Bette Davis returns to the part of Elizabeth I, this one focusing on her relationship with another handsome young lout, here Sir Walter Raleigh played by Richard Todd.
There's bright colours and set design and it all looks splendid in CinemaScope - I assume that's a big reason why Fox greenlit this project.
Dramatically it's not very interesting. The Private Life of Elizabeth and Essex was stronger because it concerned a great love, built up to Essex leading a rebellion against Elizabeth and being executed..
This has less focus. It's about Walter Raleigh trying to persuade Elizabeth to finance ships and he marries Joan Collins which annoys Davis but not that much and she lets them go. The "baddies", Robert Douglas and Jay Robinson, are bad because they don't like Todd because... it's never really spelt out. I didn't care about Raleigh and Elizabeth because he was just after her cash and she was just a little egotistical but basically decent. There's no stakes.
They should've done the Mary Queen of Scots story with Davis as Elizabeth. That would've been more worthwhile. The one effective moment is when Elizabeth reveals herself to be bald. I guess when Dan O'Herlihy died.
Rod Taylor appears as a Welsh soldier delivering a message from the palace while Dan O'Herlihy is there - he passes on gossip that Collins is pregnant.
It was so hard to care. Todd and Collins were so selfish.
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