La vie privée d'Elisabeth d'Angleterre

There was a time, in the early 1920s and 1930s, that Maxwell Anderson was considered a great modern American dramatist. His plays were considered the modern equivalent of Shakespeare or Marlowe or Jonson. This was because he wrote in blank verse. Many of his plays were turned into films, such as WINTERSET and MARY OF SCOTLAND. Even as late as the 1970s Brooks Atkinson (in his book BROADWAY) lauded Anderson to the skies.

In retrospect, one wonders why the praise. Probably because we have not produced many great serious dramatists. I imagine that five names might be pushed at the present: O'Neill, Miller, Williams, Albee, and Inge. Anderson is not revived. His use of blank verse, so impressive to Atkinson, seems pretentious to us. That and his stiff characterizations are major roadblocks to enjoying his work.

But he was flying high in 1939, when Warner Brothers purchased the film rights for ELIZABETH THE QUEEN for Bette Davis at Davis' urging. But she wanted Lawrence Olivier for Essex, and was given Errol Flynn, an actor she did not like to work with. Further, the title was changed (probably based on the Charles Laughton film THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII) to THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX. Actually the original title is better and it is as ELIZABETH THE QUEEN that the film is remembered.

The finished film is actually a good historical work - basically taking the story of Elizabeth I and her last favorite to it's tragic conclusion. Flynn does capture the emotional instability of Essex, who chafed at being in his position of power only because he was the boy-toy of an aging, decrepit monarch. The play/movie makes the affection of the two real, but the actual reality suggests that Essex was more of a male chauvenist than he dared show until the very end. He was in contact with James VI of Scotland (the son of Elizabeth's dead rival Mary, Queen of Scots) about the coming change in regime. This is not covered in the film (and to be fair, Essex's rival Robert Cecil (Henry Daniell) was also in contact with James VI).

The achilles heel of Essex is his desire for glory, and what is fascinating in the film is how everyone plays on his weakness. Elizabeth tries to protect him from his follies, by giving him a high ranking title to keep him in London. But Cecil, his father Lord Burghley (Henry Stephenson), his rival Raleigh (Vincent Price) manage to goad him into leading an army in that permanent quagmire of Ireland. Finally his enemy Tyrone (Alan Hale Sr.) goads him (when he has been beaten) into returning to London and straightening out Elizabeth. Essex does do so. In real history, his men were defeated in the streets of London. In the film he does seize the palace, only to be manipulated by Elizabeth into disarming, and then is arrested for treason.

I don't think Elizabeth actually gave Essex a ring to return to her if he ever needed her help, but his death in 1601 on the headman's block at the Tower of London may have shortened her life. She died in 1603, still Elizabeth the Queen, but also a sad, lonely old woman.

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex was a personal triumph for Bette Davis in her portrayal of Elizabeth I of England. Davis was 31 when she played the Virgin Queen at the tail end of her regime, Elizabeth herself was 65 in 1601 when the action of this story takes place. It concerns her involvement with Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, a last foolish gesture on the part of a great monarch.

Davis hated working with Errol Flynn since doing The Sisters with him a year earlier. She was quoted as saying that when she had to kiss him she'd close her eyes and pretend it was Laurence Olivier. But I think Olivier might have had trouble making Essex a hero.

In point of fact he wasn't any kind of a hero. He was a vainglorious, conceited, egotistical cad of a human being who apparently only had talent in the bedroom. Now the bedroom part would have fit Flynn perfectly. But he became a military commander and leader and he bungled every job he was given.

The real Essex was played like a piccolo by the other members and rivals of the Elizabethan court. His main rival in the film is Robert Cecil played by Henry Daniell. In the film he is incorrectly identified as Lord Burghley's(Henry Stephenson's)son when in fact he was a nephew. Because it's Henry Daniell and he's a clever schemer he has to be the villain. In point of fact Cecil was a patriot in the best tradition. He was very concerned in fact about Essex's military ventures that they were nothing but missions of glory. Cecil's greatest contribution to English history was to come two years later when Elizabeth died, it's due to him that there was an orderly transition from the House of Tudor to the House of Stuart.

My favorite performance in this film is that of Alan Hale as Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone who led the Irish rebellion against the English at that time. What happens in court to Essex with his rivals there is nothing compared to the way O'Neill plays him. He leads him deeper into the Irish interior, using hit and run tactics and then cuts him off from his supply base. And then in surrendering O'Neill very cleverly sows the seed of more dissension by telling him what a great leader he was and the Irish could never have beaten him if he'd been backed up better from home. And Essex the rube falls for it.

Another good performance is Donald Crisp as Sir Francis Bacon. He's a wily old fox used to court politics Elizabethan style. Bacon tries to give Essex some good advice none of which Essex accepts. In the end Bacon gives up on Essex and just switches sides, lest he be brought down with him.

So what we have here is Bette Davis giving a great performance with a leading man she detested and Flynn trying desperately to breathe life and heroism into a character who wasn't terribly heroic. It would have defeated a better actor than Errol Flynn.

I think there is a lot to like about Essex and Elizabeth. Even with moments of pedestrian pacing, parts where the dialogue seemed a little too ripe and the fact that to historians perhaps it is a travesty of history, there is still a lot to like. The film is shot in beautiful Technicolour and has lavish sets and costumes, and Korngold's score is very stirring indeed. The story is compelling enough, and the acting was actually not too bad. Errol Flynn I think did a really good job here, it didn't matter for me that the performance wasn't another Captain Blood or Robin Hood, it was still a good performance. And Bette Davis is very good as Elizabeth, while Davis reportedly hated working on the picture the chemistry was believable enough. It was a delight to see Vincent Price here as Walter Raleigh, I have always liked Vincent Price, and he looks very handsome and quite nuanced in his role here, and Donald Crisp gives another great performance. The direction from Michael Curtiz is pretty much solid too. So overall, it was a good film, without being a great one. 7/10 Bethany Cox

I saw this movie when I was a child in Mexican black and white TV. Now it has been released in DVD in Spain by Divisa(2005) It is clear that true history is absent in most of the historic events related to the story. Essex was actually married to Penelope Rich (and not Gray, as in the movie), which meant nothing to his relationship to the queen. The meeting with Ireland's clan chief Tyrone was thought alright as treason, but when Essex entered London no one rouse with him. He passed a lot of time in his house, far from London, before the Queen made any decision on his final destiny... also Briton's uniforms in Ireland look Spanish...etc. The strange thing is that the story itself, as told by Curtiz, functions well. Davies is great ( a little bit overacting, but, who cares?), as the uncommon woman Elizabeth must have been. She did'not want Flynn to play the part: she asked for Laurence Olivier, but I sincerely think Flynn gave the necessary gaiety and spirits Essex would have had in reality, and Olivier would have spoiled that by his well known acting excesses, playing dark and severe where there should be light and superficial. Both, Davies and Flynn, seem profoundly in love and hate. Constanty driving in and out from and to love and politics. I would'not say this is a great movie, but it's worth while seeing it! (Excuse my English, I write better in Spanish)

This is a far cry from the sentimental ahistorical nonsense I was expecting. It is all about the machinations of power, the ruthlessness that a ruler must uphold so as not to endanger her kingdom, about the necessity to put oneself aside and think of the greater good. Michael Curtiz, with the inestimable help of Bette Davis in one of her most heartwrenching cinematic portrayals, gets all his sinister points across and does not flinch. Sure enough, the ending is more Hollywood, I believe, than London, more glamorous heroics than real-life sacrifice, but even so, it does not stick in your throat. I loved the amorous, innocent banter and bickering of the queen and the earl in their many intimate moments, and Errol Flynn never photographed better. Was there ever anyone in the annals of Hollywood more handsome? Olivia De Havilland tries on a slightly different role than the goody-goody, doe-eyed ones she usually had to make do with. Technicolor cinematography and lighting are both superb.