Word: boleyn
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...last picture, Anne of the Thousand Days, was virtually stolen by young Genevieve Bujold as Anne Boleyn. This time out, Richard Burton was rehearsing an episode for next season's Here's Lucy TV series, and as he told the story, it was "terrible to work with two big stars" like Lucille Ball and his wife Elizabeth Tayor. "Give me back the unknowns," he groaned. Still it is hard to believe that Burton could be totally upstaged while playing−as he does on Lucy's show−a Shakespeare-spouting plumber...
...King is mad!" almost redeems the whole overblown epic. Yet it is Bujold's very sexuality that makes her question the validity of her role as a chaste but tantalizing nymphet in the early scenes. "I don't believe that a girl like Anne Boleyn and a man like Henry can be all that time without touching each other," she says. "I am sure there was heavy petting going...
Anne of the Thousand Days appears to have been made for one person: the Queen of England. Though it exhibits its royalty rampant on a field of anguish, the film provides a thoroughly upbeaten ending. Cannons resound as Queen Anne Boleyn is beheaded. Henry VIII hears the signal, puts spur to horse and gallops off "to Mistress Seymour's house!" All the while, the future Virgin Queen placidly wanders the palace gardens, toddling toward history. The monarchical fevers are burning out; and England, booms the sound track, is ready for the high triumphs of Elizabeth Regina...
Throughout the film, audiences may be reminded of a late-show favorite, The Private Life of Henry VIII, starring Charles Laughton rumbustiously chomping up silversides of beef and dialogue. It was a superior treatment of the same subject in every sense save one. As the current Anne Boleyn, Genevieve Bujold refuses to accept the facile role of the wronged woman. Starting as a beautiful child, she contrives to catch the conscience and the passion of the King. With growing eroticism -and ironclad chastity-she reduces the monarch to pawn size, forces him to divorce Katherine of Spain and take...