The title tells you pretty much everything you need to know about this 1933 historical drama about the King of England whose most memorable story to those outside the British Commonwealth is that he created the Church of England so that he could divorce his wife and marry another. Lesser known, though still widely published, were his subsequent marriages and how those all ended, until his final marriage to Catherine Parr who survived him by just over a year. Mostly, films about Henry VIII focus on his first wife and Anne Boleyn.
We have seen many movies about that very subject: Anne of the Thousand Days, A Man for All Seasons, and The Other Boleyn Girl among the list. Other films like Henry VIII and His Six Wivescovered the other marriages in more detail, but that all began much earlier in the 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII.
Right up front, the movie tells you it is skipping over his first wife. Catherine of Aragon is dismissed in the opening titles for being a “respectable woman”. This feels more like a thematic exclusion to keep us identifying with Henry VIII (Charles Laughton). Instead, the film opens with Anne Boleyn being executed for failing to provide a male heir for the king. There is no mention in the film that she was convicted falsely of incest with her brother, who was also executed. Had the film addressed this, we would have early on turned against Henry VIII.
Shortly after the execution, Henry marries his third wife, Jane Seymour (Wendy Barrie), but though she does bear him a son, she dies in childbirth. He then weds a German princess, Anne of Cleves (Elsa Lanchester), who deliberately makes herself unattractive to him and uses her wits and card skills to secure an annulment so that she is free to marry the one she does love. Next, he marries Katherine Howard (Binnie Barnes), but her infidelity leads to her and her lover’s execution. Finally, in his old age, he marries Catherine Parr (Everley Gregg), a domineering woman who uses her influence on him to try and keep him away from too many indulgences that are shortening his life. It is she that will be married to him when he finally succumbs to the grave.
Because of the nature of this story, this film is very episodic. Each wife, except the first two, gets her own chapter dedicated to her and we see their relationships and what led to their parting. Only Jane Seymour received a queen’s funeral and Henry VIII would ultimately be buried next to her. History makes us believe that she was the love of his life but none of that is really conveyed in this film. Instead, we get a brief scene where he goes to see his newborn son, is informed of Jane’s death, and is instantly focusing on the baby again like she doesn’t matter now that the boy has been birthed. It does their relationship a disservice.
Anne of Cleves is another story altogether, and where this film turns into a bit of a farce. Elsa Lanchester is playing up her part like a giddy schoolgirl, inflecting a silly voice and mannerisms. It’s revealed that she is doing this on purpose to avoid consummating her marriage to Henry VIII, but little is said about the reasons why they were married in the first place. Anne was part of an attempt to form a political alliance between Henry and her brother, William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. But Henry was reticent about this marriage and was vocal about his misgivings. One of the more livelier scenes sees the two sitting on the bed, playing cards with both of them cheating and her easily besting him, demanding payment for her wins in cash. They hammer out an annulment during this scene, though much of this is fabricated for the film.
The marriage to Katharine gets more screentime, though this, too, is only briefly focused on. We see her making advances on the King and eventually winning his affections. We also see her falling for Henry’s courtier Thomas Culpeper (Robert Donat), an affair that is eventually found out by the King’s court and leads to the two’s executions. Binnie Barnes does a good job of selling the two romances but, like the other wives, gets too little time to really develop a character. Catherine gets even less screentime, though. By the time we are introduced to her, the film has about three minutes left. Her relationship with Henry VIII is distilled down to a single line, uttered by Henry in a fourth wall-breaking moment. “Six wives,” he says, talking directly to the camera, “and the best of them’s the worst.”
Charles Laughton is one of the silver screen’s gems during this era in film history. It is always a joy watching him act, and this is no exception. He created the modern, though false, interpretation of Henry VIII as being a glutinous slob. While it is true that Henry VIII suffered from obesity, diabetes, and gout, this came later in life after the death of Jane Seymour when he was in mourning. The common characterization of him as morbidly obese and eating whole turkeys is attributed to this film, though he never does eat a whole turkey here. Still, Laughton is filling this character with so much energy and character that it is easy to overlook that there is so little substance to it. The film is too busy trying to tell a lot of story within an anemic runtime.
This film needed to be more focused. We didn’t need a rundown of nearly every one of his wives; it’s just too bulky of a story for the ninety-minute film. It gives us no time to get to know any of the wives, and therefore none of them are real characters. Still, both Elsa Lanchester and Binnie Donat are able to make their characters memorable despite that, but they are still barely more than caricatures in the end because they are in and out of the story in a matter of minutes. Ultimately, though, this is a film of all style and little substance. The story of Henry VIII is a fascinating one, but you wouldn’t know that watching this film. Instead, it’s a lavish production that is stretched far too thin. It’s worth watching for Charles Laughton and for the silly, over-the-top performance by Elsa, but there is little more worth recommending.
Academy Award Nominations:
Outstanding Production: Alexander Korda
Best Actor: Charles Laughton (won)
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Release Date: August 17, 1933
Running Time: 97 Minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Charles Laughton, Binnie Barnes, and Robert Donat
Directed by: Alexander Korda
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