Fire Over England

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.

'Fire Over England' covers more or less the same ground as 'The Sea Hawk' did a few years later, though the younger film did it to much better effect. The issue is Philip II of Spain's (Raymond Massey) ambition to eradicate Protestantism, which requires annexing and re-catholicising countries such as England. In 'Fire Over England' Elizabeth (Flora Robson) sends young Michael Ingolby (Laurence Olivier) as an agent to Spain. His mission: discover a) when the Armada will sail, and b) who of her courtiers are secretly in league with Spain. The plot is pretty convoluted; moreover, there are several sub-plots that are not adding or helping much (for example, Elena's (Tamara Desni) only function seems to be to convince the audience of Michael Ingolby's irresistable charms). Robson as Queen Elizabeth is excellent. She reprised her role later in 'The Sea Hawk'. As a swashbuckling hero, Olivier is no match for Errol Flynn. Vivien Leigh, who plays his love interest Cynthia is charming and vivacious. The sets are great throughout. One important thing that should not be forgotten is that 'Fire Over England' had a clear message for British audiences in 1937: It is about the need to resist great powers bent on the invasion of England. I am sure many viewers saw the parallel with Nazi-Germany - but I am not sure whether this helped the film: public opinion was pacifist, and British politics dominated by appeasers. 'Fire Over England' took a courageous, if unpopular stance.

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.

Sir Laurence Olivier once said that he thought his work before Wuthering Heights markedly inferior to that after because it was William Wyler who taught him the art of film acting and the difference between that and the stage. Although he overacts in spots in Fire Over England, even with that it comes natural because the character he's playing is an impetuous youth.

England did not have the big navy and the empire it boasted of in later centuries. Spain was the big kid on the European block in 1587 when this story takes place. It's Hapsburg King, Philip II either directly or through his Hapsburg relations lay claim to about half of western Europe and about 3/5 of the North and South American continents combined.

And Spain was driven by a religious ideology in the Roman Catholic faith with its Inquisition determined to stamp out diversity of thought in it's wake. England had broken away from the Roman Church and the Pope and was asserting its own religious sovereignty.

England didn't have a navy, but it did have privateers, although the Spanish called them pirates. They raided Spanish commerce and exacted a heavy toll in life and property. That got Philip II pretty mad and he set out to build the biggest fleet anyone ever saw to wipe these upstarts out. He called it the Armada.

These upstarts had a female ruler in Elizabeth I, played by Flora Robson. Over 400 years before Germaine Greer and Betty Friedan were writing about feminism, in that most masculine of ages Queen Elizabeth devoted her very existence to her people and sacrificed a lot of personal happiness in doing so. Flora Robson gives the definitive portrait of Elizabeth of England in this film. She did it so well that when she came to America, Warner Brothers had her play Queen Elizabeth again in The Sea Hawk. Elizabeth in this writer's humble opinion was the greatest monarch the English have ever had.

Raymond Massey plays Philip II, a dour humorless man who also unceasingly worked for his country. He's a cunning adversary for Elizabeth.

Fire Over England was the first film that Olivier did with his future wife Vivien Leigh. On this film they started the affair that was the Taylor-Burton romance of it's day. I'm sure the publicity helped the box office here. Vivien Leigh is one of Elizabeth's ladies in waiting and she falls big time for Olivier who has been captured, escapes Spain and then sent on a confidential mission by Elizabeth to find out about some English fifth columnists she suspects. How Olivier escapes the first time and what happens on the mission, well that's for you to see Fire Over England for.

Two other main characters are Lord Burleigh played by Morton Selten and the Earl of Leicester played by Leslie Banks. Leicester in his youth was the lover and chief confidant of Elizabeth even before she became Queen. Their story is a part of the rich tapestry of pageant that was Elizabeth of England's life. Why they didn't marry is a whole film in and of itself and Banks's anguish is captured well here.

Grand entertainment and a grand historical pageant tribute to one of the most heroic times in English history.