt dives look like belly-flops (presumably with an eye to the angle of the safety nets), the 'storm-tossed' ships wobble along with their sails obviously providing no propulsion whatsoever (would it have cost too much to have someone blow on them?), and the palace guards at the Escurial display a degree of stupidity in their pursuit that even in the context of cliché is less thrilling than ridiculous. The only moments of the Spanish adventure that worked for me at all were the double-edged dialogue at the dining table, and the 'spy' scenes with Raymond Massey.

For the true honours of this production lie not with the adolescent hero but with the ageing generation. Massey invests the workaholic, melancholic Philip of Spain with a lethally plodding efficiency that makes him truly to be feared. The quietly-weighted exchange between the older Ingolby and his friend-turned-captor holds far more emotional impact than young Michael's histrionics when he finally cottons on (about a reel later than everybody else, audience included). The Queen's relationship with her boyhood's Robin is far deeper and better-portrayed than Michael's with Cynthia, and the memorable struggle is not Laurence Olivier with a sword in his hand but Elizabeth facing the loss of her youth.

It is the grown-up drama that is worth watching here. But unfortunately this is not the main focus of the motion picture.

Note the date this was made..1937. What a shot in the arm for a people about to fight for their survival....AGAIN. The lines that effectively say "Loved I you, loved I not England more" spoken by Olivier speak for all the Brits that would soon have to turn their backs on a gentle home life. Today we are not faced with that decision and it seems amazing that a human being would have to lay down his life for his country. As Vivien Leigh pleads with her lover (later to be her husband) to remember 'all the sunsets we could see together", you know that she is speaking to the audience of that time in a visceral manner.

Quaintly anachronistic, and let's pray it stays that way.

To watch Raymond Massey play the king of Spain and James Mason play the English 'spy' Vane is worth the price of the movie itself. Logic rears its ugly head, of course, or illogic: Five Englishmen are identified as traitors by Olivier and what happens? Elisabeth puts them under his command to fight off the Spanish Armada. Didn't she ever hear of fragging?

As the English ships are set ablaze and sailed into the Armada, it makes me long for a history book to find out what actually happened. I thought the weather broke the Spanish Armada up before it reached English shores off the coast of Ireland....accounting for the 'black Irish', descendants from those sailors who made it ashore.

Nonetheless, to watch the Lord and Lady of the English stage appear together while their love was young (and both were married to others) is fascinating.

You think you're watching Elisabeth Taylor half the time, with those big expressive eyes. Olivier also sings and plays a lute. His singing voice isn't bad atall, and is he handsome!!!!

When he plays his acrobatic ship and sword fighting tricks, you'll think of Errol Flynn and long for the movie to be colorized. How easy it would be with today's technology to color these wonderful old movies in gorgeous realistic color. And the mood would be enhanced, not destroyed as it might were it a film noir.

When Queen Elisabeth (the first one) says, "I'm only a woman", you'll burst out laughing.....she who made England was 'only a woman'. See it.

So 'Fire over England' was a propaganda film. Fine. I loved it.

This is a dramatic B/W film made just before WWII was begun by Adolf Hitler. The British Empire-based filmmakers draw a distinction between the theocratic Spanish Empire of Philip II, ably played by Raymond Massey, and the somewhat parliamentary government of England's island under the Protestant governance of Tudor Queen Elizabeth I, portrayed by Flora Robson with yet-unmatched power and skill. The distinction is important; although the misuse of their powers by neo-imperial-U.S. and post-Empire British governments have lessened our perception of the difference between the two regimes, that difference is in fact real and cleverly presented. The vehicle for the storyline was a novel by A.E. W. Mason. Clemence Dane's screenplay follows the adventure of young Michael, agent of the Queen, as he tries to uncover the nature and extent of a Spanish spy-ring operating in England. This requires him to pretend to be one of them and present himself to Philip; but his pretense fails for lack of a missing password. He is imprisoned in Spain, falls half in love with a lovely Spanish girl, daughter of his jailer, although he really loves one of Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting; but she allows him to escape when she sees what Philip's evil is doing to her country's people, and he hastes back to the court in time to uncover the plot and save Elizabeth. Elizabeth then give her famous speech that rallies the English to defeat the Spanish Armada and save England, to become another empire and finally in our century a country again. The plot is fairly well-done, but the beauty of the film lies in its characters and dialogue and the way these are brought to life by an excellent cast. Laurence Olivier is Michael, Vivien Leigh is the girl he loves, Leslie Banks is the Earl of Leicester, Morton Selten is Lord Burleigh ;and Robert Newton heads the villains with Tamara Desni as the Spanish girl, plus many other fine British stage actors. The music was composed by Richard Addinsell, William K. Howard directed, cinematography was by the legendary James Wong Howe and camera-work by Wilkie Cooper. This is not a great film, but the restored B/W version is beautiful; the characters memorable, the villains intelligently unethical and some of the actors, especially Robson, superb. This is also a very good film about the era of Elizabeth and the meaning of tyranny--and what honorable men need to risk to avoid having its shadow fall over their lives; and what one group of men in the late 1580s dared to do.