Word: elizabeth
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...children figured largely in her scheme to gain more power. One daughter (Marie) she married to Yugoslavia; another (Elizabeth) to Greece. She hoped that a third (Ileana) would marry Bulgaria, but King Boris did not press his suit when it was gossiped about that Ileana was Prince Stirbey's, and not King Ferdinand's, daughter. Through her daughters Queen Marie hoped to exert powerful influence throughout the Balkans; through her eldest son she planned on ruling Rumania...
...Private Lives of Elizabeth andEssex (Warner Bros.) demonstrates the wear & tear on royal nerves when an aging, amorous Queen falls in love with a vain, personable young nobleman whose head she must cut off if she wants to keep her throne. It also demonstrates that Cinemactor Errol Flynn is prettier than Cinemactress Bette Davis, but not such a good actor...
When the Earl of Essex returns from sinking the Spanish fleet, spitfiery, red-wigged Elizabeth rewards him with a majestic slap in front of the delighted court. It seems he should have brought back the Spanish bullion ships intact. In Ireland, where he gets himself sent, Essex is defeated when court enemies intercept his pleas for aid. He returns to start a little rebellion of his own. Though Elizabeth loves Essex, she loves her throne more, prudently chops off his head...
...make this ambitious tragedy, producers took Maxwell Anderson's Broadway success, Elizabeth the Queen, had scripters tack on a new beginning. Knowing she acts nothing so well as a neurotic tantrum, they cast Bette Davis as the Queen, pulchritudinous Errol Flynn as Essex. Director Michael Curtiz was retained to pile on the pageantry. The result is a sumptuously Technicolored spectacle with some lyrically lovely scenes (hawk-flying), some eerie ones (Irish bogs...
...main defect of The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex is that it is not tragic. Until the very end, Elizabeth's insistence that Essex can save his head merely by sending back her ring makes the drama seem as unreal as a schoolgirl's tiff, the decapitation just a bit of a royal whimsey. Partly this is due to Author Anderson's original conception, partly to the neurotic bounce with which Cinemactress Davis scratches, claws, snarls and romps her way through the repetitious love scenes, mopes and moons through her my-manic depressions...