Incredibly important British film – a massive hit at home and the US, it was a massive fillip to the careers of Charles Laughton and the Kordas (admittedly, the latter had been around for a while but this kicked them up into a whole new level), as well as making stars of Robert Donat and Merle Oberon.
It’s striking how irreverent this is – the opening scenes have women gossiping about the impending marriage to Jane in a sexual way; the crowd gathers for the execution, a lady says poor Queen Anne then asks the woman in front to take off her hat so her view isn’t interrupted; an English executioner complains about the job of killing Queen Anne goes to a Frenchman; the marvellous comic duel between Henry and Anne of Cleeves. Yet it has it’s serious bits too, such as Anne’s final moments, the adultery of Katherine Howard, Henry talking about war and “if those French and Germans don’t stop killing each other we’ll never have peace”. Sometimes they combine the two – Henry tries to impress Katherine by engaging in a wrestling match which he wins, but makes him utterly exhausted.
There’s been some whingeing about historical inaccuracies – Jane Seymour didn’t die in childbirth but a couple of days later, that’s not how Anne of Cleeves did it – as well as some omissions (no Catherine of Aragon, Sir Thomas More, mention of religion). But so what? It’s not massively inaccurate – I mean he did have all those wives, it doesn’t make any characters up. It's not meant to be a documentary - a better way to look at it is as a cover version of a well known song - and it's a terrific, unusual cover version.
Charles Laughton is superb, incidentally - his performance helps the piece vault the ages, too - blustering, pathetic, scary, funny. The best supporting performance comes from Elsa Lancester, who is terrifically funny yet also sympathetic, smart and even romantic. Merle Oberon makes a tremendous impression, and Robert Donat, Wendy Barrie and Binnie Barnes round out the spunk quotent (although what sort of sex symbol has the name "Binnie"?)
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