Becket ***** (1964, Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole, John Gielgud, Donald Wolfit, Felix Aylmer, Pamela Brown, Martita Hunt, Siân Phillips) – Classic Movie Review 2367

Director Peter Glenville’s 1964 historical battle royal drama is a right regal entertainment and showcases half a dozen or so grand performances from awesome British actors. It won one Oscar.

Edward Anhalt won the Academy Award for his incisive, insightful and bitingly witty Best Adapted Screenplay taken from the 12th-century English historical story that Jean Anouilh turned into a highly respected stage drama, imbued with dark comedy touches. Despite the stage origins and all the lofty talk, it is a real film not a photographed stage drama.

The play and the film are blissfully unconcerned with factual accuracy, so this isn’t a history lesson. It was originally produced on Broadway in 1960 with Laurence Olivier as Becket and Anthony Quinn as King Henry. Olivier later played Henry and Arthur Kennedy Becket. It ran for 193 performances and won the 1961 Tony Award for Best Play.

The movie takes the form of a long conversation between two clashing old friends, Peter O’Toole’s weak Norman King Henry II and Richard Burton’s strong Saxon Thomas à Becket, the Chancellor, then later Archbishop of Canterbury. These great players in their vibrant prime are just stupendous and don’t let us down for a single moment. Both were Oscar nominated. Neither won. They never won. Burton scored seven Oscar nominations and O’Toole one more, at eight. O’Toole played Henry II again in The Lion in Winter (1968), scoring Oscar nominations for both films.

Also hugely impressive and entertaining are John Gielgud as King Louis VII, Donald Wolfit as Bishop Folliot, Felix Aylmer as the old Archbishop of Canterbury, Pamela Brown as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, Martita Hunt as the Empress Matilda and Siân Phillips (O’Toole’s wife) as Gwendolen. So that’s eight grand performances then.

This is stupendous historical drama with both a brain and heart as well as a sly sense of humour – and of course it helps that the movie does look brilliant thanks to the Paramount studio’s lavish budget, John Bryan’s glorious set designs, Margaret Furse’s costumes and Geoffrey Unsworth’s cinematography in Panavision and Technicolor.

The Canterbury Cathedral set was in its day the biggest ever built.

As with Burton’s 1969 Anne of the Thousand Days, there were a lot of Oscar nominations – 12 in this case – but only one Oscar win. O’Toole (Best Actor), Burton (Best Actor) and Gielgud (Best Supporting Actor) were all nominated, as was the film’s producer for Best Picture (Hal B Wallis), director, cinematography, art direction/set decoration (John Bryan, Maurice Carter, Patrick McLoughlin, Robert Cartwright), costumes, sound (John Cox), film editing (Anne V Coates ) and score (Laurence Rosenthal). And, certainly, all were deserving. And all unlucky to go home empty handed.

Margaret Furse was only nominated here but won an Oscar for Anne of the Thousand Days.

Also in the stalwart cast are Paola Stoppa (as Pope Alexander III), Gino Cervi (as Cardinal Zambelli), David Weston, Veronique Vendell, Gerald Lawson, Jennifer Hilary, John Phillips, Frank Pettingell, Hamilton Dyce, Linda Marlowe, Patrick Newell, Geoffrey Bayldon, Graham Stark, Victor Spinetti, Niall MacGinnis, Percy Herbert, John Moulder-Brown, Wilfrid Lawson, Paul Layton, Tutte Lemkow, Guy Deghy and Peter Jeffrey.

The film still holds jointly a record for the most Oscar category losses – 10 – an unhappy record shared with The Turning Point, The Color Purple, Gangs of New York and True Grit (2010).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2367

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