Jackson Booth-Millard I had seen Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and On Golden Pond, I am keen to see all four of the films that the leading actress of these has won her Oscars for, this was the third I watched with her starring, and it sounded like an interesting film. Basically it is Christmas in the year 1183, an ageing and conniving King Henry II (Golden Globe winning, and Oscar nominated Peter O'Toole) is planning a family reunion to announce his successor to the throne. Henry arranges for the release of his wife, Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine (Oscar and BAFTA winning, and Golden Globe nominated Katharine Hepburn), who has been imprisoned, for supporting the revolt of one of his sons. Henry has three sons; Richard (BAFTA nominated Sir Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle) and John (Nigel Terry), they all desire to take the throne. Henry has also summoned his mistress, Princess Alais (Golden Globe nominated Jane Merrow), and her young but crafty brother, King Philip II of France (Timothy Dalton), who also desires the throne. Henry wishes for his boy Prince John to take over, but Eleanor believes their son Prince Richard should be king, each of the family and schemers gather for the holiday. The fate of Henry's empire and the future for England is at stake, apart from Alais, everybody engages with him, in their own ways of deception and treachery, to stake their claim. Each of the sons have some flaw that makes the decision for Henry difficult, and he and Eleanor have spent years fighting, but in the end Henry agrees with Eleanor that none of his three sons are suited, he condemns them to death, but unable to kill them allows them to escape, while Henry laughs off Eleanor returning to prison, both go back to hoping for the future. Also starring Nigel Stock as William Marshal, Kenneth Ives as Queen Eleanor's Guard and O.Z. Whitehead as Bishop of Durham. O'Toole was previously Oscar nominated for playing King Henry II in the film Becket, he again gives a fantastic performance, but it is indeed Hepburn that excels as the queen who will not back down until she gets what she wants, the best scenes are the two of them verbally attacking each other, there are also fantastic performances from young Hopkins and Dalton. I could tell this was an adaptation of a play, because it is all about the dialogue, with a perfectly punchy script, and mostly set in the castle, it is essentially all about the characters squabbling for a dynasty during medieval times, a most worthwhile historical drama. It won the Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium and Best Original Score for John Barry, and it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director for Anthony Harvey and Best Costume Design, it won the BAFTA for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, and it was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Screenplay, Best Sound Track and the UN Award for Anthony Harvey, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama, and it was nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. Good!

Hitchcoc This was the most talked about film of 1968. It is the story of an aging Henry II and his efforts to divide his kingdom at the time of his death. He has his queen, Eleanor of Acquitain, locked up in a castle and has released her to help him sort things out. He has three sons, one a petulant little man, full of fire and anxiety; the second, a man with a persecution complex who feels he is the odd man out; and the third, Richard the Lion Hearted, a warrior (who is exposed as a homosexual). This is a movie where the dialogue is fast and furious. Henry has a mistress and she becomes a pawn in this game. He tries to hand the kingdom over to a couple sons, but the conditions they place on his choice cause him to change his mind. Enter the French ruler who is furious that Henry is exerting power that he has no right to, in his opinion. The byplay between the Queen and Henry is marvelous; there is no one who can spar verbally better than Hepburn. There is a kind of dance that goes on. This is the very soul of dysfunction. I had never seen this in its day. It is a marvelous portrayal of the failings of a family. And an actual love story, as strange as that sounds.

lasttimeisaw This famous screen adaptation of James Goldman's play is mostly remembered for Katharine Hepburn's historic third win of Oscar's BEST LEADING ACTRESS in 1969 (yet she would further cement her unrivalled record with her fourth win for ON GOLDEN POND, 1981, 8/10), most interestingly, it is the one and only case where it is a tie for leading actress, she shares the honour with Barbara Streisand in FUNNY GIRL (1968). Directed by Anthony Harvey with Goldman as the screenwriter, headlined by O'Toole and Hepburn, well, contrary to my expectation, it comes out as a rather enervating and mind-numbing non- starter. So it all happens during Christmas 1183, King Henry II of England (O'Toole), convenes Queen Eleanor (Hepburn), whom he has imprisoned for months in a castle, and their three sons, Richard (Hopkins), Geoffrey (Castle) and John (Terry) to Chinon, Anjou for a family reunion and to discuss the issue of heir-ship, with King Philip II of France (Dalton) as their guest, and also presented is Alais (Merrow), Henry's mistress and Philip's sister, who is betrothed to Richard. That being so, it forges a cobweb of stakes around them while all the three princes contend to be crowned the future king, Richard is championed by Eleanor and John is Henry's favourite, while Geoffrey has his own calculations.Yet all the relations cannot be simply divided by love or hate, being a sterling dramaturge, Goldman maps out an intricate love-and-hate struggle between almost any two random characters, at first, it is relishing to enjoy these top players mount their mélange of feelings through their eloquent oration and wordplay, but being a different art form from a dialogue- driven play confined in a simple locale, the film version tries to duplicate the same pathos using the same method, soon the narrative steers towards excesses, there is no time for audience to ruminate the bombard of colloquies, in the next scene, the same power struggle/psychological game repeats itself between other characters, at the end of day, after all the labouring bickering, the status quo remains unseated, from choosing the right heir, to threatening of dethroning Eleanor from the title, to the extreme of murdering all his sons for the sake of marrying Alais and they can start life anew, the script is overwhelmingly rich for its 134 minutes running time, nonetheless the final upshot proves all above is merely lip service, no exciting changeover presented, all we know is for medieval people, their mouth never match their heart, it is a rather exhausting anticlimax and doesn't sharpen the process of character building. Hardly one can blame it on the cast, all is busting their asses to construct the atmosphere of dramatic intensity, even for Hopkins, Dalton and Terry (who just passed away earlier this year at a quite young age of 69), in their screen debut. Hopkins possesses a wide-eyed earnestness which is very rare in his staple phenotypes. Dalton is fiercely wet behind the ears in front of Hepburn and O'Toole, alas their undercurrent of homosexuality only superficially touched on. Terry is deliberately grotesque, Castle preserves a distinctive but untapped inscrutability and the Golden Globe nominated Merrow cannot remotely match two top-billers' expertise. Hepburn's magnificent spirit is perpetually something to shout about, so is O'Toole's frenzied outbursts, for whom we all have a soft spot considering his ill-fated Oscar journey (8 nominations with zero win), alas, neither her nor him can hold the top spot in my book for this lines-laden period elaboration. Reckoning its higher rating elsewhere and an extolled reputation, this is another specimen where a dissonance existing between one's personal view and the accepted general opinion, being a non-radical and rational film reviewer, not so often this occurs to me, so although being slightly disappointed, personally I feel delightful to retain one's own differences once in a while.

grantss Interesting but slow, overwrought and overshouted. This movie covers a reasonably interesting period of history: the reign of Henry II of England and the potential succession of one of his sons. However, what should be a relatively simple exercise is turned into an overly complex exercise in Machiavellian manipulation, lies and deceit. Nothing is simple, and just when you think an issue is resolved, it unravels.Initially all this politics is intriguing, but it wears thin fairly quickly. It soon resembles intrigue and politics for the sake of it, and serves only to pad the movie.The ending is also quite lacklustre and anticlimactic after all the twists that went before.Powerful performance by Peter O'Toole in the lead role. Too powerful, in that almost all his dialogue is shouted. It gets quite irritating, quite quickly. In fact his whole performance seemed a touch too over-the-top.Solid effort by Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine. The performance got her a Best Actress Oscar. Interesting also to see Anthony Hopkins in an early-career role: this was his second big-screen movie.Even more fresh-faced was Timothy Dalton as King Philip II of France. This was Dalton's big screen debut.