Word: mercia
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...real Lady Godiva (Saxon name: Godgifu) made her traditional ride in the middle of the eleventh century in the English town of Coventry. Her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, Lord of Coventry, agreed to remit his oppressive taxation on the town if Lady Godiva would ride the streets naked. Ordering all persons within doors behind closed shutters, the Lady mounted a white charger and ambled through, the crooked streets, clothed only in her long hair. But through one shutter peeked an itchy little tailor. Lady Godiva spotted him but before she could reprove him, a greater punishment was meted...
...exciting pagan dancing, and several guileless babes to add the pathetic note, go into the production of a piece that rivals "Ben Hur" in intensity of action and elaborateness. Fredric March, as Marcus Superbus, prefect of Rome, who goes to death in the arena because of his love for Mercia (Elissa Landi), one of the persecuted Christians, and Claudette Colbert, who plays Nero's wife, Poppaea, do very well, but Charles Laughton, as the fat, indolent Nero, gives the picture its life blood. See him reclining after a heavy night of delicious debauchery while he puffs for breath as slaves...
...Cross, included in the repertory of every stock company in England since it was first played in 1895, is obvious devotional melodrama. Nero (Charles Laughton) orders his lieutenant, Marcus Superbus (Fredric March), to clear Rome of Christians. While doing so, Marcus falls in love with a Christian girl named Mercia (Elissa Landi). This makes the vicious Empress Poppaea (Claudette Colbert) jealous. Marcus Superbus tries to persuade Mercia to become a pagan. He fails. Nero wants to forgive her for being a Christian but Poppaea, to save Marcus from what she considers a misalliance, refuses to allow it. Mercia goes...