Lana Turner's last film for MGM isn't that bad although it lost a lot of money at the box office. She's ideally cast as Diane du Poitiers. I admit my knowledge of this woman wasn't great beforehand - she was an influential mistress to the French King Henry II, apparently, and had a lot of power at court, and a rival to his wife, Catherine de Medici. This was presumably one reason why the movie wasn't that popular - these aren't that well known figures in the English speaking world.
There's no reason this film couldn't have changed that - I mean, who heard of El Cid outside of Spain before the movie was made about him? And these people did interesting things - Diane was beautiful and smart and posed nude; Henry (spoiler alert) died while jousting, which is cool. De Medici was a figure behind the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, where a whole bunch of protestants were killed by Catholics.
More problematic I feel was the lack of star power. Roger Moore is too young and callow - he had the voice but hadn't grown into his looks and can't carry off the part which really needed stay Stewart Granger; he and Turner have poor chemistry, which is important in a film about a couple who can't keep their hands off each other. Pedro Armendariz I guess is okay as his dad - he has charisma, but doesn't look related to Moore at all. Marisa Pavan is terrible as Catherine - it's hard to understand what she's saying. Far better are support players like Cedric Hardwicke, Torin Thatcher and Henry Daniell, plus Michael Ansara as a knight.
The film is also hurt by censorship issues. It could have done with some sex, nude picturing posing and religious hatred. Actually it could simply have done with decent drama - what's here is undercooked. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty going on but you don't care - you don't really get why Turner loves Moore or he loves her (she teaches him a little about politics and fencing but that's it), or are overly sympathetic to cuckolded wife Pavan. There are costumes and a variety of accents and some bad acting and some okay acting and it's mostly dull. All too typical of Dore Schary era "commercial" films at MGM - under his aegis the studio seemed to forget how to make costume crap well.
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