Warning, this review will reveal the end of the movie.
Wow, what a kink-fest "Elizabeth and Essex" is. Bette Davis gives a herky-jerky performance as the 66 year old Queen Elizabeth, madly and passionately in love with the much younger Essex (Errol Flynn). She ends their affair by chopping off his head.
Really, how many romantic movies feature a bald woman decades older than the man she is sleeping with who chops off the guy's head? Not many. Maybe because that head chopping off part is hard to warm to. And the woman's being bald is also hard to warm to.
There's a lot not to like in this movie: Bette Davis doesn't look 66; she looks like a young actress trying to pass as an old actress by wearing lots of white make-up. Bette moves in a herky-jerky fashion here, as if Queen E had Parkinson's. It is distracting.
And websites devoted to debunking myths about Queen E say she was not bald; that, in fact, Essex himself claimed he saw her hair in her bedroom, after she'd removed her wig. Bette is made to look as if she is bald; she wears a clown-red wig over a high, shaved forehead.
But the story is very, very compelling, and Errol Flynn is pure heart and soul.
Maxwell Anderson's play toys with some primal themes: are all love/sex relationships struggles over power? No matter how much a man and a woman love each other, can they ever overcome the basic biological directive that the man must feel he has dominance over the woman? And how do you work that out when you are a sexagenarian queen and your lover is a hotheaded, gorgeous, showboat? Can a man, for that matter, overcome men's focus on women's physical appearance, and love a woman old enough to be his mother? Is it kinky and sick for a young man to love a woman old enough to be his mother? Will there always be something of the little boy in that love? (There are lots of scenes of Errol nuzzling up to Bette's ample bust.) And then there is the whole celebrity issue. Elizabeth and Essex were the power couple of their day, at least as depicted in this play. Just as tabloids work to destroy celebrity relationships today, courtiers worked to undermine Elizabeth and Essex's love. Though powerful people, they are easily wounded and pout like children. You feel sorry for them.
Nobody says that this plot has historical accuracy, although some of the bare bones of the plot reflect historical events. But the big themes of power, love, sex, age, game playing, and betrayal are very real.
Errol Flynn is the real revelation here. Bette is just not very good, and she's not at all generous to Errol. It's said she hated him in real life; maybe so; in any case, she gives no real sign of being a woman in love. When they kiss, you can practically see her thinking, "Cooties!" But Errol is wonderful. He is just pitch perfect. He is Anderson's Essex -- a dashing, romantic, boy-man, with a distorted sense of honor and power that ushers him out of the world rapidly and dramatically. His final gesture, kissing the ring Elizabeth had given him, and begged him to give her in a gesture of his needing her, in short, a gesture of his submission to her, is pure lunacy, and pure gold.
Wow, Errol, wow. You certainly were all that. I can't think of anyone today quite like you, or anything like this movie.
A final note: the opening title sequence is loads of fun, with the calligraphy done in illuminated manuscript style, and everything very bright and as if right out of a child's storybook -- and I mean that in the best sense.
Wow, what a kink-fest "Elizabeth and Essex" is. Bette Davis gives a herky-jerky performance as the 66 year old Queen Elizabeth, madly and passionately in love with the much younger Essex (Errol Flynn). She ends their affair by chopping off his head.
Really, how many romantic movies feature a bald woman decades older than the man she is sleeping with who chops off the guy's head? Not many. Maybe because that head chopping off part is hard to warm to. And the woman's being bald is also hard to warm to.
There's a lot not to like in this movie: Bette Davis doesn't look 66; she looks like a young actress trying to pass as an old actress by wearing lots of white make-up. Bette moves in a herky-jerky fashion here, as if Queen E had Parkinson's. It is distracting.
And websites devoted to debunking myths about Queen E say she was not bald; that, in fact, Essex himself claimed he saw her hair in her bedroom, after she'd removed her wig. Bette is made to look as if she is bald; she wears a clown-red wig over a high, shaved forehead.
But the story is very, very compelling, and Errol Flynn is pure heart and soul.
Maxwell Anderson's play toys with some primal themes: are all love/sex relationships struggles over power? No matter how much a man and a woman love each other, can they ever overcome the basic biological directive that the man must feel he has dominance over the woman? And how do you work that out when you are a sexagenarian queen and your lover is a hotheaded, gorgeous, showboat? Can a man, for that matter, overcome men's focus on women's physical appearance, and love a woman old enough to be his mother? Is it kinky and sick for a young man to love a woman old enough to be his mother? Will there always be something of the little boy in that love? (There are lots of scenes of Errol nuzzling up to Bette's ample bust.) And then there is the whole celebrity issue. Elizabeth and Essex were the power couple of their day, at least as depicted in this play. Just as tabloids work to destroy celebrity relationships today, courtiers worked to undermine Elizabeth and Essex's love. Though powerful people, they are easily wounded and pout like children. You feel sorry for them.
Nobody says that this plot has historical accuracy, although some of the bare bones of the plot reflect historical events. But the big themes of power, love, sex, age, game playing, and betrayal are very real.
Errol Flynn is the real revelation here. Bette is just not very good, and she's not at all generous to Errol. It's said she hated him in real life; maybe so; in any case, she gives no real sign of being a woman in love. When they kiss, you can practically see her thinking, "Cooties!" But Errol is wonderful. He is just pitch perfect. He is Anderson's Essex -- a dashing, romantic, boy-man, with a distorted sense of honor and power that ushers him out of the world rapidly and dramatically. His final gesture, kissing the ring Elizabeth had given him, and begged him to give her in a gesture of his needing her, in short, a gesture of his submission to her, is pure lunacy, and pure gold.
Wow, Errol, wow. You certainly were all that. I can't think of anyone today quite like you, or anything like this movie.
A final note: the opening title sequence is loads of fun, with the calligraphy done in illuminated manuscript style, and everything very bright and as if right out of a child's storybook -- and I mean that in the best sense.