The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Wednesday 30 June 2004

British Kings and Queens on Film - A Royal Filmography

Part III: Modern British Monarchs

Click here for part I or here for part II

GEORGE I - Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948) depicts the tragic events surrounding an actual historical episode: the affair of his wife, Sophia Dorothea, with the dashing Count von Konigsmarck. The vengeful George is played, as the Elector of Hanover before accession to the British throne, by Peter Bull.

GEORGE II - Played by Martin Miller, in Bonnie Prince Charlie.

CHARLES STUART (The Young Pretender) - Technically not a British monarch, of course, but his adventures in pursuit of the crown he never wore are romantic mythmaking. Bonnie Prince Charlie chronicles the exploits of the man who would be King and almost was, had he gone south to London after defeating Johnny Cope at Prestonpans, Scotland. Still, the film is less exciting than it should have been, given the wealth of scenic Scottish locations where the swashbuckling royal historical events took place. For example, the Battle of Culloden in 1745, where it was decided once and for all which royal dynasty would have the British throne, is not reenacted, incredibly. Personified here by the debonair and smooth David Niven, the historical Charlie was anything but smooth, and through military inexperience, personal extravagance and reliance on incompetent advisers, may have been his own worst enemy. He can also be seen in Chasing the Deer (1994), played by Dominique Carrara.

GEORGE III - The Madness of King George (1994). The late Nigel Hawthorne plays the King Who Lost America very whimsically and wonderfully, in the film version of the hit stage play. It's a marvelous characterization, and he was Oscar� nominated for Best Actor, for he brings this much-misunderstood sovereign to joyous life. Must-viewing for royalty watchers, as it was filmed on location at several palaces and is historically accurate for costumes of the 18th century, wigs and accoutrements, military insignia, Parliamentary procedure, medical practices, the legal niceties involved in creating a royal Regency, and skillful dramatizing of actual events in the King's life (including an attempted assassination that left him unfazed, and the harrowing "cure" he was subjected to at the onset of his madness). Bonus: Rupert Everett plays a very disdainful Prince of Wales (later George IV), and a spot-on historical portrayal it is, too. Prinny, as he was called, hated his father and ever schemed to become King.
Another Mad King: Roger Booth (blink and you will miss him!) in the sumptuous Barry Lyndon (1975).

GEORGE IV - The rotund Nigel Bruce looks like the historically self-indulgent, foppish Prinny in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934). But his obvious decency in the movie doesn't begin to convey the depths of the extravagance, folly, drunkenness and debauchery the real heir to the throne was ridiculed for in his own time. In this movie, set in 1789 during the French Revolution, he is still the Prince of Wales.

WILLIAM IV - The late Peter Ustinov is the only one of him on film, in the TV miniseries Victoria and Albert (2001). And he looks the part, too.

VICTORIA - In The Mudlark (1950), Irene Dunne plays her as a very regal lady, with the hauteur and grace no doubt personified in the real Queen. Sheila Reid is the long-suffering mother of Ms. Langtry's amorous royal pursuer in the TV miniseries, Lillie (1978). Annette Crosbie is the Queen in another miniseries, Edward the King (1975). Perhaps the most thoroughgoing cinematic depiction of her long life is in Victoria and Albert, in which Victoria Hamilton as the young Queen in love with her bridegroom, and Joyce Redman as the older Widow of Windsor, show all the years and facets of her reign, reportedly including her sexual appetite (historically hinted at in her personal journals).
Her Majesty Mrs. Brown (1997), also known simply as Mrs. Brown, superbly and tastefully illuminates, with a deal of historical accuracy, a widely-misinterpreted fact about her: her devotion to John Brown (Billy Connolly), one of her Scottish ghillies. Victoria's fondness for this man was deeply resented, and as the movie shows, Brown suffered because of his more-than-equal affection for his royal employer: once he was attacked and beaten unconscious. But despite many efforts to attach scandal to the two, historians believe nothing untoward ever happened between them. Certainly the widowed Queen (played sensitively here by Dame Judi Dench), who still obsessively venerated her late husband Prince Albert, would never have so betrayed her royal rank as to marry Brown, even secretly; the "Mrs. Brown" of the movie's title was the public's mocking epithet for her. Yet after the Queen's death in 1901 her eldest son, the new King, burned the parts of her journals pertaining to Brown and had statues of him knocked down. So, who knows what Queen and loyal servant really felt for each other? Who will ever know?

EDWARD VII - During his long tenure as the Prince of Wales, Bertie, as he was called, is played by Victor Langley in Murder By Decree (1979); by Reginald Marsh in Young Winston (1972); very briefly by Edward Hardwicke in the TV miniseries The Pallisers (1974); and by David Westhead in Mrs. Brown. But the most interesting depiction is probably in Lillie, with Denis Lill portraying him exquisitely as a sensual, undeniably attractive, casual procurer of other men's wives (and a rather sleeker and more athletic man than the Prince historically was). In this fine-tuned performance there are hints of a sexual predator, a commanding and dangerous one. It is too bad this actor did not play him more often! Lill makes one of royal history's more libidinous men more interesting than he seems to the modern feminine eye. After all, enormously fat and bearded cigar-smokers, no matter how rich or blue-blooded, aren't exactly sought after as lovers nowadays.
But in the tobacco-friendly television networks of the 1970s, Edward the Caresser seemed to have a permanent niche once he became King Edward VII. He's all over the tube in British miniseries of that decade. In Upstairs Downstairs (1971-1975), in just one episode as I recall, he's played by Lockwood West. Thorley Walters is the portly, pleasure-loving monarch in Lloyd George (1973). There's also Edward the King, with Timothy West.

GEORGE V - The man who was an eerie look-alike of his Russian cousin, Tsar Nicholas II, is portrayed by actors also greatly resembling him in many TV presentations. Keith Varnier plays him in Lillie; Marius Goring in the TV miniseries Edward and Mrs. Simpson (1980). But perhaps the best of the lot is David Troughton in the poignant TV drama, All the King's Men (1999). He's a fatherly, compassionate figure here, much concerned for the well-being of the tenants on his Sandringham estate. But the men all want to go off to the Great War, and they do so over the royal objections. From Gallipoli none come back.

EDWARD VIII - This controversial royal figure appears in "Players," an episode of the BBC-TV series, Doctor Who. I cannot determine if it was ever filmed, or just remains a novelization, but it ought to see the studio lights, indeed. The story is a compelling historical What If? In it Edward VIII refuses to abdicate and plans secretly to make Wallis Simpson Queen, the British government teeters over the issue, and Sir Oswald Mosley's British Fascists are poised for civil war on the embattled King's behalf, with Joachim von Ribbentrop waiting in the wings to install a puppet Axis government. Scary stuff, proving the fascination this slight, boyish man and his American love still hold over the public, nearly seventy years after the abdication crisis.
Historically speaking, with classified records of the time now open, the critical issue preventing Mrs. Simpson's marriage to a reigning King of England now seems to have been her close ties to the Nazis, rather than her American birth or her status as a twice-divorced woman. But without the benefit of that newly-released information (as indeed Edward's working-class subjects did not have it either, back in 1936, when they supported him in huge numbers), Edward and Mrs. Simpson, made 20 years ago, concentrates on their scandalous love affair, which so titillated the cocktail party set of the era, and so appalled the other royal Windsors.
Almost all the actors and actresses in this splendid show are ringers for the historical persons they portray. The performances are seamless, the sets and clothing and vintage cars authentic-looking for the period, and the spirit of the age, the carefree and careless attitude of the English upper classes, is captured perfectly. I don't mind echoing George MacDonald Fraser here, in that I learned more about what the atmosphere of the abdication was like, for those living in 1936 Britain, from this TV show than from reading any number of books about it (including Edward's own autobiography, A King's Story), or talking to people who remember it.
Of course, Americans and Europeans have the dubious advantage of extensive contemporary media coverage of the royal romance, even as any mention of it was banned in Britain. Yet printed accounts and wire photos and newsreels don't breathe life into persons long dead, nor reveal how they walked and talked and what they said in private. This show attempts that, and splendidly succeeds in it too. Edward Fox simply becomes Edward VIII. Cynthia Harris, an American, I presume, is a virtual look-alike of Mrs. Simpson, and softens her Baltimore (eastern U.S.) accent (probably very nasal, harsh and grating to well-bred Britons) to a more Mid-Atlantic Southern drawl, even as the real Wallis, historically a woman ever alert for the main chance, must have done. So, a very enjoyable, historically accurate and dramatically interesting reenactment of a very troubling time in recent royal history. It doesn't get any better.

GEORGE VI and ELIZABETH the Queen Mother - They too are seen in Edward and Mrs. Simpson, portrayed realistically and eerily spot on by Andrew Ray and Amanda Reiss, even down to the former's paralyzing stutter and the latter's bright, keen eyes. Again, it is a pity this theatrically well-matched pair did not go on to do a full-scale royal film biography of the most recent King of England and Queen Consort. Olivia de Havilland portrays a much-older Queen Mum in the television miniseries, The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982). Gladys Crosbie plays her in Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After (1992), an American TV movie.

ELIZABETH II - So far, Britain's current and long-reigning Queen has been seen on film mainly as herself. But there are at least two exceptions: Dana Wynter portraying her in the aforementioned Royal Romance, and Amanda Walker in the Unhappily Ever After series.

Non-Reigning Members of the Present Royal Family:

Princess MARGARET - The Queen's late younger sister is whimsically portrayed, albeit briefly, in Gods and Monsters (1998). In this enchanting film, set in Hollywood in the late 1940s, Cornelia Hayes O'Herlihy (dressed to the hilt of fashion accuracy, Margaret-style) does an astonishing bit as a spoiled and giddy royal teenager, gushing flippantly at some celebrity garden party guests. It's worth the price of admission, as they say. Very funny, highly idiosyncratic, almost a parody, but historically true to form, and very touching, in light of her subsequent not-so-carefree life.

Prince CHARLES and Princess DIANA - Christopher Baines and Catherine Oxenberg in the Royal Romance miniseries. Ms. Oxenberg again in Unhappily Ever After, with Roger Rees as Charles. There are several other TV movies dealing solely with Diana. One is The Biographer (2002), utilizing archival footage of her to recreate Andrew Morton's collaboration with her on his blockbuster book. All of these portrayals are close enough physically, I guess. Rather see the real deals, alive and well and happy. Both of them.

And now let the royal credits roll, and let us applaud all those who have graced the boards as Kings and Queens of Britain. As they say in Tinseltown: Thaaaaat's All, Folks! Happy royal viewing! See you at the royal premiere!
 

- Mel Whitney