DVD/150: MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS (Charles Jarrott, 1971)

Producer Hal Wallis and director Jarrott hoped lightning would strike twice after ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS with MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

However, John Hale's basic screenplay, constantly switching between the courts of Mary and Elizabeth I, never delivers a firm momentum and, as with every screen representation of Mary, she remains an enigma - a woman who things were done to, never an instigator.

Unsurprisingly, the film comes alive in the scenes we know are fiction, the two confrontations between Mary and Elizabeth.  They never met in actuality but it's too good an opportunity to pass up for dramatists - as in Schiller's MARY STUART - and of course it delivers the electric shock of Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson having at each other.

Glenda, in the same year as playing Elizabeth for the BBC, is all fire and brimstone while Vanessa is the ultimate willowy, romantic Queen, all air and light.

Shelf or charity shop?  Shelf.  Ultimately it might be a bit of a dull plod but it is worth the climb for the two confrontation scenes where Vanessa and Glenda light up the screen with their on and off-screen personas.  The male supporting cast hold their own against their warring Queens: Trevor Howard, Ian Holm. Timothy Dalton, Patrick McGoohan and Nigel Davenport all deliver strong performances while John Barry's score and Margaret Furse's costumes make it a pleasure for the ear and eye.  It's a pity Jarrott couldn't bring a more powerful flourish to match his leading ladies - still, I will take this every time over the turgid Josie Rourke version.

 

DVD/150: FROM HELL (Albert Hughes / Allen Hughes, 2001)

The Hughes Brothers, whose previous films were urban crime dramas, swapped one ghetto for an earlier one by bringing Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel about Jack The Ripper to the screen.

Their vision of Whitechapel in 1888 is wonderfully gothic with blood red skies looming over a shadowy London and the the desperate lives of the women who became the victims.

FROM HELL follows Stephen Knight's theory that the women were murdered for knowing about the Duke of Clarence's secret marriage to a shop-girl and her subsequent baby; this was also used in the 1979 Sherlock Holmes film MURDER BY DECREE.

FROM HELL goes beyond this suggesting that the last victim Mary Kelly managed to escape her fate through a relationship with Inspector Abberline.  I guess that's one way of getting a happy ending...

Johnny Depp rehearses his cockney accent ready for SWEENEY TODD six years later.

Shelf or charity shop? It doesn't hold up as well as I remembered but I will keep it for the fantastic production design by Martin Childs; a standing set was built outside Prague of the Whitechapel known to the victims which allowed for fluid cinematography within a believable world.  Johnny Depp as the opium addict Inspector holds the attention, but while Heather Graham maintains a believeable Cockney accent she is fairly colourless.  Much better are the sympathetic performances of the actresses playing the victims: Samantha Spiro, Annabelle Apsion, Kristin Cartlidge (sadly her last filn appearance), Lesley Sharp and Susan Lynch.  Two late Sir Ians turn in their usual good performances: Holm as the deadly Sir William Gull and Richardson as the disdainful Sir Charles Warren.

DVD/150: THE WAR OF THE ROSES (Robin Midgley, Michael Hayes, 1965)

Peter Hall and John Barton's conflating of Shakespeare's three HENRY VI plays with RICHARD III for the RSC in 1963 was not only a milestone in British theatre but also for television too when broadcast in 1965, filmed on the Stratford stage the year before.

Hall and Barton's trilogy - HENRY VI, EDWARD IV and RICHARD III - are a textbook adaptation, keeping the action flowing while retaining the poetry.  The BBC's decision to film it was remarkable as their version of all the History plays, AN AGE OF KINGS, had been broadcast in 1960.

With two years experience of the roles, the actors deliver definitive performances: 23 year-old David Warner as Henry VI, Peggy Ashcroft as an unforgettable Margaret of Anjou;  Donald Sinden's York, Brewster Mason's Warwick and Janet Suzman's Joan La Pucelle all shine.

John Normington is terrific as Young Clifford while Ian Holm is excellent as Richard III.

Shelf or charity shop?  These three kings will rule the shelf for some time to come...

 

SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY: TEN BEST MALE PERFORMANCES

Happy birthday to William Shakespeare... born 453 years ago (and died 401 years ago).

Eight years ago I compiled four Top Ten lists of my favourite Shakespeare performances - lead & supporting male and lead & supporting female.

Eight years is a long time in theatre-going so to celebrate the greatest playwright ever, here is my updated list of favourite lead actors and their performances in key roles; these are the ones that all new interpretations are judged against.

BEST ACTOR (in alphabetical order):

 SIMON RUSSELL BEALE (King Lear - 2014)

  SIMON RUSSELL BEALE (Iago - 1997)

 IAN CHARLESON (Hamlet - 1989)

 RALPH FIENNES (Richard III - 2016)

 HENRY GOODMAN (Shylock - 1999)

 IAN HOLM (King Lear - 1997)

 DEREK JACOBI (King Lear - 2010)

 RORY KINNEAR (Hamlet - 2010)

 IAN McKELLEN (Richard III - 1990)

 JONATHAN PRYCE (Shylock - 2015)