DVD/150: ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS (Charles Jarrott, 1969)

Here is the one to blame as ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS made me a junior film buff.

I came out of the Kensington Odeon obsessed: Photoplay and Film Review magazines were bought, the souvenir brochure was pored over and the novelization was read continuously..and is still on my bookshelf.

You can never tell what film will set you off into buffdom, but when it happens it has you for life.

Charles Jarrott's film is 1960s historical drama at it's height and I still swoon at Margaret Furse's glorious Academy Award-winning costumes.

The script betrays it's stage origins and seems over-awed by it's characters but it's a world I can happily re-visit.

But it's the performances that I adored then and now: Richard Burton at his most charismatic as Henry VIII and the blazing intellegence and steely resolve of the magnificent Genevieve Bujold as Anne Boleyn.

Shelf or charity shop?  Reigning on the shelf as befits such a special film to me personally.  I would certainly like to mention the cello-like sorrow of Irene Papas as Queen Katherine and Anthony Quayle's over-reaching Cardinal Wolsey, along with a cast of dependable actors like John Colicos as the truly evil Cromwell, Michael Hordern, Peter Jeffrey, William Squire, and Nicola Pagett in a blink-and-you-miss-it role as Princess Mary.

 

Dvd/150: The CAESARS (Derek Bennett, 1968, tv)

Eight years before the more-famous I CLAUDIUS, there had been another TV series about the Julio-Claudian dynasty of ancient Rome called THE CAESARS on Granada TV.

I don't recall ever seeing it so it was fascinating to compare the two as they both cover the same timeline.  More interested in the political than the personal, the earlier series is exceptional thanks to the dry wit and concise story-telling of Philip Mackie's scripts and it's shadowy b&w photography.

Excellent performances abound: Sonia Dresdel's Livia is an imperious battle-axe, André Morrell is remarkable as the urbanely cynical Tiberius while Freddie Jones is fine in his award-winning performance as Claudius.

The second half of the series is dominated by Ralph Bates' quicksilver, insane Caligula - interesting too to see what was permissible onscreen in 1968!

There is also a tantalising cameo from Nicola Pagett as the young scheming Messalina.

Shelf or charity shop? A keeper... especially as it features a performance from my dear friend the late and great John Normington as Caligula's secretary!