Un uomo per tutte le stagioni

I watched this film with some trepidation as the 1966 version has long been a favourite of mine. I could not imagine an American actor portraying my hero, Thomas More. However, I enjoyed it very much. Charlton Heston's performance was a revelation. I thought he did a really good job of showing More's famous wit but at times, his anguish too. Vanessa Redgrave's Dame Alice seemed at times almost a caricature ('A printed boook!') Yes I know Alice was from Yorkshire but Redgrave's 'common touch' was a bit overdone! Ben Whitrow as Cromwell was wonderful. Genial yet sinister, loved it! As for Roy Kinnear, he was just perfect as the common man, I always thought it a shame that this part was left out of the 1966 film. Having seen the play a few times, this is truer to the stage version but I wouldn't compare the two films, they are both very good.

One of Charlton Heston's great disappointments in his career was that he did not get to do the original film of A Man For All Seasons. Heston couldn't really complain though, Paul Scofield had done the play on the London stage and Heston never faulted Scofield's Academy Award winning performance.

But he made sure he did get to do another screen version after appearing on stage in the production of Robert Bolt's play. He did something else too, what you see Heston in is how it actually was originally presented on stage with the Everyman Character, done here by Roy Kinnear, as a narrator.

When Bolt did the 1966 version for the screen, he adapted his own work and dropped the Everyman character probably because Fred Zinneman who directed the film wanted it that way. I believe Zinneman was right that what he did was better suited for the screen.

That's not to decry Heston's performance because as a man who made a career out of playing great men of character and integrity, Thomas More was definitely a role he was most suited for. I can certainly understand his disappointment. By the way, Heston's other goal never realized was to do Abraham Lincoln, but I'm guessing he never got a suitable script or story.

With son Fraser Clarke Heston as producer, I'm sure Heston got to pick who he would appear with and we are fortunate to have John Gielgud as Cardinal Wolsey, though Orson Welles in build and in acting style was much more suited for the role. Heston's very good friend from across the pond, Richard Johnson, got to play the key role of the Duke of Norfolk.

Though this production of A Man For All Seasons suffers from comparison to the Paul Scofield version, it can definitely stand on its own merits and Charlton Heston and the rest of the cast have nothing to be ashamed of.

The 1966 film starring Scofield was a throwback to film-making of ten or fifteen years earlier.

Heston was brilliant as More and Redgrave was outstanding as Mistress More. The teleplay had much more of the sense of the original stage play than the hacked-up Hollywood flick the OP speaks of.

Guess it's a matter of taste, but Heston has NEVER been wooden, EVER. One of the greatest actors of our age. In my opinion only Richard Burton could probably have been a better casting choice than Heston--and he was dead by this time.

Heston was also remarkably gracious and effusive about Miss Redgrave's talent, even though they would never see eye-to-eye politically. He is a gracious man, a talented actor, and a wonderful husband and father. Would there were many more like him out of the dreck of Hollywood.

Heston is not Scofield, and this is not what the movie version is. Still, it preserves the core of More's life and meaning, and is far better than the typical TV-movie (if only because it dares to take out of the closet the old-fashioned notion that life means nothing unless there is something to die for).

standing alone it might be a 6, even a 7; standing next to the masterpiece a 5 is generous; heston is a stock Hollywood movie star with rock-jawed delivery in every movie basically playing himself the Hollywood star; you see a clip of him on Carson it's the same, ben-hur, it''s the same; scofield is simply another level, thoughtful, wide dynamic range, crisp- and the supporting production design again no contest; maybe a personal coup for heston to get the part he wanted in 66, but it's very, very risky to remake a gem- a la the branagh remakes of olivier; they're good but as this does they pale next to the original gems, specially when you have nothing to add like an updated circumstance, romeo+juliet become west side story; zinnemann really got it right, a highly rewarding movie on every level- sets, score, you name it- and no need to go elsewhere