The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933)

The Private Life of Henry VIII
My whole family enjoy this type of movie and we all remember seeing it as children. Charles Laughton makes a wonderful King Henry VIII. The story is very entertaining. Those that believe the film is not a true story just don't understand it. I loved it.

Charles Laughton Still Wonderful As Henry VIII
There was no actor quite like Charles Laughton and playing the title role of Henry VIII in this historical film truly made him an international star. Although the film may seem stagy and slow- going by today's standards, it still holds up fairly well. Certainly Laughton's academy award winning performance is still a joy to see. The story tells the story of British King Henry VIII and his six wives; well, actually five wives since the film begins with Ann Bolynn (Merle Oberon) his second, and even then we don't see much of her because she is about to lose her head because of adultery. We learn from the title cards which follow the opening credits that Henry's first wife wasn't at all that interesting and we need not concern ourselves with her, so it skips over her. It becomes clear later that another reason for poor Ann's demise was the fact that she failed to give the King a son, which he desperately wanted as an heir to the throne. Although it takes awhile, the King finally does get a son but we know from history that he will die young and his daughter by Ann will grow up to be Elizabeth I, but all of this is outside of the film's framework. Still, what story we do get is mostly entertaining and those that complain that the film is not historically true seem to be missing the point. It's really more of a comedy than anything else and therefore, doesn't concern itself too much with historical truth. Just witness the wonderful scene, for example, where Henry is attempting to explain to his new German wife (played by Laughton's real wife Elsa Lanchester) where babies come from!

The film is being released on DVD by a company called Allied Artists and although they claim the movie has been remastered, it certainly doesn't look it. The image is soft and there's not much black & white clarity. Fortunately, the print itself seems to be in decent shape overall, although not without a fair amount of scratches and the soundtrack could use some cleaning up too. Another annoying problem is that for a good portion of the film, we get lines of green and pink which keep fading in and out, and although these color lines are faint, it still quite annoying and probably could have been easily corrected had the film been transferred to disc more properly. The only extra is a short collection of stills from the film but these look a lot sharper and clearer than the film itself. The retail price for this disc is almost $20.00, which seems a bit high considering that picture quality for the film could have been a lot better.

The Private Life of Henry VIII
Henry VIII's unusual life has been covered in many films, but this lavish early depiction has its own magic, primarily owing to Laughton's dynamic, Oscar-winning portrayal, in a role he was born to play. Laughton is ably supported by a dashing Robert Donat as Henry's cuckolding subject, and the dark and stunning Merle Oberon as the endearingly dim-witted Boleyn.